Review: Nokia 5230

Nokia 5230 Review

Phone rating:

In a nutshell: The 5230 is an entry-level touchscreen smartphone. Its key features are its large touchscreen, A-GPS with Ovi Maps, 3G, downloadable apps from the Ovi store and outstanding battery life. In other ways it's a disappointment, with a poor camera, a mono speaker, no WiFi and no video calling. We think that the 5530 offers a more rounded package, but otherwise it's a good addition to Nokia's range.
Best buy: *Free* with free line rental or a free Dell Mini Netbook from Dialaphone (Black) or Mobiles.co.uk (White) or Mobiles.co.uk (Pink); or £99.95 on PAYG from Mobiles.co.uk (Black, Pink or White) or £99.95 from Dialaphone (Black, Purple or White).

Review: January 2010.

The 5230 sits alongside the Nokia 5530 in Nokia's growing range of entry-level touchscreen smartphones. You might think that the 5230 lies below the 5530, but that's not exactly true. They cost the same on contract (i.e. free at around the £15 per month level), and offer similar but complementary features. The 5230 and the 5530 enjoy a peculiar relationship: if one phone lacks a particular feature, you can bet that the other has it, and vice versa. So the 5230 has 3G, but is missing WiFi. It has an A-GPS receiver, but its camera is rubbish. Its display is larger than the 5530's, but the phone is bigger and heavier too. Are you getting the picture?

Let's rewind this review and get back to basics. The 5230 is a Symbian S60 smartphone targeted at pay as you go and contract users looking to pay no more than £15 a month. That's a big market, and we expect the 5230 to be a relatively high volume handset. The good news is that it's the latest in a series of similar phones, so you can be confident that the bugs have been ironed out of the firmware and that the phone will work.

Physically, the phone looks almost exactly like the Nokia 5800, which is the Daddy of this type of handset. That's a good thing too, because it means that you get a very large 3.2 inch display, with a high resolution of 640 x 360 pixels. That's not quite as many inches as an iPhone, but its more pixels, so that you can tell that to your iPhone-owning mates! It's a resistive touchscreen, which isn't as smooth as the capacitative type, but it works well enough and has the advantage of coming with a stylus. The display is fantastic for web browsing, multimedia and simply working with menus. It's a larger phone than the 5530, but that's because of the larger screen and bigger battery inside.

The 5230 is a 3G phone, unlike the 5530, and has high-speed HSDPA, offering download speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps. It is missing WiFi however, so if WiFi matters more to you than 3G, choose the 5530 instead. If you really need both, choose the 5800. It does however have Bluetooth and USB connectivity.

The 5230 is not branded as an XpressMusic phone, and it lacks stereo speakers. But it does have a music player, FM radio and a 3.5mm audio jack. It also has the bonus feature of an A-GPS receiver, with Ovi Maps supplied.

The most disappointing feature of the phone is probably its sub-standard camera. With just 2 megapixels and no flash or autofocus, this is suitable only for quick snaps. The video camera is better, but with no video calling option. The poor camera is the phone's weakest feature and is probably the biggest reason for choosing the 5530 instead.

The phone comes with a respectable 70 MB of memory and this can be expanded to 16GB by adding a microSD memory card. Sadly, you won't find one of these in the box, so be prepared to fork out a few quid for one of these. You might also need to buy a USB cable too, as this isn't included either.

We mentioned that the 5230 weighs more than the 5530. The main reason for this is probably the increased battery size. The 5230 enjoys excellent battery life as a result.

It's a funny one, the 5230. It has some great features: the large touchscreen display, Ovi Store for apps, 3G, GPS, superb battery life. But it also has some disappointments: no WiFi, no video calling, an awful camera, and an unexceptional music player. Still, if you're looking for a touchscreen smartphone, there aren't many in the price range, and the 5230 expands the choice available.

Features of the Nokia 5230 include:

• Symbian S60 5th edition smartphone
• 2 megapixel camera with 3x digital zoom
• Video recording at up to VGA resolution and up to 30 fps, 4x digital video zoom
• Display: Touchscreen, 16.7 million colours, 640 x 360 pixels (3.2 inches) with automatic display rotation and proximity sensor
• Nokia Ovi player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA formats)
• FM radio
• Ringtones: MP3 & video ringtones, 64-voice polyphonic ringtones, vibration alert
• A-GPS with Ovi Maps 3.0
• Voice commands: speaker independent dialling and voice commands
• Voice recorder
• Integrated handsfree speaker
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, email (support for IMAP, POP, SMTP) plus attachments, Audio messaging
• Internet: HSCSD, GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA (3.6 Mbps), XHTML web browser
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0, micro USB 2.0, 3.5 mm audio jack, 2.5 mm Nokia AV connector
• Memory: 70 Mbytes plus microSD memory card slot (up to 16 GB supported)
• Offline mode
• 3G plus quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• Size: 111 x 52 x 16 mm
• Weight: 113g
• Talktime: up to 7 hours
• Battery standby: 450 hours
• Music playback: up to 33 hours

Nokia 5230 Consumer Reviews

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Average rating from 13 reviews:

Reviewed by Jan from United Kingdom on 12th Mar 2010
Can anyone tell me how I link the phone to my in car phone device? Other than that - I love the phone and the texting is great!
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Reviewed by Andrew from KSA on 9th Mar 2010
I totally disagree with SYL's comments below. He is very unfair to have written such comments about a very good phone considering the features it delivers for a very cheap price. This is a very good phone and I recommend it to anyone who plans to buy it. I own one already and I really love this mainly because of it's price. I was really surprised to see the the useful features of the phone when I started using it. I am not planning for a detailed review here, but trust me; it is a very good phone. The 3G and internet connectivity is great.
Rating:

