25 August 2009

First Nokia 5230 Promo Video
And My Thoughts On The Phone Itself

As most of you should know by now, Nokia today announced the 5230, pretty cheap and affordable full-touchscreen phone and to be really honest with you I’m not impressed with the phone at all!

What annoyed me more than anything about it is fact that Nokia 5230 is nothing but yet another brick embedded in the wall made of Nokia 5800 XpressMusic clones packed into slightly redesigned body with a slightly different set of features.

Same as its predecessors, company's first 5th edition device (5800) and its cut down 3G-less and GPS-less version (5530), the Wi-Fi-less Nokia 5230 aims to bring the joy of touch screen technology to the masses and the only problem is that in this case masses will be confused and lose confidence in the company's ability to prosper and create innovative products instead of releasing numerous similar devices based on the same platform.

The phone itself is incredibly similar to the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic but it lacks the Wi-Fi and is equipped with a outdated 2-megapixel camera but with expected price of just €149 (before subsidies and taxes) it is perhaps the one of the cheapest 3G touchscreen devices yet and we can hardly complain about anything.

It's not all that bad, of course. Phone has an impressive battery life and is capable to provide 33 hours of playback and in some markets will come with an unlimited Comes With Music offering with the price of 259 Euros, which is a whopping €110 more than non CWM variant.

There is an also standard audio 3.5mm connector, HSDPA data connectivity, Assisted GPS, Symbian^1 OS, Shortcuts and Media bar with quick access to 20 favourite contacts and applications.

The Nokia 5230 is expected to begin shipping in the fourth quarter of 2009.