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Review of Nokia 5320 XpressMusic mobile phone

Not so long ago, the mobile device market was replenished with a wonderful music smartphone - Nokia 5320 XpressMusic. The phone is aimed at a young audience and belongs to the line of budget music phones.

Introduction

Probably everyone remembers the first top-end music smartphone Nokia 3250. Which at that time became the top-end among the youth audience.

Launched in 2008, the Nokia 5320 XpressMusic mobile phone certainly looks different from its older brother. The display has become 240x320, the battery is more durable, which will allow you to listen to music not 11 as it was in the Nokia 3250, but for 24 hours, the software platform itself has been updated, now the phone can work with cards up to 8 GB.

Nokia 5320 XpressMusic is positioned as a stylish, budget, music mobile device. So let's take a closer look at the phone and draw our own conclusions.

In the course of the review, we will be comparing our device with two competing models. And these are the 5700 and 5220 models.

Nokia 5320 XpressMusic package contents

The box has a pretty nice design. Looking at such a box, you want to quickly find out what's inside.

The box is divided into two parts. On the left side of the box is the mobile phone itself - and on the right, the rest of the components.

The set with a mobile phone includes:

- USB cable for connecting the phone to a PC;

- microSD memory card with a capacity of 1 GB;

- recharging;

- lithium-ion battery BL-5B;

- wired stereo headphones HS-45 together with the AD-57 remote control;

- operating instructions in Russian and English;

- a music brochure and a CD with software.

If we compare the bundle of our phone with the 5220, they will completely match each other, the only difference between the 5220 is the presence of a hand strap.

The appearance of the smartphone Nokia 5320 XpressMusic

The front and back panels of the smartphone are made of glossy black plastic of acceptable quality. Since the front panel is almost entirely occupied by the screen and the keyboard unit, fingerprints on it are almost invisible.

Well, the back panel is enough for almost all fingerprints, since there is practically nothing there except for a camera with a metric bezel with LED flash and a branded lettering.

The top and bottom surfaces of the rear panel are dot-coated. This solution gives the back panel a more elegant look and prevents the device from slipping in the hands.

The 5220 phone differs from ours with a rubberized back panel and ribbed surface, while the other rival has rubberized side edges. The side edge of the Nokia 5320 XpressMusic smartphone is made of plastic that is fragile to the touch. From first impressions, it is extremely difficult to judge the reliability of the panel - but rapid damage to the surface is unlikely.

Nokia 5320 XpressMusic has the following dimensions: 46x108x15 mm, weight with the battery is 90 grams. Thanks to such dimensions, the mobile phone fits easily and securely in the hand. Compared to modern smartphones, the thickness of the device is quite acceptable.

Compared to the Nokia 5320 XpressMusic, the 5220 phone has a smaller width and thickness, the main material is also plastic, but the device is 12 grams less. In Nokia 5700 almost all external characteristics are inferior to Nokia 5320 XpressMusic. Nokia 5320 XpressMusic cannot be called fat, but it will be uncomfortable to carry it in a shirt pocket. The build quality of the device is excellent, there are no backlashes and creaks.

The battery cover can be easily removed and provides access to the inside of the mobile phone. On the 5220 phone, to open the back cover, you need to press the cover release button, this solution is more durable.

There is a SIM card slot under the battery in Nokia 5320 XpressMusic. The slot for memory cards is located on the right side of the mobile phone; to open the slot, be sure to remove the back cover. This mechanism prevents the loss of the memory card in case of accidental opening of the cap.

The device is available in two colors, red and blue.

The 5220 mobile phone has the same design, but the range itself is supplemented with another color scheme, in which the side edges and the central button are green, and the battery cover is white.

Keyboard in Nokia 5320 XpressMusic

The block of navigation buttons is located on the front of the mobile phone and is distinguished by an elegant stripe. All keys of the digital block are located at the edges, and they are boarded up in a semi-oval, which give a certain zest to the design of the mobile phone.

The upper part of the block consists of typical call control keys, which are decorated with red and green icons. Below them are the keys to turn on the menu and work with saved contacts, these buttons can also be programmed for any other actions. All of these keys resemble a rectangle shape with the bottom corners in the shape of a semicircle. This solution, of course, diversified the overall design of the mobile phone, but on the other hand, the number of accidental button presses increased. It should be borne in mind that all the buttons of a mobile phone are practically merged with each other and have small dimensions.

In the center, we see a nav box with a red border. The key can take up to eight positions. It is possible to program the navigation block by pressing a key in four directions. The block of numeric keys consists of buttons that are extremely close to each other. For the convenience of working with messages, the keys of the digital block are designated by the symbols of the English and Russian alphabets. The designations on the keys are painted, if you take into account the fact that we have a phone from Nokia in front of us, the designations on the buttons are unlikely to be quickly erased.

The competitor 5700 has rubber buttons on which the symbols are very quickly erased.

I would like to note that the Russian symbols on the buttons in our device are made in an artisanal way, since the phone is not officially Russian. In the original version of the mobile phone, the symbolism on the buttons is applied more accurately, Russian symbols practically do not differ from Latin ones.

