madmusicmajor

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Good phone for those on a tight budget...but...

Mar 22, 2009

Rating: 6 out of 10 (Good)
Pros: 3.5mm headset jack, sharp QVGA screen, slim, unconventional design, dedicated music keys
Cons: LoudSpeakers! You start hearing crystals at about 2/3 max volume. back LED,
Opinion:
ok, Nokia has updated their Series 40 with some "upgrades". You get a new "tabbed" menu view option which however would give you "some" lag if you're opening an item inthe menu with has lots of options tucked in, say the messages folder. Actually you have to wait a second or two to Open an option. Clicking back is a breeze..commendable is Nokia's addition of the standard 3.5mm headset jack to their entry-level musicphones.

The phone has a flat black-rubberized back plate which sets it apart from some of their (and others) plasticky phones and gives you a firm grip so as your sweaty palms don't lose grips of the phone. This feels better on the hands than the 5310.

The sound quality (with headset) is pretty decent. Music player has some built-in themes (differs from phone themes) which come in similar color with your phone trims (blue 5220x gets blue themes like all other Xpressmusic phones) which you CANT replace with new ones however..

What sucks bigtime is the loudspeaker (mono), quite contradictory considering that this is an Xpressmusic phone. Maybe Nokia should start making real dedicated musicphones with no cheap cameras so as not to compromise on sound output and price (what u think?)

The keys are decently spaced (nokia 5310 argh!). However, the Nokia 5200 and 5300 slide musicphones are way better as text/SMS phones than this one.

This phone doesnt have the unique capability of the 52/5300 music player to punch random track numbers in the music player aside from shuffling between tracks. That means you have to click through or scroll to whatever song you're looking for (Ex. scroll from track1 to track 50! Aw!) or you shuffle until u get close to the song you're after..It's quite a pain if you keep thousands of tracks in your memory cards. The musicplayer also hangs and restarts often despite software updates (latest was Aug 2008 though) clearing all the phone's default playlists (Most played, Recently added, Recently played). (Updates Nokia!!!)

The dedicated musickeys at the left side are also responsive although you have to press them twice when the screen backlight is off (duh!)

The back plate has a LED just below the camera which at first glance would make you ask if it's the phone's camera flash. No! This LED can be made to flash with the music (alongwith dedicated musickeys) or when there are unread/unsent messages, missed calls, etc. This feature is quite useless specially if you keep the phone face up most of the time.. and did I say this phone has a flat front face?

The phone's front plate is made of plastic which makes it very much prone to scratches so get those screen stickers as soon as you get this phone. The screen cover goes with the front plate so it gets easily scratched up if you dont get a screen sticker soon enough.

The phone camera gives out crisp 2megapixel shots which are ok..but don't expect it to perform well for it's a phone first, musicplayer second.. (i missed out camera right?)

Despite the lack of faster data connections, gimmicky features, bad loudspeaker, and laggy interface this phone makes up for that with a good, solid build, decent sound quality, and a good pair of ear buds! This is good for those who cant wait for their budget and musicphone and features go along soon...