NOKIA 5300 XPRESS MUSIC: Compact, cute and really cool
November 11, 2006 | 12:00am
The Nokia 5300 caught my attention when I first saw it at the Nokia store. I liked the red-and-white combination. Ahhh, another colored cellphone – the one ingredient that lights up any Nokia phone, for this cellphone fanatic. By the way, there’s a black-and-white version for the more traditional.
At first glance you might think there’s nothing cutting edge about the Nokia 5300 design. It’s a bit squarish and could appear a little bulky, but it’s lighter than it looks.
The Nokia 5300’s ergonomics give it a camera-like feel when you hold the phone horizontally with the shutter control facing up. The camera lens sits on the back of the phone, with a self-portrait mirror. The infrared port sits on the right spine, while the power control and ports for the mini-USB cable and the charger rest on the phone’s top end. The headset jack is on the top-left corner.
The 5300 Xpress Music phone is a slider. The slider mechanism slides up and down with one hand, and it feels sturdy and comfortable in the hand. Although like most sliders a little precaution is necessary when the phone is opened because the phone can become top-heavy. Durability is a key theme with this phone; its mid-section is wrapped in a rubberized covering that extends down to the navigation controls.
Music is the priority for the 5300 Xpress Music phone. It begins with dedicated music and volume keys, which are located at the left side of the phone. The phone also has a playful look, more rugged than compact. The red band that encircles the phone has a rubbery finish, and the buttons (especially those dedicated to music) have a tight, rubbery feel. It comes with a 1.3-megapixel camera that remains visible when the slide is closed. The slide is spring loaded, and I enjoyed the rubberized border around the screen as it moved the slide to open. Lining the left side of the display are dedicated music controls, which give access to the music player. You can play, pause, fast-forward, and rewind your tracks. Fortunately these buttons are also covered in the rubber skin, so they’re very easy to find when you’re not looking at the phone. On the right side of the bottom half of the slider is the volume rocker and a dedicated camera shutter and raised ridges that make the volume button easily accessible when holding the phone to your ear. Music quality is great and is a step above most music phones. The stereo speakers put out sharp, clear sound with much more volume. Music also sounded great over the included wired headphones.
The Nokia 5300 has everything to look for in such a phone – there’s stereo Bluetooth and a large selection of features, it’s easy to transfer files to the phone, it’s user-friendly with a simple interface and well-designed controls, it has few restrictions, it offers plenty of memory, and last but certainly not the least, it offers exceptional sound quality over stereo speakers. The player supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, and WMA files.
The phone comes with a 256 MB microSD slot, although there are cards of up to 2GB available.
The cellphone is great when making and receiving calls. The voice quality is good. Signal strength is always strong even if the phone is not one of those 3G-capable phones. The speakerphone is one of the loudest among those phones I’ve tried. I love the call list, which was able to keep all of the contact data I have on my contacts list. We are happy because it supports EDGE data networks.
It has a first-rate, 1.3-megapixel camera that takes JPEG pictures in six resolutions: 1,280 x 1,024; 1,290 x 960; 800 x 600; 640 x 480; 320 x 240; and 160 x 120. You get a variety of camera settings, including three quality modes, five color effects, a note mode, a 10-second self-timer, a sequence mode for shooting three photos in rapid succession, adjustable white balance, and an 8X zoom.
The camcorder shoots videos in two resolutions with sound. Other options are similar to the still camera, and you can mute the sound if you wish. The default mode lasts just six seconds, but you can also shoot longer clips, depending on the available memory.
You can personalize the 5300 with a large variety of screensavers, wallpapers, themes, color styles, animations, and sounds. Gamers get Java (J2ME) support, but your choice of included titles will vary. We found Snake III, Pro Football, Music Guess and Fast Finger really fun to play.
One of the features I miss with the newer and higher-end Nokia phones is the choice of font size for text messaging. The 5300 has three options when it comes to fonts: large, normal and small. Great. To make it really perfect the message space for texts is large so that the longer text messages don’t get cut while you’re typing them. Messaging functions are better than expected. Text on the clear, bright screen looks rounded and clean, not blocky, and the SMS viewer shows up to 128 characters on incoming messages, although I would prefer 160 characters if that were possible. Typing on the phone is comfortable, with its wide, rubbery keys. Messages can be sent from the contact list.
There’s the large 1,000-contact phone book with room in each entry for five phone numbers plus a PTT number, e-mail and Web addresses, job title and company name, work and home street addresses, birth date, nickname, formal name, and notes. You can organize callers into groups or pair them with a photo for caller ID.
Other standard offerings include vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, voice recorder, e-mail and instant messaging, alarm clock, calendar, to-do list, notepad, calculator, countdown timer, and stopwatch.
Despite the music focus, the 5300 comes with lots of business features, including full Bluetooth with a stereo profile, an infrared port, a speakerphone, PC synching, a mini-USB port and a unit/currency converter for international travelers.
The picture-perfect QVGA display measures two inches and supports 262,144 colors. There is an eye-popping array of colors, and everything is displayed, from graphics to texts to games. The simple but attractive menus are also a treat to view.
Below the display are the spacious and user-friendly navigation controls. A five-way toggle also acts as a shortcut to four-user defined functions, and there’s a selection of additional shortcuts on the standby screen. There are also two soft keys, which are programmable for one-touch access, and the Talk and End buttons. To reveal the keypad buttons, just slide up the front face. Spacious and brightly backlit, the individual buttons are raised above the surface of the phone. Such texture is unique for a slider phone, but it’s a welcome change as the keys are easy to use even if they are a tad slippery.
