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I’ve had the Nokia 5230 for just over a month now, so here’s my review.
Box Contents: 6/10
The phone, Headset WH-102, Charger AC-8N, Battery BL-5J 1320mAh, UG, Nokia Music 10 track gift voucher and plectrum stylus. The normal stylus is built into the body. A disappointing lack of further accessories like Memory card and Data Cable, but still at Rs. 8300/- for a 3G phone with full touch screen and GPS, the bundle is acceptable. Purchased SanDisk 4GB Memory card for Rs. 600/-.
*img695.imageshack.us/img695/8264/009fe.jpg
*img534.imageshack.us/img534/708/010xg.jpg
Features: 9/10
The Nokia 5230 comes with 3G capability with HSDPA with download speeds up to 3.6 Mbps, A-GPS, a 3.2” 640x360 16.7million colour touch screen, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, 3 hardware keys for call, disconnect and menu, Symbian S60 v5 OS, a 434MHz ARM 11 processor and 128MB of RAM and a 2.0MP camera with Video recording resolution of 640x480 in mp4 format.
Living With It: 8/10
*img6.imageshack.us/img6/9473/005bu.jpg
*img682.imageshack.us/img682/5536/001xws.jpg
In the month that I’ve been using the Nokia 5230 this is the experience I have had.
The phone is long, to accommodate the 16:9 nHD screen but fits comfortably in one hand and one handed operation is easy. The screen is very good in artificial lighting and in the dark, but under sunlight visibility is poor unlike most of Nokia’s other phones. The home screen shows the signal strength, battery level, clock, network name, a bar for up to 20 frequently used contacts, a music player bar if the player is minimized with controls for play/pause next/fast forward, and previous/rewind, along with the album art if available, a customizable bar showing 4 frequently used applications and the customary left and right soft key options (again customizable).
Build quality is okay though a bit plasticky. The memory card and sim card slots are adjacent on the left side of the phone and the loud speaker is close the top of the phone. The sim card can only be removed by opening the slot cover and back cover, removing the battery and pushing it out with the stylus. The memory card is hot swappable. The right side of the phone has the volume control rocker at the top, the screen lock slider in the middle and camera shortcut/shutter key at the bottom. The front houses the screen with the handset speaker, light sensor, proximity sensor and touch sensitive media key, above it and the call, menu and reject keys below.
Performance: 8/10
Handwriting recognition and speaker independent voice commands are standard with voice commands being built in for most common applications and automatically added for all contacts. Voice commands though give funny results occasionally especially for the contacts with a whole list coming up instead of the desired contact. Handwriting recognition is good out of the box though it had trouble recognizing my left handed writing, till I used the handwriting training option. The touch screen is sensitive needing only gentle touches to get things done, haptic feedback is very useful. Using the touch screen calibration allows fine tuning of the sensitivity of the screen. Using the stylus however scratches the original screen protector, so buying a high quality screen protector is essential.
The phone interface response is good even with an application or two open. Call performance good with good voice clarity. Battery life is good: I use two connections with this phone BSNL CellOne and AirTel both having good signal strength. With the BSNL (2G) network which I use only for calling I get up to 4 days of standby with daily calling of about 30 min. With the AirTel network I get about 2-3 days of standby depending on the GPRS usage.
Music quality is good on good headphones. The bundled headset has a low volume with music being almost inaudible below 25% volume (poor compared to my 3230 headset which is too loud even at the level just above mute), sound quality from the WH-102 headset is acceptable for music and good for calls. The 3.5mm jack allows connection to speakers directly. When connected to a Creative Inspire 2.1 speaker set the music quality is very good but Bass heavy.
The phone offers a traditional alphanumeric keypad as well as a QWERTY keypad in landscape mode. The alphanumeric keypad allows the usage of predictive text input which learns the most frequently used words in the same alphabetic combination (e.g. good and home use the same numbers i.e. 4663 but if you use the word home more often the predictive input recognizes this and
gives home as the first option instead of good). The QWERTY is also easy to use.
The 2.0 MP camera is good in bright daylight but other lighting conditions affect picture quality. Two samples' links are below.
*img94.imageshack.us/img94/9340/06032010010h.jpg
*img52.imageshack.us/img52/1042/06032010009z.jpg
Value for Money: 10/10
For the features the Nokia 5230 offers Rs. 8300/- is a bargain. No other phone offers a full touch screen, 3G, GPS, vast application support and multitasking capability at anywhere near this price.
Overall Verdict: 8/10
Nokia have made the best touch screen Smartphone available at this price point. Software updates are essential to iron out the bugs in the very new S60 v5 OS, which prevents me from giving it a 10/10.
