Like the earlier Nokia 8800, the new 8600 is a real glamour phone. Its looks are what set it apart and are what will decide you whether to buy it or not.

Like the 8800 it’s a slider, this time hiding the keys behind a shielding layer of smoked glass. But instead of sliding the glass screen down, you press your thumb upwards on a raised ridge at the bottom of the screen. The precisely weighted base stays put and the keypad slides into view.

Nokia has had some experience with sliders and this one is perfectly judged with a pleasingly smooth, spring-assisted movement that snaps it open, and shut, with a satisfying click. Once you’ve closed it again, the sophisticated screen saver, like laser-thin arcs of gold criss-cross the screen – helped to look impressive by the fact that the screen is capable of 16 million colours.

Meanwhile, the keypad backlight gently pulsates, visible through the smoked glass casing.
The back of the phone is entirely clad in stainless steel, modestly painted matt black. Since stainless steel warms to the touch, it makes holding it a somehow personal experience.

You get the point, it looks great. Still, important as that is in this case, looks aren’t everything – however snazzy a phone still needs to be a competent and accessible device when it comes to the essentials: making calls, writing texts, setting the alarm and so on. Some head-turning phones become less appealing when the operating system is cranky (think Motorola’s RAZR) or if the interface is sluggish (like texting on the Prada phone by LG).

Here, thankfully, the famously intuitive Nokia interface is on hand, familiar to Nokia users, quickly mastered by newcomers. And where the previous top-of-the-range Nokia 8800 had a difficult navigation button making it fiddly to steer the cursor, the menu select button and surrounding direction ring are perfectly placed and sized.

On the home screen there are two softkeys – Contacts and Go To which handily delivers alarm clock, music player, radio, calculator and that other favourite, er, stopwatch. The main menu screen is as dark and moody as the hardware and each icon lights up as you click on it.

There are some disappointments. The music player is advanced: it has a seven-band equaliser. But it’s strapped by the fact that there’s only 128MB of on-board memory and no slot for a memory card. So although stereo Bluetooth means you can listen to music through wireless Bluetooth headphones, you won’t be listening for very long.

Similarly, although the two-megapixel camera is functional, the lack of a flash means you won’t be able to take shots in the darkened ambience of a fashionable wine bar, the natural environs of a phone like this.

Still, for all that, the 8600 is a highly desirable phone with looks to kill.

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