The digital buttons are made of plastic, which is quite pleasant to the touch. The keyboard is backlit with a milky white color. The backlight can be switched on when the keypad is locked or when it is unlocked.

Above the screen is a camera for video calls. To the right of it is the earpiece and even to the right is the "My Key" button. This button can be programmed to quickly start any program. Also, if you press and hold this button, then the Say and Play application starts, which we will talk about a little later. At first glance, the placement of this button does not seem very convenient, since when you press it, the display gets dirty. But further impressions of this button are different, since the main idea of ​​this button is to control games with a horizontal position of the mobile device.

On the left side of the case there are three keys for the media player: when you press the central button, the music track is played / stopped, and the side keys function to rewind and switch between musical compositions. The keys have a fairly large backlash and creak at the slightest press on them.

In the lower part there is a slot for memory cards covered with a plastic flap.

On the right side there is a rocker button, which is designed to adjust the sound volume, and there is also a button to start the camera. Pressing the buttons is clear, they are free from backlash and squeaks.

At the bottom there is a hole for charging, a headphone jack and a USB connector, which is covered with a plastic flap.

On the top there is only one button, which is designed to turn on / off the mobile phone. With a short press on these buttons, the phone suggests: turn off the phone, lock the keypad and select the desired profile. Long press on this button turns on / off the mobile phone.

And here we see a high-quality keyboard unit. Its only disadvantage is that the keys are located at a close distance from each other, which leads to accidental presses on them.

Battery in Nokia 5320 XpressMusic

The Nokia 5320 XpressMusic mobile phone comes with a BL-5B 890 mAh Li-Ion battery. The Nokia 5220 has a larger battery with a capacity of 1020 mAh. The recessed area on the bottom of the mobile phone allows the battery to be easily removed.

According to the developers, the device can work up to 3.5 hours of talk time. And in standby mode up to 250 hours. And while listening to musical compositions up to 24 hours.

In practice, the average work of the phone is about 3-4 days, while the functions were used: about two hours of calls, one and a half hours of listening to music, data transfer via Bluetooth for about an hour. The results are quite acceptable. It takes about two hours to fully charge the battery.

Nokia 5320 XpressMusic screen

The diagonal of the display of Nokia 5320 XpressMusic is two inches, it has a resolution of 240x320 pixels. The matrix is ​​made using TFT technology and is capable of displaying up to 16 million colors. The graininess on the screen is not noticeable; the display shows a bright and contrasting picture. The display has a glossy surface, when you change the position, the screen can glare, in some positions the picture is practically invisible. The display accommodates up to eight text lines and up to three service lines.

The 5220 display is glare-free by covering the matrix with tinted glass.

The 5700 screen is equipped with a mirror backing, which allows you to work comfortably with the phone in any external conditions.

Camera Nokia 5320 XpressMusic

The device is equipped with a two megapixel camera module with LED flash, but no autofocus.

Dots on the body allow you to firmly hold the smartphone in your hands when shooting. In landscape position, the lens is not obstructed by your fingers. Photo mode is started using the button on the right side of the case. In low light, the camera creates a lot of noise, use does not solve this problem. The camera eye is not protected by a safety shutter, which increases the chances of damage to the eye. Using the rocker button, you can use the zoom function.

Photos taken with the Nokia 5320 XpressMusic camera:

The camera can shoot video in two resolutions 176x144 or 320x240 at 15 frames per second. In the video mode, there are all the same settings as in the photo mode.

Software part of Nokia 5320 XpressMusic

The software part of the Nokia 5320 XpressMusic phone is based on the Series 60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 operating system, and the hardware part on the ARM11 processor has a frequency of 369 MHz.

The interface design has been expanded in the operating system of this smartphone:

The phone has five preinstalled themes, and additional ones can be downloaded from the Internet.

The menu has four display modes: Icons, List, Horseshoe, V-shaped.

Very interesting is the display mode in the form of a horseshoe, in this case the icons are placed on the screen in the form of a three-dimensional horseshoe.

There is also an option - a V-shaped menu, as well as in the mode, the horseshoe icons of the left and right corners increase in the center of the display.

Options for displaying icons on the desktop:

When choosing a horizontal panel, all icons will be placed on the top of the display in horizontal order. Icons have no information about what is underneath.

The standard panel is a regular desktop with standard icons.

Vertical bar - when this mode is selected, all icons are displayed in a vertical column on the left side of the display.

Nokia panel - at the bottom of the screen there are any four icons from the main menu, when selected, the name of this shortcut is displayed in the center.

Background picture:

- by default, a background image from the active theme is displayed;

- when you select the image mode - you can set as a background any picture or photo that is saved in the phone;

- slide presentation - you can select any pictures and in the settings set the interval for changing them on the desktop.

Memory and file operations

The phone has 128 megabytes of RAM, 85 megabytes are available to the user when the phone is loaded. This is enough to keep about ten applications open at the same time.

The main memory is 140 megabytes. The phone can work with microSD cards. The smartphone comes with a 1 gigabyte card, the phone can work with cards up to 8 gigabytes without any difficulties.

