Nokia 2600

The 2600 is a standard Nokia candy bar phone that's a salute to minimalism. It is clad in basic black with just an orange ring around the center column of keys to give it some individuality. The lines are straight and clean, but its tapered edges are a nice touch. The 2600 is 4.21 inches long by 1.84 inches wide by 0.79 inch thick and weighs 3.17 ounces.

It is compact and portable, but the plastic skin feels rather flimsy. The display measures 1.5 inches wide and supports 65,000 colors (128x128 pixels). Though that's a low resolution display when compared with most other current cell phones, it's fitting for such a low end phone. Graphics and photos aren't sharp, but colors are relatively bright and the screen isn't washed out.

What's more, the icon based menus are intuitive. You can change the standby mode font color and the font size and activate a power saver mode.

The 2600's navigation array consists of a square silver toggle with a black OK button. Though it is decently sized and raised above the surface of the phone, it's also a bit slippery with a plastic feel.

It didn't present us with any problems, though, and you can set the toggle to act as shortcut to four user defined functions.

Two soft keys and the Talk and End or power buttons complete the array. They have a spacious layout as well but they're flush and equally slippery. Also, we'd like a dedicated back key and a camera shortcut. The keypad buttons are hit and miss. They didn't feel cramped, but they aren't very tactile. Similarly, while we like that the central column of keys is colored in gray, the back lighting could be brighter. We didn't suffer from any misdials, but rapid texting did feel awkward.

Like T-Mobile's recent Nokia 1680, the 2600 doesn't have a dedicated volume rocker, which means you must use the toggle to change the volume level during a call. That's rather inconvenient. On the right spine, you'll find the charger port and a 2.5 mm headset jack. The camera lens and mirror rest on the phone's backside above the single speaker.