Review of the Nokia 5250
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Introduction

The Nokia 5250 comes in as a budget smartphone running the S60, 5th edition Symbian operating system. This phone was released in September 2010. All signs point to Nokia releasing this phone as a replacement for the Nokia 5230 Nuron. It offers fantastic music features along with an unlimited access subscription to the Nokia Music Store and plenty of storage for multimedia files. The Nokia 5250 lacks some crucial features as far as connectivity goes and this is a surprising disappointment. It is, however, a good thing for shoppers on a budget because they have an opportunity to own a high end feature-packed phone at a friendly price.

Design (5 out of 5)

nokia 5250

The Nokia 5250 is a smartphone that will appeal to those who prefer touch display panels. This Nokia phone is as elegant as it is functional. Measuring in at 104 x 49 x 14 mm and weighing in at 107 grams, the Nokia 5250 feels extremely light and appealing to touch and to handle.

Taking a look at the design of the Nokia 5250, right from the front, there is a huge 2.8 inch TFT resistive touchscreen display. On top of the display is the ear piece. Below that is the call begin button and the call end buttons separated by the select softkey button. There is also the mouth piece right at the bottom below everything else.

The right side of the Nokia 5250 has a camera hardware access key, the battery compartment lock and the hardware volume up and volume down buttons.

The left side of the Nokia 5250 has been left pretty much bare and so we jump right on to the back. The back of the Nokia 5250 houses the battery compartment, the 2MP camera and the external speaker.

The top of the Nokia 5250 has got the USB cable connector and the 3.5 mm audio jack. At the bottom there is the socket for charging up the phone.

User Interface (4 out of 5)

Access to the functionality on the Nokia 5250 is through the resistive touch screen. Accessing applications and selecting menu features can be done by tapping on them with your finger or using a Nokia approved stylus. The Interface supports multiple profiles each with their own home screens. The home screen houses widgets for supported applications as well as an application shortcut bar which can be used for one tap access to applications or for checking on updates depending on the application you are viewing.

The menu is a simple procedural step process. You can access the applications menu from the softkey panel. Clicking on the home key brings you into the menu which has all the applications and settings menu items represented by their relevant icons. Selecting an item will launch the respective application.

Features (3 out of 5)

nokia-5250

The Nokia 5250 comes with a 2.8 inch display screen which has a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels in portrait orientation. The screen supports 16 million colors and is a resistive touch screen. Internal memory on the Nokia 5250 is 51MB with support for external memory of up to 16GB.

The Nokia 5250 supports GPRS and EDGE over the air. This phone does not come with either 3G or Wi-Fi support. For inter-device connectivity you will find there is Bluetooth and USB through the microUSB.

There is a single camera on the the Nokia 5250 which supports still photography and video photography. The camera is a 2MP camera with a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels and video recording at up to 30 FPS.

The Nokia 5250 comes with Nokia Music Unlimited in selected countries. This phone also supports music and video in formats such as WMA, MP3/AAC+ and MP4/H.263. To listen to multimedia files, the Nokia 5250 offers the external speaker or the 3.5 mm audio jack for headphones.

The underlying OS on the Nokia 5250 is Symbian OS, S60 5th Edition and it allows downloading and installation of applications from the Internet or through Bluetooth and USB. For connecting to cellular networks, the Nokia 5250 relies on GSM frequencies.

Performance (3 out of 5)

The Nokia 5250 is a great phone with awesome responsiveness. Launching applications is quite fast in sync with the speed at which this phone boots up. The camera on this Nokia phone is not very good. It delivers grainy pictures, especially indoors, even though the situation is improved when the flash is used.

Unfortunately without 3G or Wi-Fi support, I must say that the data connectivity is a let down. Browsing the internet is only acceptable when accessing minimal websites. The load times for graphic heavy websites prove to be a challenge to the Nokia 5250.

Talk time on the Nokia 5250 is capped at just under eight hours and this is one of the phone’s greatest features. Music can be played for a full 24 hours in ideal conditions therefore making the Nokia 5250 the ideal phone to carry on long trips.

Verdict (4 out of 5)

The Nokia 5250 is a phone I would recommend to anyone thinking of buying it. It packs in entertainment features that few phones can compare with. With a price tag of US$145, it is worth getting it with the free Nokia Ovi Music Unlimited subscription in addition to all the features that come with Symbian S60, feature pack 5 OS.

Other touchscreen phones worth comparing the Nokia 5250 to are the Nokia N97 and Nokia N8.