14 DAY TRIAL // The Nokia 5230 handset is one of the first low-end touch smartphones manufactured by the Finnish company. Of course this isn't one of those top-tier devices that can ruin budgets, but at least Nokia fans will be able to taste some of the early Symbian S60 5th Edition features.
By the look of it, the phone is clearly targeting the youth and/or fashionistas, though the latter class might be a little bit disappointed by the fact that the phone is not that “bling-bling”. Anyway, Nokia 5230 has probably been surpassed by other models, which are more feature rich and cost even less, such as Nokia C6.
Announced in August 2009, Nokia 5230 was launched on the market in November 2009 and can be bought for about USD180 without subscription. Potential customers can choose from two available color schemes: Black or White. As a side note, the sales package also includes two changeable color battery covers, but more colors can be bought supplementary.
style="color: #aa3333">Design
Nokia 5230 bears the same mark as some of the XpressMusic smartphones, but lacks the QWERTY keyboard. Anyway, it has become a known fact that Nokia is keeping the same design layout when it comes to touch smartphones. Nokia 5230 is no different, as it resembles all the other XpressMusic touch phones starting with Nokia 5800. Of course, there are small differences in sizes, weight, as well as keys layout, but overall there are no major changes in design. Nokia 5230 doesn't stand out from the crowd, instead it looks like the perfect phone for a youngster. Light and slim, the 5230 Symbian smartphone is perfectly pocket-sizable at only 111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm and 115g (including battery).
The 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen is the main attraction of the front part, while the the back side with the exchangeable cover, features a low-end 2-megapixel camera. Above the display, next to the earphone speaker, there's a small light ambient sensor, a proximity sensor, as well as the Media key. Below the large display, there are three physical keys, much like those of Nokia 5800: Accept and End calls buttons, as well as the Menu key.The right side of the phone features two volume keys, an locking/unlocking slide key, and a dedicated camera button. The microSD card slot for memory expansion has been placed on the left side of the handset and is covered by a long plastic stripe, just like the SIM card slot, which is next to it. On the top of the device, there's a small charger port, a microUSB port and a 3.5mm audio jack.
The only two downsides that I found are the hard to press volume keys, as well as the fact that the device lacks a standard stylus. The latter would've been great for pulling out the SIM card from its slot, otherwise you will just have to pull out the back cover and the battery.The phone's plastic makes it feel pretty cheap, but it gets more vivid as you change the back cover. Overall, the device looks nice, and for a young person it might be just the right phone. Still, I wouldn't count its durability, so keep it safe from drops.
style="color: rgb(255,102,0)">Display and Camera
Nokia 5230 features a TFT 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen that supports 16 Million colors and 360 x 640-pixels resolution, which can also be controlled with a stylus if you have one, as the sales package doesn’t include one. Well, it's a resistive touchscreen, so don't expect miracles, as it cannot be compared with devices sporting capacitive displays.
The quality of the image is unquestionably good, including brightness and contrast - at their highest level, but it becomes poor when it's exposed to sunlight. The phone also features built-in accelerometer for display auto-rotation, as well as turn-to-mute function. The 2.0-megapixel camera lacks any advanced features, which makes it somewhat useless, as quality of the pictures is pretty low. No autofocus, no flash and very low video recording don't really recommend this phone for its camera. The maximum resolution that users can set to take pictures is that of 1600x1200 pixels. The maximum one that can be used for movie recording is of VGA@30fps. The interface of the camera is standard with features such as White Balance, ISO, Contrast and Sharpness. Check out the samples below for a more accurate opinion about the quality of the photo snapper.style="color: rgb(153,204,0)">Menu and Software
Nokia 5230 runs Symbian 9.4 operating system, with S60 5th Edition interface, the same as its XpressMusic touch smartphones. Little to no improvements have been done to the graphical interface, instead the UI is now even poorer in options and menus.
The candybar features only one homescreen that can be customized to display various widgets, in thumb-able blocks, which can be arranged or hidden.You can use the active Homescreen with Contacts and Shortcut bars. The latter was limited to only four icons now. Kinetic scrolling is also missing.
Clicking near the battery icon, on the upper right corner of the homescreen will give you quick access to the clock, alarms.
