Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Nokia 5310 XpressMusic quick-review

The following is my super quick review of Jennifer's Nokia 5310 XpressMusic feature phone, her main mobile for the past couple of weeks.


The Good
- At £80 (plus £10 top-up credit) unlocked from Carphone Warehouse, it is a bargain.
- Very thin (9.9mm) and light (71g).
- Sync'able address book, calendar, task list and memos with Outlook.
- Above average speakers.
- A light sensor automatically adjusts the screen's brightness.
- Dedicated TI AIC33 sound processor providing sound quality that is actually better than even some branded dedicated digital music player.
- Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP profile, ruh ruh Apple? Sony's BT10CX bluetooth stereo headphones works great with this.
- Comes with 2GB microSD card.
- microSD card slot is compatible with high capacity microSDHC - works with 8GB card, possibly 16GB, also hot-swappable.
- Stereo FM works well, but requires to be connected to Nokia's headphone adapter.
- Industrial standard 3.5mm headphone socket ensures compatibility with our Sennheiser phones - they even placed it on the top, which is ergonomically the ideal position!
- Support for USB mass storage (yay!).

The Average
- Industrial standard microUSB port is better than Pop-Port, but the prolific miniUSB is even better.
- Series 40 5th edition is speedy and user friendly, but I wish for a Series 60 version.
- Youth orientated design may not appeal to all.
- Battery life is average lasting 2-3 days per charge with light text, calls and music playback.


The Bad
- Music does not resume after terminating a call - shameful.
- Camera performance is awful - may as well been removed.
- Music player automatically updates the library every single time - a waste of time.
- Keylocking the keys to prevent accidental dialling will also lock the dedicated music keys - pretty dumb.
- Music software occasionally causing the phone to restart itself, once every couple of days (this has been fixed with the latest v5.81 firmware).
- Soft buttons keys are 'squeaky', though the rest seems to work fine.

The Ugly
- Latest version of Nokia Software Update keeps crashing when updating via Vista making us believe we bricked phone twice (we didn't)!

Verdict
- Utterly desirable and skinny mobile for people seeking a budget quality music phone. It isn't perfect, but at the price point the 5310 beats even more expensive phones in terms of audio fidelity and features. The 3.5mm port shows where Nokia's priority lies especially in an age where other manufacturers like Sony Ericsson are still keen to promote their proprietary ports.

Update: The 5310 XpressMusic has been selected as the first Nokia phone to qualify under their Come With Music program. I think it is an excellent choice considering how great the 5310 is as a music player.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Quite a tidy review! I've had the phone since Christmas, the old firmware was awful. So much better with the latest update though. Shame people are losing their phones halfway through updating. Lucky the local Nokia Service Centre did it free for me.
For me it's perfect, not bothered about it's downsides. It's cheap enough to accept small issues. Not sure if it's just mine but on the radio player the words are blatently for the blue version of the phone though, but i have the red! :D Phone companies real job in life is to always leave something out to make sure you always want their next phone. It's mind games :)

Jon Choo said...

Nokia really did botch up the updater software. And not everyone has access to a Nokia Service Centre.

And am not surprised by how mobile companies like Nokia tend to leave things out. Her first choice was for the sexy Nokia 6500 Classic. Despite costing £70 more, it does not have a card slot or a sound chip! A shame as it is such a lovely looking phone.

I wonder if they accidentally flashed the blue version on yours. ;)

Anonymous said...

I did wonder if they flashed it wrong but all the other aspects are red, including the music player! So maybe a minor mix up on the firmware. Not bothered, I never use the radio, put it on by accident when using the music player via active standby!

Good choice with the 6500 but good points about whats left out too! Always something....unless it's an Nokia N96 haha. but then that's too big lol. Ok could go ALL day on this. Later

Jon Choo said...

N96 would be too expensive! But seriously though, personally I am quite annoyed by companies that purposely break their products, even high-end products the HTC Diamond (4GB storage, no slot) or N96 (still QVGA).

Anonymous said...

I recently bought this cell and am desperate to update it. The firmware is 3.63, but I can't update. Every time it tries to update, my PC will fail to connect causing the Nokia to freeze.

Anonymous said...

If you have problems with the updating software, you could update it over the air! I'm not sure if 5310 supports this feature though, but even the old 5300 did.

Anonymous said...

i updated software to the latest version and my memory card is now not working properly, i cant access it cause it keeps asking for a password, and i dunno what the pass is cause i didnt have one before updating...

Anonymous said...

Hi, have you tried '12345' or '0000'. One of them is Nokia's default password.