Review Of The Nokia 5130 XpressMusic Cell Phone

Cell Phones — By Ricky on September 29, 2009 at 6:20 pm

Nokia 5130 XpressMusic – Turn The Music Loud

Sum n substance:

Thumbs up: Good music player, decent functionality, good battery life.

Thumbs down: Speaker output not that great, keypad has a slippery plastic feel to it.

Inside the trunk:

Technology GSM
Band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (Quadband)
Phone Design Candy Bar
Caller ID Yes
Wireless Interface Bluetooth
Operating System Symbian Series 40 OS
Additional Features GPRS support , EDGE , microSD card slot , Micro USB

THE WHIZ-KID SPEAKS: In the past Nokia Express Music has come up with a variety of phones ranging from the suave to the random weird ones. T-mobile is the only carrier in the U.S to be offering the Express Music starting in the year 2006 with the 5300 and then later on it was followed up with 5310 and the 5610. This time around, T-mobile has come up with the latest in the Express Music range which is the 5130. This candybar phone is being offered by the carrier at $29.99 with a rebate and a two-year service contract.

Razzle-dazzle: This one kind of reminded me of the 5310 with the glossy skin and candybar design.

At 4.23 inches by 1.83 inches by 0.58 inches this one is definitely larger and with a weight of 3.10 ounces is not that clunky too. The handset is available in two colours combinations – aqua/silver and red/black.

It’s got a two inch display which supports 256,000 colors. The display is bright and clear and the images are sharp as well. The Series 40 menus were pretty much intuitive but then the it worked better when the transition effects were turned off.

Below the display we have the navigation array which is roomy enough for comfort. Its got a raised square toggle which is a bit raised and has a different colour compared to the OK button and the surrounding keys. The keypad buttons are backlit but they have a slippery plastic kind of feel to it. I personally am not a fan of the plastic keys because it gives kind of a cheap feel to the phone on the whole. The numbers and the letters are also quite small so getting used to the keypad might take some time.

The camera lens is located at the back of the camera and it does not offer flash or a self portrait mirror. The music controls are located on the left spine of the phone while the right spine houses the volume rocker and the microSD card slot. On the top of thee 5130 we have the 3.5mm headphone jack, a charger connection and a micro USB port.

Inside Dope:
The phonebook of the of the 5130 is dependent on its shared memory which is 30MB. Each contact can hold upto 6 phone numbers, email addresses, birthdays, notes, a formal name and a nick name. The basic features that this one has to offer are calculator, currency converter, alarm clock, wordlock, stopwatch and a notepad. It also supports a lot of advanced features like stereo Bluetooth, a voice recorder,, instant messaging, USB transfer and mass storage, voice commands, PC syncing and Web-based e-mail. Though it as an internal memory of 30MB it can be extended upto 2GB using a microSD slot.

Being one from the Express music range this one offers the standard Express Music player. The player is user friendly with simple controls. As usual Nokia likes it simple and so do we. The player does support a variety of file types and the tracks can easily be used as ringtones. Transferring music onto the phone is almost a child’s play. It can be done by using the microSD slot or the the USB cable. It also supports an airplane mode using which the user can listen to his playlists even when he is flying. For all those who just cant get enough of the radio this one supports the radio as well. The audio quality of this one is pretty much satisfactory. However I didn’t like the sole external speaker output. I almost had to strain my ears to recognize which track was being palyed. The sound quality from the headphones is pretty much admirable though.

It comes loaded with a 2MP camera which can take pictures in 6 resolutions ranging from 1,600×1,200 down to 160×120. Once the images are taken they can be edited using the standard photo editor which is preloaded in this one. The camcorder offers taking video is two resolutions i.e 176×144 and 128×96. The quality of the images is decent enough though there is a slight display of noise at times and the colours may seem like they have faded a bit. Even the video quality is pretty much mediocre.

The Nokia 5130 XpressMusic Cell Phone

For a bit of added entertainment this one also brings along it a few demo versions of games like bejeweled, Pac Man and 5th Grader 2009.

Coming to the call quality of this one… I must say that the call quality of this one is absolutely admirable. No static or interference and the callers sounded just so natural. The volume levels were pretty much satisfactory and the audio was audible even in the most crowded of places. On the callers end, they also didn’t have any problems as such. They were hardly able to differentiate between the speakerphone calls and the normal calls.

This one from the Korean manufacturer has a rated talktime of 6 hours and 12 hours on the standby mode.

Nitty-gritty: This one is one of the low end phones being launched in the Express music category. It’s simple in function and design but still has a lot to offer for the price. This could be your pick if you like to have your music on the move without burning a hole in your pocket.