As I unpacked the new Nokia 6208 Classic, the first thing that struck me was its steely and sturdy look; after a long time, it felt good to hold a well-built phone.

That was before I was taken aback by the phone’s much-touted feature, its pen input or stylus, the first in the S40 series.

Hooked at the back, the stylus is designed as though it was to be used as a weapon in the new Terminator movie. It is certainly the most unwieldy stylus that I have ever come across and the only cool thing about it is the metallic sound that emanates every time it is flicked open.

A stylus means the phone is supposed to have a touchscreen, but in the 6208 this feature has been limited to data entry as the menu is not touch-sensitive. For instance, if one is sending a text message and has to enter the recipient’s number and the message itself, one can pull out the stylus to touch the data field and the 2.4” QVGA touchscreen changes into a text entry interface.

The phone is fantastic when it comes to this transition, a feature reminiscent of the Palm PDA’s pen text entry.

Adding to this experience is the handwriting recognition software, which is also good. But for serious texters, the keypad entry is certainly much more comfortable and faster. Another additional tool is the NaviKey that provides accelerated scrolling across the screen.

The other features are pretty much standard Nokia. The handset has the Opera Mini browser in-built and also supports POP3 and IMAP4. Like other Nokias, this too has a descent 3.2-megapixel camera with autofocus and flash.

... contd.