Nokia 5300: A first look

[Treatz]

I had the pleasure of using a Nokia 5300 over a 3 day weekend for a first look and wanted to write up my experiences. I’d like to thank Nokia Canada for allowing me to use the phone for the weekend.

Please note
This is a beta product and as such my usual review will not be applied here.
This is just a heads up to what’s coming from this unit on the Rogers lineup in February.
I will do a full review once I obtain a retail 5300

First Impressions
quick specs
Triband NA 850/1800/1900
262k QVGA screen
Series 40 3rd generation
USB connector for Media transferring
Rubberized sides and back
Class 10 EDGE
USB 2.0

physical look and feel
The first thing that came to mind when I held the phone was that it looked rugged. People that saw the phone over the weekend had varying comments as well ranging from “cool” to “kiddish”



The 5300 that I had access to was well built. All the lines flowed nicely and there were no huge gaps or looseness in the battery cover or build quality of the phone. This is what impressed me the most because the 5300 I used was definitely not new. It had most definitely been passed around as evidenced by a little paint wearing off the END button.




Slide
Even after all the usage this demo received the slide mechanism had positive action in both directions and the phone didn’t creak and moan like some other phones as they age.
The Slide answered / Hung up on callers when opened and closed. What it didn’t do, nowever, was cancel out of what you were doing and return you to the home screen. I would compose a SMS for example, send the message, slide it shut and the send dialog box would still be there until I pressed end. I don’t’ know if the retail, finalized version of the 5300 will continue to to this or not, but if it hasn’t been decided I think the option would be great. Just like you can set the slide option to answer/hang up to on/off The ability to cancel all of what you were doing when you close the slider should also have an option so you can turn that on if you like, or turn if off if you don’t.



Volumes earpiece / loudspeaker
The 5300 is LOUD
The earpiece was nice and loud, but had a slight hiss. Whether or not this shows up on the retail piece I’ll know later. The speakerphone and external ringtone volume of this unit was ridiculously loud. W600 loud. You’ll easily be able to hear this phone ring in a noisy environment and on top of this, the classic Nokia AGC (automatic gain control) appears to make it’s appearance in this handset as well boosting the volume of the earpiece in noisy enviroments.

For those of you looking for the next loud phone similar to the W600 the Nokia 5300 should fit that bill.

Aesthetics
Screen
The screen on the 5300 is a nice large QVGA (240x320) unit that display’s colour and text brilliantly. It’s also a reflective unit as most Nokia handsets and can be seen outside and in sunlight.

Keypad
The keypad was excellent. Nice big keys, easy to feel out and easy to use. They pressed just enough for my liking and provided enough tactile feel.

Camera
The Camera on the 5300 is a 1.3mpix unit that took a decent picture and has nokia’s famous nightshot as well. While this isn’t a finilazed unit I don’t think the camera will get worst with retail SW so here’s 2 shots. One with se K510 and the other the nokia 5300:

K510:


5300


Size
The size of the 5300 is medium. It’s not tiny, but it’s not huge either.
I like it personally.
Take a look @ this comparison:



General comments and usage
After using the 5300 proto for a weekend it’s clear that, even in proto form, the 5300 will polish up to be a nice device. At $79.99 on a 3 year term with a 1 gig mem card on the Rogers memory offer you can’t go wrong.

The 5300 / 6085 also allow you to turn the phone on without a sim card inserted. This is an extention of the Plane profile, but still a good feature to have so you don’t need to insert a dummy/dead sim when you want to demo this phone to customers or your friends. For example.

Final Thoughts
After using the proto for the weekend it worked well for me.
Battery life was average but I’ll touch on this with the full retail review as this, again was proto. The RF seemed fine with no issues and the keypad and slide mechanism were quality pieces. I took quite a liking to this phone and look forward to it’s full review in the coming weeks.

