Reviews and tests | Nokia 5310 XpressMusic in the Spotlight

We have already given a pretty accurate description of the company's market policy regarding the production of music-oriented mobile solutions and a number of tendencies involving the creation and further development of a fully independent and self-sufficient seris of musical products were discussed, namely the methods that Nokia employ to reach the closest possible distance between their market positioning and actual functionality. The 5310 and 5610 models are the first ever original and self-sufficient music phones by Nokia, which is achieved through a number of well-balanced features: the convenient playback controls, loud sound sporting a really fine quality, the long battery life (especially when it comes to the continuous music playback cycle!) and so on.

The competitors can't offer anything of the kind, save for half a handful of rare exceptions. The Motorola company, for instance, have a good experience of designing musical solutions (high quality components plus innovative control elements) but for the time being nothing that could compete with Nokia's latest musical products can be found in Motorola's portfolio, the situation is due to some serious changes by the beginning of 2008, yet the company will still remain the one who's running right after Nokia, not the vice versa way. It will take Motorola for quite a while to finally become able to offer a portfolio as abundant as that of Nokia in this product segment. SonyEricsson still retains the crown of world's leading music phone producer, but this leadership is becoming little more than a mere formality: the company offers a lot of presumably music-oriented models aggresively backed up by a fullscale advertising campaign and the ever-present Walkman brand, but when it comes to real life we face nothing but a huge disappointment: all of the latest Walkmans fail the competition with comparable models by Nokia in terms of audio quality, ergonomics so the company is on the brink of facing a really large risk of losing much of its reputation as the leading music phone producer. Unlike SonyEricsson, the Samsung deserve a lot more respect in this area: it's not only the advertising that they actively use to push into the music phone market segment, but also the high quality of hardware components, comfortable controls and high ergonomics of their latest music-oriented models. The music-oriented flagship Samsung i450 is probably the most attractive offer of the beginning of 2008 in its segment, but a single product can hardly pose any challenge to a whole line of well-designed musical solutions like Nokia's latest offers.

So summing the above mentioned facts up, Nokia appears to be the strongest player in the segment of music-oriented solutions right now, and their key to success is the recently finalized line of music phones embracing nearly all available market niches. The more such models appear, the stronger the company hold their ground/

Right now Nokia 5310 XpressMusic is the series' most affordable offer, its price is 100 euros lower than 5610 and 5700, but at the same time the musical capabilities retain the same level, no compromise on this front at all. That effectively means an audio quality no lower than that of Nokia 6500 Classic (and maybe even higher), a maximized mp3 playback cycle when it comes to battery life and comfortable player controls. Effectively the model is a musical incarnation of Nokia 6500 classic, sporting more ergonomics and balance between the functionality and the price.

Thus sporting characteristics like that (and combined with a price quite affordable to the target audience) Nokia 5310 makes one of the best solutions available in this segment. A perfect balance between the price and the functionality is achieved, the handset is very slim, compact-sized and brightly coloured, the controls are very usable and the audio quality is unbelievably high for such a price - an evident bestseller.

The model makes use of the candy bar form factor, the thickness is mere 9.9 mm. The dimensions are very compact and so is the weight, once you put it into the pocket you can hardly feel it resting there. That's just the way a perfect music phone should be - small and light, easily carriable even in the smallest pocket.

The design of Nokia 5310 is more on the neutral side than flashy. The bright small pieces of red or blue color are still harmonical with the rest of the elements; these insertions are made from painted aluminium, the paint is strong enough to have endured a few weeks of testing without even the slightest scratch or worn spot appearing over the course of tests.

