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
Love
your mobile? Hate it? Please share your experiences to help other
people choose the phone that's best for them. Please do not review
this phone if you have not used it. This is a review site, not a
forum, so please don't just ask questions. Please do not use swear
words or offensive language, and please, no advertising!
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! Rating:
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 Rating:
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. Rating:
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 Rating:
Reviewed by ahmed from uk on
6th Mar 2010
this phone is just absouloutly wicked Rating:
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.... Rating:
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 Rating:
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rating:
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 ! Rating:
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. Rating:
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!!! Rating: