How Good Is The Nokia 5230?

Upon first viewing the Nokia 5230 handset you could mistake it for just about any of the recent Nokia phones. Style wise it is similar to the 5800 and the 5530. It may look similar but inside it is a different phone altogether, this handset is a rival to today's top end smartphones even though it isn't one. Running on the smartphone S60 operating system this 'smartphone lite' handset takes advantage of all this operating system has to offer. Why 'smartphone lite'? All Nokia smartphones, the N and E Series, are aimed at high level users, business users and those with a lot of disposable income. The budget Nokia 5230 handset enters the market in the price bracket below that of the main expensive smartphones and offers a competitive price for what it offers, high specs for less money.

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Keypad & Display - The Nokia 5230 handset features a sharp, resistive 3.2" TFT display with the resolution of 360×640 pixels supporting up to 16 million colours. This handset has a fully optimised touch screen which allows for data entry by finger or the use of a stylus for which the inbuilt handwriting recognition software functions well. The Keypad layouts on offer are the standard mobile phone alphanumeric keypad, a mini QWERTY keypad and the full QWERTY keyboard layout. The smaller keypads are good with the stylus while the full keyboard is designed with finger typing in mind. Predictive text and multi-tap data entry are both provided. The display can show the keypads in both portrait and landscape mode but the full keyboard is only available in landscape mode. The widescreen display handles all applications fluidly.

Networking & Music - This handset may not be tailored for Nokia's XpressMusic range but it does have a fully functional music system. Just like the smartphones that run on S60 the 5230 has a fully fledged media player which is fully compatible with a large assortment of music formats; MP3, WAV, WMA and more. The music library and search listings are well organised as you would expect from today's ultra modern handsets, playlist creation and editing is not limited either. The headphone jack uses the standard 3.5mm jack therefore you are not limited in your choice of headphones. Disk space on the Nokia 5230 is on the small side, only 70MB but you can expand this with the use of MicroSD memory cards up to 16GB. Bluetooth 2.0 support is included and allows easy transference of music to and from your PC. Music can also be downloaded from the internet with a HSDPA speed of up to 3.6Mbps. Also included in this handset is a FM radio with 20 programmable presets.

Online Services & Extras - Nokia's Ovi online digital suite is fully supported by the 5230 and this gives you access to a long list of features and online content, from music and mail to online storage and social networking; which can be easily accessed at any time. The connectivity of the Nokia 5230 has many methods, the HSDPA we mentioned earlier or GPRS, EDGE and HSCSD. Turning your Nokia 5230 into a GPS Navigation system is one outstanding feature of this handset. It comes with an inbuilt A-GPS chip and combining this with Ovi Maps gives full GPS navigation complete with directions, 3D modelling of your surroundings and more.

I conclude that the Nokia 5230 handset offers amazing features for its price, not quite a smartphone but not far behind and definitly better than most phones that compare on price.

Are you looking for a low-cost Nokia 5230? I review and sell this smartphone lite along with associated accessories as well as a extensive range of other products for the US and UK markets on my website Gadgetuser.net. Thank you for your time and custom.