The build quality is rather high, there's no play between the parts and the body doesn't screech even if squeezed hard. The quality of the plastic is quite sufficient, the most part of the phone's surface sports a matte texture resistant to fingerprints. The back panel is made of durable dark grey plastic with a dotted texture and a subtle relief which help to conceal the scratches and worn spots, and also gives the device some intriguing and original looks. The back panel hosts the camera lens (2 Mp), there are neither a flash nor a lens guard. The camera module is quite cheap, the same is used in Nokia 6300, 6500 Classic, 7500 Prism and a number of other Nokia handsets not focused on the imaging aspect. The back surface is also the home to the polyphonic speaker. The company claims some stereo capability for these model, though in reality it's hardly perceptible and in a way muffled, soundling much like mono.

The side edges of the handset, the top edge to be more precise, are more abundant in details. The 3.5 mm standard headset jack is located there, you can use almost any headset with this phone. This standartization is only to the benefit of any music phone since the customer isn't limited to using only the headset that came in the box. The location of the jack is also quite well-thought, due to it you experience no discomfort when carriyng the phone in the pocket with the headset plugged in. A certain question arises, what on earth makes other companies move the headset jack to one of the side edges where it can pose certain discomfort? As compared to SonyEricsson W880i and the rest of the recent SE phones, Nokia 5310 seems to be far more useable and ergonomically trouble-free. Of course, ergonomics is quite a subjective factor, but placing the headset jack on the side is something that is reported to be a really bad idea by a large number of buyers, leading to certain inconveniences while the handset is carried in the pocket. In addition to the headset jack, the top edge hosts the microUSB port protected with a plastic flap, it's fully analogous to the same element of 6500 Classic. The profile switch button is found right nearby.

The bottom edge is completely deprived of any control elements or slots, the right edge hosts the volume rocker (with a wristband holder nearby), the left edge is the base to the slim charger slot. The memory card slot is hidden beneath the battery cover, hot swapping is possible. The device supports card capacities up to 4 Gb, and the common sales package includes a 2 Gb memory card.

The keyboard is quite traditional, made from smooth black plastic. The buttons are big and easy to press, the keystroke is firm and the feedback is accurate, the backlighting is of a white color. The navigation button uses the same material, it's also easy to operate and poses no problems at all. In addition to the traditional set of buttons, to the left of the screen the three dedicated player control buttons reside, those are made of plastic unlike what we observed with the 5300 models, they're quite comfortable to operate too. The dedicated controls retain their functionality regardless of the currently launched application, i.e. even if you're typing an SMS message or browsing through menus these buttons still work as they're supposed to in the player mode, it's possible to switch the tracks anytime. In the standby mode, the player is launched by pressing the central Play/Pause button.

The screen is of a standart type common for the latest generation of Nokia phones, effectively being a two-inch QVGA matrix powered by the TFT technology, with a pallete of up to 16M colors. The matrix quality is very high, being one of the best found in its class. Comparing the screen to that of SonyEricsson W880i, it becomes evident that both feature almost the same high level of quality, but the advantage (because of a larger diagonal) still belongs to 5310. The brightness levels are automatically adjusted by the integrated luminance sensor (located near the speaker), this element is increasingly becoming a common feature of all the Nokia casual phones (earlier found mainly with smartphones, but things seem to have changed). The mirror backing of the screen matrix eliminates the inconveniences potentially posed by the direct sunlight, the latest Nokia phones are the evident leaders in this aspect. Even while exposed to direct sunlight, the screen remains perfectly legible no matter how hard the light is. <;br>

The model utilizes a battery of an innovative type, that is BL-4CT 860 mAh, as claimed by the manufacturer its full charge is sufficient to provide a total of 12,5 days of standby or 4,3 hours of talk time, in reality that stands for about two days of moderate usage (up to one hour of talk, an hour and a half of working with camera and the menus and two or three hours of listening to the music). Quite a decent result yet nothing above this.

