Nokia 5230 Review

The Nokia 5230 is probably the first low-end touchscreen smart phone manufactured by the Finnish company. The design of the phone is very much similar to that of Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone. Working under the new Symbian S60 5th Edition, the handset provides the functionality of a touchscreen device, GPS, media playback feature, applications like Ovi Maps and Ovi music, 2megapixel camera with advanced options and many more.

Body Design
This Nokia touchscreen mobile phone is pretty much the same with the Nokia 5800 in terms of overall design. The phone is a fair-sized, compact and slender handset with a large resistive touchscreen display. It has a physical dimension of 4.4 x 2.0 x 0.6 inches and has weighs about 4.05 ounces. The touchscreen display of 3.2 inches has a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels (nHD) with an aspect ratio of 16:9. The touchscreen can display up to 16.7 million colors which makes images on the phone look vibrant and fresh. Above the display and next to the earphone speaker is the Proximity Sensor, which is the small ambient light. And just below the proximity sensor you can find the media key, which is a shortcut for accessing different media like images, videos, music and the internet. This phone has only three physical buttons (make call, menu and end call) which is just below the display. The left stem of the phone plays host the camera key, the unlock slider and the volume rocker. You can also find a stylus that makes navigating through a touchscreen easy, just below the camera key. On the opposite end, there is the slot for the microSD and the SIM card. The power button, charger port, 3.5 audio jack and the microUSB port is on the top of the device.
The Nokia 5230 is available in three colors and there is even a plectrum shaped stylus that comes along with the handset for free.
Multimedia
The device has a 2 megapixel camera which captures images in JPEG format. It has an in-built CMOS sensor, 3x digital zoom and a list of other imaging features like white balance, auto exposure, color tones and even a photo editor. There is also quick access to the camera, thanks to its dedicated camera key.
The video recorder can record a video at high TV quality (640 x 480 pixels at up to 30fps), widescreen quality (640 x 352 at up to 30 fps), email quality (320 x 240 at up to 15 to 30 fps) or sharing quality (176 x 144 at up to 15 fps). The video recorder has a 4x zoom and can record in MP4 and 3GP file formats.
The media player in the phone supports numerous formats of both audio and video ranging from MP3 and WMA to AAC and MP4. The integrated radio is also there on the 5230, which makes it a serious contender among the musicphones.
The Nokia 5230 uses the OSS browser for online web browsing. The device supports markup languages like HTML, XHTML and WML.
The device also has an integrated A-GPS function and comes in built with the Ovi maps 3.0. On top of that there is also the online music store from Ovi called the Ovi Music store from where you can download music. There are also other social networking apps like Facebook and YouTube.
Memory
The mobile phone has 70 megabytes of internal dynamic memory where you can store your contact details and SMS. For storage of other media files, the phone can be expanded up to 16 GB through its hot swappable microSD card memory slot.
Connectivity
The obvious drawback of this Nokia smartphone is the absence of Wi-Fi capability and the absence of a second camera that can be used for video calling. So for online web browsing, the device uses GPRS/EGPRS Class B with a maximum speed of 177/296 (DL/UL) kbps or EDGE Class B with the same maximum speed as the previous one. Web browsing can also be done with the WCDMA 2100 network at a maximum speed of 384/ 384 (UL/DL). It also has CS and HSDPA with a maximum speed of 64 kbps and 3.6 Mbps respectively.
For local connectivity it has the Bluetooth Version 2.0. The technology helps in establishing a connection with other Bluetooth enabled devices. The microUSB and the high speed USB 2.0 port helps in the transfer of files between the phone and a computer efficiently. This affordable smartphone also comes with the standard 3.5 mm AV connector which makes probably all the headphones compatible with the phone. It also has the Nokia Ovi Suite that can be sync with a PC.
Performance
The call quality of the Nokia 5230 is excellent. It doesn’t have any voice distortion or background noise and the voice clarity that the phone delivers is impressive. The battery life of the handset is also pretty admirable as it lives up to its promise; plus the video and audio playback time of 4.6 hours and 33 hours is something which we normally don’t see in other phones. Moreover, the quality of video recording was pretty good for a 2 megapixel camera although the same can’t be said for the quality of still images (photos). The inclusion of Ovi Maps was also thoughtful because they can also be used in offline mode whereas Google maps do not have that function.
But the phone also has its own set of faults which is either in a feature missing or lacking in efficiency. The most prominent drawback of the Nokia 5230 is its lack of Wi-Fi feature and a full size hardware keyboard. It also has other features that some people may complain of like the confusing menus at times, irresponsive touchscreen (sometimes) and slow processing speed that sometimes make multi tasking a problem.

Verdict
The Nokia 5230 is a low-end smartphone and does not intend to compete with the other high-end ones like Nokia N900, Nokia N8 or the IPhone4. It has adequate and all the basic features in it and commands a respect of its own despite the lack of Wi-Fi and a second camera. So, buy the phone if you are looking for a smartphone on a tight budget.
The Nokia 5230 is available for $149.
Reviewer’s Rating:
4/5