If there is one glitch in this phone it’s that the Micro SD card slot is located where the battery is stored. You must remove the battery cover to access it. Though you don’t have to remove the battery to get to the memory card, it still can be a bit annoying.
At first glance you might think there’s nothing cutting edge about the Nokia 5300 design. It’s a bit squarish and could appear a little bulky, but it’s lighter than it looks.
The Nokia 5300’s ergonomics give it a camera-like feel when you hold the phone horizontally with the shutter control facing up. The camera lens sits on the back of the phone, with a self-portrait mirror. The infrared port sits on the right spine, while the power control and ports for the mini-USB cable and the charger rest on the phone’s top end. The headset jack is on the top-left corner.
The 5300 Xpress Music phone is a slider. The slider mechanism slides up and down with one hand, and it feels sturdy and comfortable in the hand. Although like most sliders a little precaution is necessary when the phone is opened because the phone can become top-heavy. Durability is a key theme with this phone; its mid-section is wrapped in a rubberized covering that extends down to the navigation controls.
Music is the priority for the 5300 Xpress Music phone. It begins with dedicated music and volume keys, which are located at the left side of the phone. The phone also has a playful look, more rugged than compact. The red band that encircles the phone has a rubbery finish, and the buttons (especially those dedicated to music) have a tight, rubbery feel. It comes with a 1.3-megapixel camera that remains visible when the slide is closed. The slide is spring loaded, and I enjoyed the rubberized border around the screen as it moved the slide to open. Lining the left side of the display are dedicated music controls, which give access to the music player. You can play, pause, fast-forward, and rewind your tracks. Fortunately these buttons are also covered in the rubber skin, so they’re very easy to find when you’re not looking at the phone. On the right side of the bottom half of the slider is the volume rocker and a dedicated camera shutter and raised ridges that make the volume button easily accessible when holding the phone to your ear. Music quality is great and is a step above most music phones. The stereo speakers put out sharp, clear sound with much more volume. Music also sounded great over the included wired headphones.
The Nokia 5300 has everything to look for in such a phone – there’s stereo Bluetooth and a large selection of features, it’s easy to transfer files to the phone, it’s user-friendly with a simple interface and well-designed controls, it has few restrictions, it offers plenty of memory, and last but certainly not the least, it offers exceptional sound quality over stereo speakers. The player supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, and WMA files.
The phone comes with a 256 MB microSD slot, although there are cards of up to 2GB available.
The cellphone is great when making and receiving calls. The voice quality is good. Signal strength is always strong even if the phone is not one of those 3G-capable phones. The speakerphone is one of the loudest among those phones I’ve tried. I love the call list, which was able to keep all of the contact data I have on my contacts list. We are happy because it supports EDGE data networks.
It has a first-rate, 1.3-megapixel camera that takes JPEG pictures in six resolutions: 1,280 x 1,024; 1,290 x 960; 800 x 600; 640 x 480; 320 x 240; and 160 x 120. You get a variety of camera settings, including three quality modes, five color effects, a note mode, a 10-second self-timer, a sequence mode for shooting three photos in rapid succession, adjustable white balance, and an 8X zoom.
The camcorder shoots videos in two resolutions with sound. Other options are similar to the still camera, and you can mute the sound if you wish. The default mode lasts just six seconds, but you can also shoot longer clips, depending on the available memory.
You can personalize the 5300 with a large variety of screensavers, wallpapers, themes, color styles, animations, and sounds. Gamers get Java (J2ME) support, but your choice of included titles will vary. We found Snake III, Pro Football, Music Guess and Fast Finger really fun to play.
One of the features I miss with the newer and higher-end Nokia phones is the choice of font size for text messaging. The 5300 has three options when it comes to fonts: large, normal and small. Great. To make it really perfect the message space for texts is large so that the longer text messages don’t get cut while you’re typing them. Messaging functions are better than expected. Text on the clear, bright screen looks rounded and clean, not blocky, and the SMS viewer shows up to 128 characters on incoming messages, although I would prefer 160 characters if that were possible. Typing on the phone is comfortable, with its wide, rubbery keys. Messages can be sent from the contact list.
There’s the large 1,000-contact phone book with room in each entry for five phone numbers plus a PTT number, e-mail and Web addresses, job title and company name, work and home street addresses, birth date, nickname, formal name, and notes. You can organize callers into groups or pair them with a photo for caller ID.
Other standard offerings include vibrate mode, text and multimedia messaging, voice recorder, e-mail and instant messaging, alarm clock, calendar, to-do list, notepad, calculator, countdown timer, and stopwatch.
Despite the music focus, the 5300 comes with lots of business features, including full Bluetooth with a stereo profile, an infrared port, a speakerphone, PC synching, a mini-USB port and a unit/currency converter for international travelers.
The picture-perfect QVGA display measures two inches and supports 262,144 colors. There is an eye-popping array of colors, and everything is displayed, from graphics to texts to games. The simple but attractive menus are also a treat to view.
Below the display are the spacious and user-friendly navigation controls. A five-way toggle also acts as a shortcut to four-user defined functions, and there’s a selection of additional shortcuts on the standby screen. There are also two soft keys, which are programmable for one-touch access, and the Talk and End buttons. To reveal the keypad buttons, just slide up the front face. Spacious and brightly backlit, the individual buttons are raised above the surface of the phone. Such texture is unique for a slider phone, but it’s a welcome change as the keys are easy to use even if they are a tad slippery.
If there is one glitch in this phone it’s that the Micro SD card slot is located where the battery is stored. You must remove the battery cover to access it. Though you don’t have to remove the battery to get to the memory card, it still can be a bit annoying.
BrandSpace Articles
<
>
- Latest
Latest
