Nokia 5230
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We have collected 6 reviews of the Nokia 5230. Experts rate Nokia 5230 6.6/10. Reviewsor.com helps you find reviews, best prices, user reviews of the Nokia 5230 and Nokia Mobile phones.
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Nokia 5230 Reviews
Nokia 5230 review
One of the great truths about smartphones is that you should always match a phone to your actual needs. The Nokia 5230, despite falling short of expectations, is an intelligent device that offers a wealth of unique features. Whether these features match your needs is the real question. Before covering the failings, let's cover the basic advantages of using this phone. The Nokia 5230 is the bargain-bin version of the flagship phone, the Nokia N97. We say 'flagship' as a somewhat slippery term, because the N97 is by no means as powerful as, say, the Google Nexus One and is actually second-rate compared to the much faster Nokia N900. Yet, the N97 is the touchscreen phone set to compete with the Apple iPhone and just about every Android, Palm and Windows Phone device. As the entry-level version of the N97, the Nokia 5230 is about £118, or about half the cost of competing smartphones that run well over £200. That's an attractive price point – one that provides all the functionality of a touchscreen device, apps galore, GPS, media playback, a 2MP camera with advanced options such as setting ISO level, and 4GB of storage (on an included microSD card).
Nokia 5230 Nuron
T-Mobile customers looking for a touchscreen smart phone on the cheap could easily be tempted by the Nokia 5230 Nuron from T-Mobile. For $69.99 after the mail-in rebate (or as low as a penny through Amazon), it’s a small, lightweight device that offers great battery life and free GPS navigation via Ovi Maps. The Nuron also has an app store and even an FM radio. We have some complaints—like the lack of Wi-Fi and mediocre web browser—but at this price the Nuron is worth a look.The lightweight Nuron, which resembles the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, is a bit on the bulky side. At 4 ounces, you’d almost forget it was in your pocket if not for its 4.4 x 2 x 0.6-inch dimensions. The face features a 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen with a 640 x 320-pixel resolution, so images look clean and sharp. There is an ambient light sensor beside the earpiece, and down below the screen are the call, menu, and end buttons. Just above the display to the right is a touch-sensitive button that opens a menu for quick access to music, portraits, movies, and the web. Up top is a power button, a charging port, a 3.5mm headset jack, and a mini-USB port (which we feel should have been used for charging, too). To the right of the face is a volume rocker, the love-it-or-hate-it Nokia screen lock switch, and a dedicated camera button.
Nokia 5230 Review
The Nokia 5230 has Nokia's familiar and simple user interface, its superb email functionality and Nokia Messaging, as well as a pretty good touch-screen. It also has a less-than-impressive on-screen keyboard, some daft hardware ideas and the uninspiring Nokia Ovi apps store. All in all, the 5230 is an average handset with strengths and flaws. The Nokia 5230 is a good touch-screen proposition for 150: a simple-looking plastic handset in white with a silver trim; a 3.2-inch touch screen – the same as on a HTC Hero – and a nicely rounded shape. While the touch-screen is resistive rather than the superior capacitive kind, it's fairly responsive. Haptic feedback lets you know when your press has been registered with a pleasantly soft vibration. Below the screen sit three keys – call and call end, and a menu key that, when you press it, divides the screen like sliding doors to show all your programs. Nokia hasn't let us down with the 3.5mm audio port, so you can plug in your own headphones. If you want a decent selection of music, though, you'll have to shell out for a memory card – the 5230 has just 70MB internal memory.