As mentioned above, the memory card slot is located on the right side of the mobile phone, which cannot be opened without removing the battery cover. Hot swappable so the card can be inserted without removing the battery from the device.

Communications Nokia 5320 XpressMusic

The phone is equipped with a Bluetooth 2.0 module with EDR support. This module supports most of the known profiles.

The second communication medium in the Nokia 5320 XpressMusic is the USB cable, which provides file transfer speeds of up to 1Mb / s.

When connecting the cable to the computer, it is possible to choose four connection modes:

- PC Suite — this mode allows you to transfer files through Nokia PC Suite, the program can be found on the disc that comes with your mobile phone. With the help of this program, you can make backup copies of files, synchronize the phone book and much more;

- Mass Storage or Data Transfer - this mode allows access to all files located on the flash card and in the phone memory without installing additional drivers and software;

- Image Print - this mode allows you to connect your phone to print photos.

Our competitor, the 5700 phone, has an infrared port.

Nokia 5320 XpressMusic Apps

The smartphone has the following applications:

Quickoffice is an application designed to work with office documents Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Adobe Reader is a program for viewing PDF documents.

Mobile dictionary is an ordinary translator. You can also download additional packages for free.

Dictaphone - this application allows you to record voice notes and telephone conversations. The duration of the recording can only be limited by the capacity of the memory card.

Flash Player - allows you to view flash files.

RealPlayer is a program designed to play video files.

Music Player Nokia 5320 XpressMusic

The smartphone has two speakers, due to the close distance to each other, the effect of surround sound is almost imperceptible. The sound quality can be called normal, the speakers are loud enough, although if you set the volume closer to maximum, the smartphone suffocates from its own voice. The 5220 also has such a problem. But our other competitor, the 5700, has excellent and clear sound thanks to a separate chip for sound processing. You may ask why Nokia 5320 XpressMusic doesn't have a separate sound chip? The answer is simple, the manufacturer wanted to make the phone more affordable. The included headset does not sound as expected, so music lovers should immediately think about purchasing a more advanced headset.

The phone has a music player that can be controlled directly from the phone body.

The music player can be launched both from the main menu and by programming the button located above the phone screen. The player can play almost all known music formats. Music tracks can be sorted by artist, album, genre and composer.

The player has an eight-band equalizer, although it practically does not affect the quality of music playback. The 5700 has a slightly simpler equalizer.

We must not forget about such an interesting feature as the voice search for music (Nokia Say and Play).

With this function, you can start playing the desired track by saying its title or artist. The function is started by long pressing the Own button, which is located above the mobile phone screen. Music playback is available both from the memory of a mobile phone and from a memory card.

FM Radio Nokia 5320 XpressMusic

Your phone has a built-in FM radio with RDS support.

For the FM radio to work, you need to connect headphones, since the headset wire acts as an antenna for receiving a radio signal. To control the radio, you can also use the music keys, which are located on the body of the device. The play button allows you to turn the sound on and off, and the swipe buttons to switch between radio stations. While listening to the radio, you can make and receive calls. During a telephone conversation, the radio is automatically turned off, and after the end of the call, it turns on again.

Games in Nokia 5320 XpressMusic

The Nokia 5320 XpressMusic comes with several preinstalled games.

Marble Cannon - the goal of the game is to clear each round of colored balls by matching them in colors.

Jelly Chase - in this game, you need to collect bubbles in order to let the jellyfish move.

Groove Labyrinth - in this game you have to collect diamonds and control the ball in the labyrinths.

Guitar Rock - allows you to play notes by pressing certain buttons.

All the games presented above are not worth a separate discussion, since this smartphone supports games from N-Gage. You can download N-Gage from your computer or over the Internet. N-Gage games can only be launched in landscape orientation of the display, you can control games using the digital or navigation unit.

The N-Gage is a very tempting smartphone feature, but it will find its fans here due to its small display and small keys.

Nokia 5320 XpressMusic review summary

The Nokia 5320 XpressMusic phone can be called a kind of double-edged sword. On the one hand, we see a simple design, on the other, broad functionality. The advantages of this mobile phone are the ability to increase the memory up to 8 GB, a sufficiently capacious battery that allows you to listen to music for a whole day without additional recharging, a variety of ways to design this menu. The disadvantages include a small screen, simple phone appearance, low-quality headset, weak camera and low video resolution.

The price of the device fluctuates around 2000 hryvnia. And it is, today, quite adequate, although at such a cost for our device, you can find a stronger competitor. In general, fans of the products of this company will appreciate this model with dignity.

Pros of Nokia 5320 XpressMusic:

- the device is a smartphone based on S60v3;

- support for memory cards up to 8 GB;

- normal sound quality through external speakers;

- support for games on the N-Gage platform;

- a sufficiently capacious battery;

- normal build quality;

Cons of Nokia 5320 XpressMusic:

- small screen diagonal;

- inexpensive body materials;

- camera quality is below average;

- poor sound in standard headphones.

You can buy the Nokia 5320 XpressMusic phone in our online store at a special price.

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