But as for the mp3 playback, the results become more impressive. The thing is that the 5610 on par with 5310 are the next-gen music phones, and the engineers had total success in saving the charge whenever possible, resulting in very low consumption rates during continous mp3 playback cycle. Probably the cause for this is the dedicated DSP (Digital Signal Processor) of a new type which also includes an energy saving chip. While listening to the music only (with the rest of the features unused or turned off), Nokia 5610 stood for about 20 hours without recharging (the company claim some 22 hours), and Nokia 5310 was able to stand for 18 hours 40 minutes of continuous mp3 playback without recharging, which is an astonishing achievement for a handset as slim and compact as that. This is sure to satisfy the absolute majority of consumers, and makes a good start for the future Nokia models which deal with music which are bound to feature comparable values in this area. The three aspects became primary for the Nokia engineers when it comes to musical gadgets: the battery life, the audio quality and the usability of controls.

«Nokia 5310 was able to stand for 18 hours 40 minutes of continuous mp3 playback without recharging»

Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Battery

The type of interface slot used in Nokia 5310 (just like in 6500 Slide and all the newer models) is microUSB, the slot is placed at the top edge of the body. The MicroUSB data cable is found in the sales package. The slot isn't protected by a flap or something. The data transfer rate is comparable to the majority of devices utilizing the microUSB standard, for instance a simple file copy test produced a result of 650 Kb/s. The USB protocol version is 2.0, the Mass Storage mode is fully supported, you can choose out of the following modes: Mass Storage, PC Suite, Modem Connection. The handset doesn't go offline when used in the Mass Storage mode which is an evident plus. Unlike 6500, the phone doesn't recharge when plugged to the PC via cable.

The device is designed to operate in GSM 850/900/1800/1900 networks as well as in WCDMA 850/2100 ones, there are no differences from 6500 Slide here. Both GPRS and EDGE Class 10 are supported.

The Bluetooth protocol version is 2.0 + EDR, all of the main profiles are supported: AVRCP, DUN, FTP, GAP, GAVDP, GOEP, HFP, HSP, OPP, SAP, SDAP, SPP, A2DP. The availability of the A2DP profile allows the usage of a wireless stereo headset - a feature standard for a modern handset. The extras include the adjustable Bluetooth visibility timeout (varying from one minute to one hour), however there's no setting that would allow to automatically shut down the running Bluetooth service completely after a specified period of time.

Nokia 5310 Xpress Music, in a manner similar to the rest of the latest Nokia phones, is based off the fifth revision of the Series 40 hardware platform. A series of previous articles contained detailed explanations of the features found with S40v5, and the 5610 is not an exeption. The only thing that differs is the graphical representation of the application interfaces, and for the rest all the features are virtually the same. In order to keep a consistent theme linking the exterior design with the menu graphics, the Nokia designers did their best at picking a style and a color scheme for the menus, the player and the radio skins that would complement the exterior, for instance the black-and-blue version of the handset has the black and blue colors dominating in all the preinstalled menu themes and player skins, and this is perfectly true for the black-and-red version as well. The themes look quite harmonical and aren't to flashy. Each theme comes with a unique screensaver.

Series 40 v5 was announced on May 7, 2007. Among the key features the latest MIDP upgrade (2.1) and JSR-248 support were mentioned. Upon the first glance, the differences aren't that noticeable in comparison with the previous revisions and might appear totally inperceptible to the user, but from the developer's point of view it's a great step forward. JSR-248 was finalized by the end of 2006 (on December, 21 the final build was finished) with the backup of Vodafone who helped to develop a Java specifications package universally compatible with all kinds of third-party software. JSR-248 is also regarded as one of the key elements of the S60 platform effectively providing a high level of mutual compatibility between software developed for the S40 and S60 Series products.

The MIDP 2.1 update also allows the complementary use of dedicated multimedia controls in miscellaneous Java applications (for instance, Nokia 5300 can't have its buttons acting as controls anywhere outside the corresponding media applications, but this limitation won't apply in any of the future models).