Box Contents: 6/10
The phone, Headset WH-102, Charger AC-8N, Battery BL-5J 1320mAh, UG, Nokia Music 10 track gift voucher and plectrum stylus. The normal stylus is built into the body. A disappointing lack of further accessories like Memory card and Data Cable, but still at Rs. 8300/- for a 3G phone with full touch screen and GPS, the bundle is acceptable. Purchased SanDisk 4GB Memory card for Rs. 600/-.
*img695.imageshack.us/img695/8264/009fe.jpg
*img534.imageshack.us/img534/708/010xg.jpg
Features: 9/10
The Nokia 5230 comes with 3G capability with HSDPA with download speeds up to 3.6 Mbps, A-GPS, a 3.2” 640x360 16.7million colour touch screen, Accelerometer, Proximity sensor, 3 hardware keys for call, disconnect and menu, Symbian S60 v5 OS, a 434MHz ARM 11 processor and 128MB of RAM and a 2.0MP camera with Video recording resolution of 640x480 in mp4 format.
Living With It: 8/10
*img6.imageshack.us/img6/9473/005bu.jpg
*img682.imageshack.us/img682/5536/001xws.jpg
In the month that I’ve been using the Nokia 5230 this is the experience I have had.
The phone is long, to accommodate the 16:9 nHD screen but fits comfortably in one hand and one handed operation is easy. The screen is very good in artificial lighting and in the dark, but under sunlight visibility is poor unlike most of Nokia’s other phones. The home screen shows the signal strength, battery level, clock, network name, a bar for up to 20 frequently used contacts, a music player bar if the player is minimized with controls for play/pause next/fast forward, and previous/rewind, along with the album art if available, a customizable bar showing 4 frequently used applications and the customary left and right soft key options (again customizable).
Build quality is okay though a bit plasticky. The memory card and sim card slots are adjacent on the left side of the phone and the loud speaker is close the top of the phone. The sim card can only be removed by opening the slot cover and back cover, removing the battery and pushing it out with the stylus. The memory card is hot swappable. The right side of the phone has the volume control rocker at the top, the screen lock slider in the middle and camera shortcut/shutter key at the bottom. The front houses the screen with the handset speaker, light sensor, proximity sensor and touch sensitive media key, above it and the call, menu and reject keys below.
Performance: 8/10
Handwriting recognition and speaker independent voice commands are standard with voice commands being built in for most common applications and automatically added for all contacts. Voice commands though give funny results occasionally especially for the contacts with a whole list coming up instead of the desired contact. Handwriting recognition is good out of the box though it had trouble recognizing my left handed writing, till I used the handwriting training option. The touch screen is sensitive needing only gentle touches to get things done, haptic feedback is very useful. Using the touch screen calibration allows fine tuning of the sensitivity of the screen. Using the stylus however scratches the original screen protector, so buying a high quality screen protector is essential.
The phone interface response is good even with an application or two open. Call performance good with good voice clarity. Battery life is good: I use two connections with this phone BSNL CellOne and AirTel both having good signal strength. With the BSNL (2G) network which I use only for calling I get up to 4 days of standby with daily calling of about 30 min. With the AirTel network I get about 2-3 days of standby depending on the GPRS usage.
Music quality is good on good headphones. The bundled headset has a low volume with music being almost inaudible below 25% volume (poor compared to my 3230 headset which is too loud even at the level just above mute), sound quality from the WH-102 headset is acceptable for music and good for calls. The 3.5mm jack allows connection to speakers directly. When connected to a Creative Inspire 2.1 speaker set the music quality is very good but Bass heavy.
The phone offers a traditional alphanumeric keypad as well as a QWERTY keypad in landscape mode. The alphanumeric keypad allows the usage of predictive text input which learns the most frequently used words in the same alphabetic combination (e.g. good and home use the same numbers i.e. 4663 but if you use the word home more often the predictive input recognizes this and
gives home as the first option instead of good). The QWERTY is also easy to use.
The 2.0 MP camera is good in bright daylight but other lighting conditions affect picture quality. Two samples' links are below.
*img94.imageshack.us/img94/9340/06032010010h.jpg
*img52.imageshack.us/img52/1042/06032010009z.jpg
Value for Money: 10/10
For the features the Nokia 5230 offers Rs. 8300/- is a bargain. No other phone offers a full touch screen, 3G, GPS, vast application support and multitasking capability at anywhere near this price.
Overall Verdict: 8/10
Nokia have made the best touch screen Smartphone available at this price point. Software updates are essential to iron out the bugs in the very new S60 v5 OS, which prevents me from giving it a 10/10.