To bring up the Main menu key, click the middle key under the screen, choose Options/Organise, to rearrange the menu as you see fit. You will find applications that come pre-installed with the phone together with the clock, notes, office, recorder and other Symbian-specific functions. Some of the key applications that come pre-loaded with Nokia 5230 include: complex calendar, Notepad, calculator, converter, file manager, recorder, Amazon, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, MySpace. There's no media sub-menu, but you get some dedicated apps under the Music menu: music player, Stereo FM RDS Radio, Podcasts, and Music Store.There's also a YouTube client, but the phone lacks any document viewer application. You can also entertain yourself with the addictive DJ Mix Tour or Roller Rev 99 games.
style="color: rgb(153,51,102)">Communication
Nokia 5230 is a quad-band GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) handset, HSDPA 900 / 2100 (3.6 Mbps) compatible, which features GPRS class 32 (100 kbps), EDGE 32 class (296 kbps). Even though the device is missing the Wi-Fi feature, users can benefit from the 3G data speeds transfer.
The integrated browser is the same that you can get in the older N97 phone, but got small improvements and bug fixes. It has now full Java and Flash support, and the latter is working nicely. There's also kinetic scrolling implemented to some degree, but you won't have the same experience as the Android devices. Other features include in the browser: auto fill-in, RSS reader, download manager, password manager, pop-up blocker. The handset features a GPS receiver, which works in conjunction with Nokia Maps 2.0 Touch. I have tested the localization times and noticed that Nokia 5230 is decent enough. The built-in GPS receiver features the A-GPS function, which makes localization even faster. It quickly pin-points you even when the phone is indoors. Other connectivity tools include Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support, and microUSB for PC synchronization (no charging). In terms of messaging, the phone offers a complete solution, accepting all available message types. The message client works with POP3, SMTP, and IMAP4 protocols, and supports more than one email account. Also, it can download headers or full email, and supports attachments. The quad-band (GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900) network compatible smartphone has a very good GSM signal reception. The sound is very good at both ends, and pretty loud too. The vibration alert is also above average in intensity and can also be set to higher or lower levels as you see fit.style="color: #aa3333">Processor and Memory
Nokia 5230 is powered by the same ARM11 family processor running at speeds of up to 434 Mhz that has been embedded in N97 model. The device works pretty smooth, but I have noticed some lags when using other applications while the browser is open. I think this is becoming the main issue with Symbian devices, as others are fixed.
The smartphone also features 70 internal memory, as well as 128 MB RAM. The memory can be expanded up to 16GB, thanks to the hot-swappable card slot.style="color: rgb(255,102,0)">Multimedia
The smartphone features the same standard looking music player as Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, with little to no cosmetic changes. You have five pre-installed equalizer modes: Bass booster, Classical, Jazz, Pop and Rock. Other settings are: Balance, Loudness and Stereo widening.
The device features Radio FM with RDS function as well, but lacks the FM transmitter. Reception is very good, and sound is above average. The Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support enables you to listen to music wirelessly.
The 3.5mm jack port is a good addition, as it enables you to change the earphones that are coming with the phone (WH-102). The included video player lacks DivX and XviD codecs, so you'll need to find yourself a third-party application to play these movie files.All in all, Nokia 5230 music sound is pretty decent in all aspects, so it really worths a try, unless you plan to use its loudspeaker a lot, which I do not recommend as the sound is poor.
style="color: rgb(153,204,0)">Battery
The 1,320 mAh Li-Ion (BL-5J) battery has an officially stated life expectancy of 432 hours in standby (432 for 3G) and of about 7 hours in talk time mode (4 hours and 30 minutes for 3G). I have noticed that the phone has a very good playback autonomy (33 hours official), whereas the talk time tends to reach about 4 hours at the most, regardless of the network used. I managed to keep the phone for about 6 days, with 30 minutes of talk per day and about 1-2 hours of music playback per day. Overall, I would say the phone has a decent battery.
style="color: rgb(153,51,102)">Impressions
Nokia 5230 is one of those low-end smartphones that you ask about when you see it first time, but tend to go past it when you find out its price. Even though it has been tagged as a low-budget phone, its price is still high for what it has to offer. Nokia is already releasing the Cseries, which has much cheaper smarpthones, that offer more features than 5230.
The Good
The Bad
style="color: #aa3333">Sales Package
Nokia 5230 handset Nokia High Efficiency Charger (AC-8) Nokia Battery (Bl-5J) Nokia Stereo Headset (WH-102) Plectrum Stylus CP-306 User guide