Nokia 5230 Nuron
The 5230 Nuron is a rare bird for Nokia: a subsidized smartphone for T-Mobile subscribers. At $69.99 with a two-year contract, it's much cheaper than buying one of Nokia's unlocked devices. And unlike the Nokia Surge ($79-$279, ) on AT&T, the Symbian-powered 5230 Nuron features a touch screen and an improved user interface. It's a good choice for social networking fans looking for plenty of e-mail and multimedia features, despite its stubborn touch screen. The white plastic Nuron looks a bit clunky, mainly thanks to its thickness and the plastic guard around the front edge. The handset measures 4.4 by 2.0 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.1 ounces. The 3.2-inch, 640-by-360-pixel touch screen was very sharp, but washed out almost completely in bright sunlight. While it's of the older, plastic resistive variety, it handled finger touches accurately; I didn't need the bundled stylus at all. I did need to press on-screen buttons several times to get them to register, which could get very annoying if you're trying to type a lot. The screen unlocks with a stiff little slider on the right side. The on-screen QWERTY keyboard felt cramped. I made plenty of mistakes while typing, though the subtle haptic feedback was welcome. In portrait mode, the keyboard becomes alphanumeric, and there's a separate on-screen dial pad that appears just for making calls. Dialing numbers was pretty easy. The Nuron also includes an accelerometer and a proximity sensor, both of which worked smoothly during testing. The 5230 Nuron is a quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and dual-band HSDPA (1700/2100 MHz) device. Annoyingly, it lacks Wi-Fi; this is an issue, since T-Mobile's 3G network is the smallest of the four major U.S. carriers'. Voice quality was crisp, and a little brighter than some other handsets I've tested on T-Mobile. Transmissions sounded clear in both directions. Reception was poor; I live in a marginal area for T-Mobile coverage to begin with, but this handset dropped more calls than other T-Mobile phones I've tested. Calls sounded clear through an Aliph Jawbone Icon ($99.00, ) Bluetooth headset. The speakerphone sounded smooth and loud. Battery life was average at 8 hours and 27 minutes of talk time in EDGE mode. The home screen features a clean layout with colorful icons. Nokia preloads YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace apps, and the WebKit browser did a nice job rendering desktop HTML pages. Like other Nokia smartphones, the 5230 Nuron syncs Outlook e-mail, contacts, and calendar information, and Nokia also includes an IM client that hits all the major services. Sometimes the phone would freeze for a few seconds when firing up apps. Nokia preloads Ovi Maps (Free, ), the company's excellent, free GPS navigation solution. This alone makes the phone an excellent deal as a nav device. You can also easily update your Facebook status, upload photos, or share your location from the home screen. In addition, you get access to Nokia's buggy Ovi Store, which features thousands of apps and other mobile content. The Ovi Store refused to "connect to server" during my entire review period. Symbian may have a thriving third-party app market (for instance, Gravity is a terrific Twitter client), but we've found again and again that the Ovi Store is a difficult way to get them. The standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack and side-mounted microSD card slots make the Nuron multimedia-friendly. Nokia throws in a 4GB microSD card, my own 16GB SanDisk card worked fine, and there's also 70MB of internal memory. Music tracks sounded bright and full over Motorola S9-HD ($129.99, ) Bluetooth headphones. The music player displayed large album art thumbnails, and there's also an on-board FM radio. Various video files played very vibrantly, although it took a while for the Nuron to index them into its library. The 2-megapixel, fixed-focus camera is solid, if basic example of the genre. Shutter speeds were very fast - less than half a second. Indoor photos were surprisingly well lit and detailed. Outdoor photos were sometimes done in by the sun's reflections, but otherwise they looked good. Recorded videos were sharp, well balanced, and very smooth at 640-by-352-pixel resolution and 30 frames per second. You can also geo-tag photos and share them online straight from the phone. T-Mobile sells plenty of smartphones these days, with a choice of four operating systems. Sticking with Symbian, the unlocked Nokia E72 ($359.00, ) and X6 ($455.00, ) cost more up front, but are better for inputting data.The Android-powered Motorola CLIQ ($199.99, ) includes more robust social networking, a better app store, and a capacitive touch screen, but it feels slow. That may drive you into the arms of the Google Nexus One ($179.99-$529.99, ), which is available direct from Google, and offers a very fast 1 GHz Snapdragon CPU and a super-high-resolution touch screen. 8 hours 27 minutes (EDGE) Compare the Nokia 5230 Nuron with several other smartphones side by side. More Smartphone Reviews: ? Nokia 5230 Nuron (T-Mobile) ? T-Mobile myTouch 3G Fender Limited Edition (T-Mobile) ? Motorola CLIQ XT (T-Mobile) ? Motorola Backflip (AT&T) ? Nokia X6 (Unlocked) ? more