[faibs]

nice review treatz, how was t9? same as nokia has been lately? does it have that t9 memory of words used most often, ie good gone home

[Treatz]

the T9 appeard to remember custom words on the 1st of 2nd try which is a welcome change

[JP]

Wirelessly posted (The Eliteness: SonyEricssonK790a/R1EG Browser/NetFront/3.3 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

Nice first look. Sounds like the phone raised the bar for that niche of music phones so that's always a welcome change.
I like that sizeasy website comparison.....doesn't get much better than that.....

[zerilos]

So those Rogers branded ones will be the first 5300s with 850, right? As far as I've seen, all the ones out there are all 900/1800/1900 triband. Feel free to prove me wrong though

[Treatz]

Wirelessly posted (SonyEricssonW810i/R4EA Browser/NetFront/3.3 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UP.Link/6.2.3.15.0)

So those Rogers branded ones will be the first 5300s with 850, right? As far as I've seen, all the ones out there are all 900/1800/1900 triband. Feel free to prove me wrong though

Yup. 5300b. Gsm 850

[Moderator HF 25]

5300b = RM-147
http://nds1.nokia.com/declaration_of...RM-147_DoC.pdf

[Chillin]

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Sweet. Looks very good.

Can you confirm that the b also has the standard 2.5mm headset connector, so we can use our motorola/blackberry/audiovox/Treo/HP/HTC/etc. Headsets with it?

[fidorulz]

Ya but like the 6111 when I played with the 5300 from rogers the antenna is located on bottom of the back of the phone right under the keypad. As such by holding it normally when texting or even when doing something with the keypad signal would drop.

It was a pain to remove the back cover at first to access the SIM card compartment I dont know if yours has the same issue. Lastly did you notice the rogers music store app in the phone?

[MrWizard87]

Nice review. Great price point.

Not a big fan of the appearance, looks a little "kiddish" as you put it, but it's a decent little phone.

[Chillin]

Ya but like the 6111 when I played with the 5300 from rogers the antenna is located on bottom of the back of the phone right under the keypad. As such by holding it normally when texting or even when doing something with the keypad signal would drop.

It was a pain to remove the back cover at first to access the SIM card compartment I dont know if yours has the same issue. Lastly did you notice the rogers music store app in the phone?

That is the best place for the antenna on a slider.

[Treatz]

Wirelessly posted (SonyEricssonW810i/R4CE Browser/NetFront/3.3 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UP.Link/6.2.3.15.0)

Sweet. Looks very good.

Can you confirm that the b also has the standard 2.5mm headset connector, so we can use our motorola/blackberry/audiovox/Treo/HP/HTC/etc. Headsets with it?

it's a 2.5 connector, ya but i didn't actually have time to use it.

[Chillin]

it's a 2.5 connector, ya but i didn't actually have time to use it.

Cool, that's good.

I Hate pop-ports and adapters.

[HC - NO "i"]

Wirelessly posted (SonyEricssonW810i/R4CE Browser/NetFront/3.3 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UP.Link/6.2.3.15.0)

Sweet. Looks very good.

Can you confirm that the b also has the standard 2.5mm headset connector, so we can use our motorola/blackberry/audiovox/Treo/HP/HTC/etc. Headsets with it?

Chillin,

It uses the new Nokia A/V connector (2.5mm jack). However, I have already tried the Treo corded headset (3185WW), it works. Anyway, the non-b APAC variant in Hong Kong comes with a 2.5 > 3.5mm headset adapter but I believe all variants should have the adapter in the package. But like you mentioned, I do not like that L-shaped adapter too even though it is not quite intrusive but still clumsy.

[Chillin]

Chillin,

It uses the new Nokia A/V connector (2.5mm jack). However, I have already tried the Treo corded headset (3185WW), it works. Anyway, the non-b APAC variant in Hong Kong comes with a 2.5 > 3.5mm headset adapter but I believe all variants should have the adapter in the package. But like you mentioned, I do not like that L-shaped adapter too even though it is not quite intrusive but still clumsy.

Cool, thx for the info. That is good to hear.