Nokia 8600 Luna

Nokia 8600 Luna

If you liked the 8800 Sirocco, you'll love the 8600 Luna. It's a similar look and feel to the classy Sirocco, but more futuristic in style, with a smoked glass sliding cover to protect the keypad. The features have been upgraded, with a stunning 16 million colour screen, a 2 megapixel camera, MP3 player, built-in radio and quadband. The memory is limited to 128 Mbytes (enough for 30 songs) so don't throw away your iPod, but for looks and exclusivity, the 8600 is hard to beat.
Released on 30 May 2007, the Nokia 8600 "Luna" is a stunning black slide-design phone with looks reminiscent of the equally expensive 8800 Sirocco phone. The body is made of stainless steel, with a smoked glass sliding cover to protect the keypad when not in use.

Our first impressions of the 8600 are good. The 8600 manages to look more sophisticated than the Sirocco - it's a more futuristic appearance with less bling. The stainless steel body and the solid 140g of weight make the 8600 a good phone to hold in your palm (if you don't mind carrying a phone this heavy.) The smoked glass cover looks suitably mysterious, but you can access many of the phone's functions using the exposed exterior buttons even with the phone closed. Slide the glass down and you will see a neat keypad, that in our opinion is a nicer keypad to use than the Sirocco's - it's less fiddly, especially for man-sized fingers. The display is far superior to the Sirocco's screen too. It has a high resolution of 240 x 320 pixels and a stunning 16 million colours, and is very easy on the eye.

Inside, the phone is very well featured too, although not at the cutting edge of technology. The camera has 2 megapixels and performs rather averagely when compared with other camera phones in the over-£200 price range. There's a music player and an FM radio too, which is nice. The 8600 is compatible with an (optional) Bluetooth wireless headset. The music player is a handy feature but won't ever replace your iPod as there is insufficient memory. The internal memory of 128 Mbytes is sufficient to hold around 30 songs only and cannot be expanded with a memory card. Connectivity is good: as already mentioned the 8600 supports wireless Bluetooth connectivity, and can also handle USB. Usefully it's a quadband phone, so you can use it anywhere in the world, and battery life is reasonable.

In summary, we feel that this is an excellent alternative to the 8800 Sirocco phone - it costs about the same, and it's going to be just as exclusive. In many ways it's a better phone with an improved LCD screen, a better keypad and the benefit of quadband. On the negative side it lacks a memory card slot and is rather heavy (just like the Sirocco), but the Nokia 8-series phones are about looks and exclusivity first and the 8600 offers both of these. Buy it on contract from Dialaphone or from the Carphone Warehouse.

Features of the Nokia 8600 include:

* 2 megapixel camera
* Video camera
* Display: 16 million colours, 240 x 320 pixels
* Music player
* FM radio
* Polyphonic ringtones / MP3 ringtones
* Speakerphone
* Messaging: SMS, MMS, email
* Java games
* WAP, GPRS, EDGE
* Web browser
* Memory: 128 Mbytes
* Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB
* Vibration alert
* Quadband
* Weight: 140g
* Talktime: 3.5 hours
* Battery standby: 264 hours