Reviewed by Pat from UK on 8th Mar 2010
UPDATE...Took the phone back to Carphone Warehouse, they tried a second 5230 which had the same problems. I chose a Sony Ericsson W595 instead (My girlfriend has one and it works fine). I had to go to a different branch of Carphone Warehouse for the Sony and they said they had heard of the problem I had with the Nokia 5230 and O2, Pity the first branch didn't think I needed to know that before I bought it!!! I did like the phone, the screen is clear and bright and even with my fat fingers worked a treat,qwerty keyboard cool and the music player is good. It's just a pity I couldn't get the Apps to work because that was one of the reasons why I bought the phone. I Still don't know if it's the phone or O2 so my score still stands
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Reviewed by Stuart from UK on 8th Mar 2010
Got this phone form Carphone Warehouse, with low priced contract including free internet. It is pretty good, not an iPhone but a fraction of the cost. Had the same problem as others downloading maps via my PC & USB. So, left it 30 mins and tried again - all OK. Given free maps for the whole planet this is hard to beat, though it isn't as easy to operate as Tom Tom. Those experiencing problems with Internet access probably have not had all of the necessary config messages downloaded. There are several to work through, then all will be OK. No flash on camera but perfectly good for snaps and short videos. Put a 2GB card in and this phone does everything pretty well.
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Reviewed by SYL from UK on 7th Mar 2010
BOUGHT THIS PHONE A COUPLE OF MONTHS BACK AND WISH I HAD.NT BOTHERED. I LIKE NOKIA BECAUSE THEY ARE EASY TO GET AROUND BUT IF YOU LIKE TO TEXT THIS TAKES AGES ON THIS PHONE...FOR A 3G ITS PRETTY SLOW CONNECTING TO INTERNET AT TIMES...THE CAMERA IS THE WORST I HAVE EVER COME ACROSS..IS HAS A NICE FEEL TO THE PHONE AND THE MP PLAYER IS VERY GOOD..WHEN I BOUGHT THIS THERE WAS NO REVIEWS GOING TO CHANGE THIS AS SOON AS I CAN....HOPE THIS HELPS ANYONE THATS INTERESTED IN THIS PHONE
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Reviewed by ahmed from uk on 6th Mar 2010
this phone is just absouloutly wicked
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Reviewed by Gav from UK on 4th Mar 2010
I always read this site before I ever buy a phone so thought it was time to add a review. This phone is great and easy to use apart from the problems mentioned before.....I can't get onto ovi maps either, maybe it's because I use a pay and go sim card....who knows. Apart from that what else can you get this size screen (3.2 inches) on anything under £100. Mine didn't come with a stylus as stated but that's not a problem as the screen is large enough to use even with my large digits. Texting is a dream on the large screen better than the LG Cookie I had before (which actually put me off touch screens until I saw this). I would recommend downloading Opera Mini to use as your browser as it's just like any PC browser and is very reliable. There are plenty of free Apps from the ovi store, some very useful some just pointless but fun to use. Excellent....
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Reviewed by Mark from uk on 2nd Mar 2010
I've got exactly the same problem as Pat when it comes to trying to download anything or access youtube, I'm going to see if I can take it back
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Reviewed by Matt from Uk on 28th Feb 2010
This phone is amazing!!!!! i've had it for almost a week from the carphone warehouse on orange and it is great!! ok it isnt the nokia n900 but at 1/5 the price it doesnt need to be. the apps are really good and the touchscreen is really easy to use, as well as being great quality. it doesnt freeze or have any bugs. the 3g is really helpful and because i use it for texting the qwerty keypad comes in very handy. however the camra is just about ok and the memory is eaten up really quick so i would recomend a memory card. other than that, amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Reviewed by Pat from UK on 24th Feb 2010
Bought the 5230 from Carphone yesterday and I really liked it till i tried to use ovi maps...No luck, no matter what i do it gets stuck in a loop saying it can't connect to the internet,even though i can open the O2 home page no problem, so i tried UTube that gets as far as the point where u pick a video to watch, then the phone say i have to many connections open, then picks the only connection that i have with O2 and shuts that down, result no internet????? This phone is driving me nuts.... rang Nokia they say to download a software update but when i checked on their website the phone has the latest software, rang O2 waited for 35mins at 5p a min for them to say take it to one of their shops so they can try to get it working.... the only place this phone is going is right back to carphone warehouse. Not sure if it's a problem with the phone or O2 so im not going to mark it down to far .
Rating:

Reviewed by Mark M from UK on 17th Feb 2010
Had the 5230 ten days now. It really is great value from Nokia. Large clear screen and a good UI.Good calling/texting and music player and nice radio. Feels good in the hand and no problems apart from trying to download sat nav from ovi. I am no techy though. Yes the camera is dissapointingand but ok for quick snaps. Otherwise a very good entry level touchscreen. We buyers are spoilt for choice. I have this on contract with Carphone W.200 mins and texts and free web for £12 pm. A true Bargain !
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Reviewed by emanuel from london on 13th Feb 2010
its been a week since got this phone, its brilliant, i stay up all night using the browser, the download speed is beautiful and for the price thats amazing. Yu get bare free applications from the ovi. Yu must get this phone if you see this page.
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Reviewed by Ric from England on 24th Jan 2010
Ok!!! Great phone!!! I have it for a week now on Vodafone and i am very pleased!!! I had a 5800 before and apart the camera and not having wifi they are the same!!! This handset is fast,no freezes,excellent sound and loads of applications!!! The A-GPS is great plus you will get FREE navigation from Nokia Ovi Maps!!! Think that deserves another star!!!
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