Nokia 5300

Connectivity is good – a standard 3.5mm audio jack adapter, stereo Bluetooth, mini-USB, the screen is a pleasant QVGA display, and there’s a 1.3mp camera with 8x digital zoom on board.

In fact the camera isn’t great – no LED flash, low-quality video recording, distinctly iffy image quality on stills – and overall the handset looks a bit cheap. But as a music player it looks a reasonable proposition. Apart from the headphone support, there’s a microSD memory card slot (hot-swappable) and a revamped music player – a pretty good one, too, with playlists and a usable equalizer. One drawback: once you’ve added tracks to a playlist, you cannot add any more in the future to that playlist.

 

It’s a bit bulky but perfectly comfortable in the hand. The highly configurable S40 user interface is at least as good as the Sony Ericsson alternative, with good menu organization and logically detailed functions.

 

If you like the sporty design, the 5300 is an attractive proposition to offer music fans.

 

• Not quite a Walkman beater, but fun and cheap

 

 

SPECIFICATION
Size
Length 92.4mm
Width 48.2mm
Depth 20.7mm
Weight
106g
Main display
TFT, 262K colours, 240x320 pixels,
31x42mm
Camera
1.3MP, 8x digital zoom, video (QCIF)
Connectivity
Triband GSM, USB, Bluetooth 2.0
Battery
Standby 223h
Talk time 3h10
Features
Music player, stereo FM radio, microSD memory card slot