Hit the music xpress with this lovely little gadget!
Written: Jan 05 '07 (Updated Nov 01 '08)
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Pros: Great features, nice interface, reliable
Cons: Definitely needs a memory card, a few weak points but nothing serious
The Bottom Line: Perfect for me, it may be for you too.
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| captaind's Full Review: Nokia 5300 XPress Music |
For once I’d considered upgrading to a different make than Nokia, but I chickened out and stuck with them because of the user friendliness and reliability. And, to be honest, because I couldn’t be bothered getting used to a different interface / operating system. (So I’m lazy when it comes to phones… they just don’t matter enough for me not to be!)
The Nokia 5300 did look quite a bit different from any other Nokia phone I’ve had though. It’s pretty small and very, very light. Admittedly it’s not the most attractive phone that I’ve ever seen, but it’s not too bad. The keypad slides down from the main body of the phone. The design for getting into it to put the battery and SIMM in is by far the best I’ve come across (in any make of phone) – simple push a small inset button down and the back pops out. No more breaking nails, fingers, and teeth trying to get the damn thing open.
One problem the Nokia phones always seem to have had in the past is a very small memory compared to other makes. I’m not sure what the going amount is these days, but the 5300 comes with 7.5Mb of internal memory (at least that’s what T-Mobile told me when I got the phone, online reviews seem to vary as to how much internal memory there is) and a 234Mb card, which is a massive increase from previous models I’ve owned. (It seems a rather strange amount of memory on both phone and sim, totalling the even stranger total of 241.5Mb.) Considering the 5300 subtitles itself as “Xpress Music” the memory is welcome but might well become limiting to some quite quickly. For those people though a memory card of up to 2Gb can be bought.
The phone comes with a decent set of earphones and a USB connector, and extremely useful accessory. Apart from the manual there is also a CD-ROM which details what you can do with the phone. You will need to download the Nokia PC Suite to transfer files easily through the USB connector, or you can use any existing Bluetooth devices and software you have on your computer. Infrared is also supported by the phone.
The big feature of the 5300 is its capabilities as a music player, and for this reason you can set it to “flight” mode, whereby you don’t receive any calls or texts but you can fully access all the other functions of the phone. The music player software is well designed and intuitive to use, and there are controls on the side of the phone to skip forwards & backwards in the track listing and a play/pause button. You can store up to 1,500 tracks with a 2Gb memory card, so logically the phone can store a little under a hundred with the 234Mb card that comes with the phone. (Depending on the length and quality of the files there could be more or less than this. The phone supports AAC, AAC+, MP3 music files and also can play videos.) The actual sound quality is very good though very slightly on the tinny side. The radio quality is good too and when actually using it to speak to people through (remember when we used to do that?!?) I can’t fault it.
Interface: Lovely responsive keys, though sometimes I wish you could actually lock the sliding keypad up or down. The icons are simple but effective and clear, and navigation is significantly improved over some Nokia models – for instance delivery reports are now kept in a separate folder and not your inbox, while you can delete all reports with a single command rather than one by one. Another aspect of the interface that I liked was that there is a mode where you can accept and end calls by opening / closing the sliding section.
As far as the camera goes, you can also take photos at high, normal, or basic quality in the following resolutions: 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 800 x 600, 640 x 480, or 320 x 240.Video can be taken in 176 x 144 or 128 x 96 resolution, again in high, normal, or basic quality. There are a few other options to play with for the camera, and the quality is good (though the contrast seems a little severe sometimes with the photos, this can be altered in an art package anyway.)
There are some other useful functions that are imported from the sports model like stopwatch timer and countdown timer. The organiser features such as calendar and “To Do List” are also here and as useful as ever.
The battery time isn’t too bad, as usual Nokia don’t keep up with the market leaders in this regard but it won’t let you down. It actually gets better after the first couple of uses (don’t worry, it’s meant to!) It's also fully internet-ready and "Web and Walk" compatible.
I got it as a free upgrade but in the shops it seems to be retailing at up to £199 on the Nokia website (about $380 at current exchange rate), or from about £160 elsewhere (about $300).
As you may have been able to tell from my review, this phone actually managed to overcome my general apathy towards mobiles and engage my enthusiasm somewhat. It’s got a few points that may be a problem for some people, but if you’re one of those people and have read this review then you’ll already know what they are. For a combination of usability, flexibility, and connectivity, this phone is perfect for my needs and thus gets 5 stars. Not perfect for everyone perhaps, but for me and some others. (It doesn't look so touch though so I'll have to be careful with it - I normally go for the bomb-proof models!)
(Please note - The 234Mb card that came with my phone may have been part of a promotion with T-Mobile, so check whether this is the case with the buyer if you are intending to get a 5300. If you rely on internal memory alone, you're not going to get much on it!)
Thanks to Howard_Creech for adding this to the database for me so quickly.
Nokia Mobile Phone Reviews
Nokia 3200
Nokia 5140i
Nokia 5210
Nokia 6610
Other Mobile Phone Reviews
Motorola V300
Sony Ericsson K700i
See also: What You Should Know About Nokia Mobile Phones
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): FREE UPGRADE
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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