Nokia 5230 Nuron
Everyone loves a great deal, and Nokia and T-Mobile are serving up one heck of a value with the Nokia 5230 Nuron. Available starting March 24 for just $69.99 with a two-year contract, the Nuron is a full touch-screen smartphone that offers 3G support, access to the Ovi Store, and free maps and voice-guided, turn-by-by navigation via Ovi Maps. The latter is really what makes the phone such a great deal. With Ovi Maps, you're getting maps for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as well as other premium content such as weather forecasts and Lonely Planet guides, all without the monthly subscription fee that's often attached to this kind of content. Of course, to get the cheaper price you give up a few features, such as Wi-Fi and a high-end camera, but the Nuron isn't meant to be that top-of-the-line, high-performance device. It's really about giving consumers an affordable option when shopping for a smartphone. If you're on a budget, we certainly think the Nokia Nuron will give you a lot of bang for your buck. Design The Nokia 5230 Nuron's design is a familiar one, taking after the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music and Navigation Edition models.
Nokia 5230 review: Foot soldiers get smarter
When touchscreen handsets start to take over the lower segments of the market you know the rules of the game have changed. The Nokia 5230 is a smartphone but it doesn’t mind rubbing shoulders with the common run of handsets. So, it’s free to explore grounds where few smartphones have ever gone, let alone full touchscreen gadgets. The land of affordability was the last territory for touchscreen phones to settle in and not quite the place smartphones would call home. So it was, but Nokia just won’t wait for a special invitation when a niche is wide open. And they’ve got quite a fleet already of low key touchscreen smartphones that’s certain to make an impact. The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic had a great bang for the buck and the 5230 is welcome to try and beat the bargain. Cheap is nice but free is even better – and we guess the 5230 will be available both ways through retail stores and carriers. But let’s see what it has and what’s been left out. It’s pretty obvious where Nokia are heading with the 5230. In this price range it is impossible to give users every available feature, so the Finns are at least giving them a choice.
Prices
| Retailer | Information | Prices | |
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Housing Nokia 5230 White | $20 | See it |
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Housing Nokia 5230 Black Color | $20 | See it |
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Nokia 5230 Nuron (latest Model) - White (t-mobile) Smartphone | $104.99 | See it |
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Unlocked Nokia Nuron 5230 2mp Touch Phone | $129 | See it |
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Unlocked Nokia Nuron 5230 2mp Touch Phone | $129 | See it |
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Nokia 5230 Black Mobile phone | $139.95 | See it |
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Nokia 5230 NURON WHITE Unlocked Phone | $157.65 | See it |
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Nokia 5230 Quad-band GSM Cell Phone - Unlocked | $159.99 | See it |
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Nokia 5230 - White (unlocked) Smartphone + Bluetooth Headset | $159.99 | See it |
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Nokia 5230 Smartphone / Navigation Edition -white | $175 | See it |
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Nokia 5230 Nuron GSM Quadband Phone (Unlocked) Black | $179.95 | See it |
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Nokia 5230 3g Unlocked Gsm Touch Screen Phone | $218.6 | See it |
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Nokia 5230 3g Unlocked Gsm Touch Screen Phone | $228.2 | See it |
| PhoneSale.com | Nokia 5230 Nuron Unlocked Smartphone - Silver | $242.99 | See it |
| PhoneSale.com | Nokia 5230 Nuron Unlocked Smartphone - Blue | $242.99 | See it |
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Nokia 5230 : (6.6/10)
6 expert reviews
0 user reviews
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