Review of the Nokia 5320 Features, Design, Specifications and Price
The Nokia 5320 XpressMusic is a budget phone and mobile digital music player that was announced in April 2008 and released three months later in July. This Nokia phone maintains simplicity and is mainly for general purpose or basic usage with the option of musical entertainment. This candy bar phone does not scream out at first glance and is one of those phones you have got to use to love.
Starting off with the design, let us run through and see what the Nokia 5320 is all about.
Design (2 out of 5)
The Nokia 5320 XpressMusic measures 108 x 46 x 15 millimeters and weighs in at only 90 grams. This Nokia phone comes in either blue or red and has a perforated plastic design around the edges and part of the back side.
There is a secondary or video call camera on the top left of the front face as well the ear piece. Below these is the 2 inch display followed by the softkey panel immediately below it. The softkey panel consists of the two softkeys for abstract functionality based on the active app. Also on the softkey panel there is the dedicated menu button and cancel button on either end. In the center is the Navi pad and the two call management buttons with the distinct green and red color coding. Below this panel there is the alphanumeric keypad.
The left side of the Nokia 5320 has the dedicated multimedia buttons as well as the microUSB slot. The right side is fitted with the slot for the extended memory card in the form of microSD.
Looking at the back of this Nokia phone, there is a primary camera with a dual LED flash. The top of the Nokia 5320 has just got the power button, while the bottom has the power charger connector.
User Interface (2 out of 5)
The Nokia 5320 comes with the S60 feature pack 2 user interface. Messaging and all text input is supported through the alphanumeric keys. Calls can be made by simply typing in the number and pressing the green call button in addition to selecting a contact from the address book.
There is a dedicated key to access the menu which has icons laid out in a grid pattern. This grid pattern can be navigated using the Navi pad and applications are launched using the center key in the Navi pad. There are two home screens on the Nokia 5320 that can be customized individually with themes, wallpaper, alerts and ringtones, as well as shortcut icons. Multiple applications can be run at the same time with ease.
Features (3 out of 5)
The Nokia 5320 comes with a 240 x 320 pixel TFT display. As for music and entertainment there is a single loud speaker on the device as well as a 3.5mm audio jack. Also on the multimedia side, there are dedicated music keys for convenient playback of music and this phone also supports video playback. Formats supported include MP3/WMA/WAV/RA/AAC/M4A as well as WMV/RV/MP4/3GP. Also built-in is a stereo FM radio. The music player even supports voice commands.
Access to the N-Gage gaming platform is supported on the Nokia 5320 through the Internet and the connectivity options include GPRS, EDGE and 3G up to 3.6 Mbps. Other data connectivity options include Bluetooth and microUSB.
Internal memory on the Nokia 5320 is 140 MB with microSD external memory supported up to 16 GB.
There is a 2 megapixel camera with a maximum of 1600 x 1200 pixels and a dual LED flash to go with it. There is also a secondary camera for use in video calls.
Performance (4 out of 5)
The Nokia 5320 is powered by Symbian OS 9.3 running on an ARM 11 369 MHz processor. Applications are quite responsive and boot time is very short on start up. You can run several applications on this Nokia phone simultaneously without significant degradation in performance.
The sound quality for multimedia playback is quite good and even better with third party headphones. You also get about 24 hours worth of music playback with this phone. Call reception is good, even where the network signal is rather low. Quality on voice calls is quite good with significant background noise canceling.
Standby battery time is quite low at about 250 hours while giving the user only about 3 hours and 30 minutes of talk time. The camera on this Nokia phone is also quite poor in quality and it is made worse when you try to view the pictures on the little 2 inch display.
Internet connectivity is good and stable and with plenty of storage you can download several apps to use on your phone. The Nokia 5320 may lack several features of other high end phones but it makes up for that by performing well with the little it has.
Verdict (3 out of 5)
The Nokia 5320 may lack many features, but it performs well. It is a good smartphone for practical usage and works quite well as a music player too. Storage options on this phone are excellent too. The user interface may be a little outdated but it is good enough for general purpose use. The biggest drawbacks with the Nokia 5320 are the lack of Wi-Fi connectivity and the size of the display. The under performing camera is also an issue with this phone. Other than these, I would say the Nokia 5320 is a great phone and with a price tag of US $160 the Nokia 5320 is worth getting.
References
- Author’s own experience.
- Nokia, Europe.Nokia.com
- Image Credit: Nokia Press, Press.Nokia.com