The following features were added as compared to the previous revision of the platform: Java APIs for Bluetooth (JSR-82) were updated to v1.1; Mobile Media API (JSR-135) gained access to the radio and a number of other multimedia aspects that can now be fully engaged in Java applications; the introduction of the SATSA-CRYPT0 package in the Security and Trust Services API (JSR-177); enhanced 3D sound support for Java applications (JSR-234); Adope Flash Lite player updated to v2.1.

The changes are quite significant, the main focus being the higher compatibility between applications and platforms alike. The software support for dedicated media controls as secondary controls in miscellaneous applications is another great step forward. The future feature packs are estimated to extend the functionality of the fifth revision of the platform even further though no radical changes can be expected.

As for the finished product, it won't appear to the end user anywhere different from the previous versions of the platform. The user interface has undergone almost no changes. The player and the radio get a few extra features though all the controls remain the same, and the Go-To active standby mode isn't changed at all - however its possibilites are already maximized at the moment, so wishing more hardly makes any sense. If you don't like lots of indicators and shorcuts on your mobile desktop during standby, the active standby mode can be manually deactivated.

In the standard view the active standby mode engages a row of icons serving as shortcuts to 5 applications (the number is customizable and the icon bar is scrollable, should there be too many icons to be displayed on the screen simultaneously). It's needless to say that it's absolutely up to the user to select the applications regardless of their native or third-party status. For instance, a custom ICQ client can be as easily given a shortcut on the bar as an embedded function like the Galley. Up to three applications can be set to submit statistical data to the screen while in the active standby mode. By default, these are the mp3 player/radio, calendar and reminders. The player shows the current playback status, the calendar displays the daily schedule and current tasks (and is also browsable with the navigation button without having to interrupt the standby status, just press left and right to scroll through event records associated with the current date). The reminder is just a custom piece of text which stays on during standby. The rest of applications which can submit stats to the screen include the timer, the regular status indicators and the My Presence application. The order in which the data tabs follow is also customizable, and the number of lines can be decreased at will. In other words, everything is fully customizable, ranging from an empty to an info-packed screen in the standby mode. The Active menu is an addition to the active standby mode, which also hosts a number of application bookmarks.

The main menu, similar to a number of newer Nokia models, has a total of four viewing modes available: list, icons, footnoted icons, tabs. The regular list and icons aren't much of a sensation though the two latter modes are quite interesting and new. The font size is only customizable for the three applications: Messages, Contacts and Internet, just as it used to. Quick jumping between the icons is done by pressing the associated numeric keys or via the voice control feature, which doesn't require any learning curve.

The menu items can be swapped in a custom order (though sumbenu items are tightly fixed so you won't be able to customize the order for them). Almost any function can be accessed through a couple of keystrokes, this is equally true for the active standby mode which reserves three directions of the navigation button for acting as application shortcuts and the fourth direction serves to browse through the Go-To tabs.

The phonebook capacity didn't change from Series 40 v5 and is limited to 1000 contact records, each record can store up to 5 phone numbers. The contact memory isn't dynamical, once you add a contact record with a single associated phone number it eats up a full one cell in the memory - just as much as a record with 5 phone numbers would take. However a 1000 record limit practically means no limits for most humans - even the businessmen hardly ever happen to have more than two hundred contacts in their phonebooks. The five phone numbers are Generic, Cell Phone, Home, Video, Work and Fax. The Address field prompts you to specify the street/city/region/ZIP code/country formula, the e-mail field does just what its name suggests, the online/offline status indicator is quite self-explaining, the note field stores a short text note, the image option allows to assign a picture to the contact record, and the video option does the same but lets using a video. Each contact record can be given an individual ringtone.

There are three viewmodes available for the contact book - List of Names, Name and Number, Name and Picture. The call icon size is rather large and can actually take up almost the whole screen with the person's name and number displayed overriding this picture when an incoming call pops up. If the picture is too bright, you risk not being able to see those clearly. The VideoID function means that a custom video clip can be set for playing each time this particular person calls you. If both a picture and a video are specified, the video is preferred, and the ringtone is replaced for the video's soundtrack.

Up to 25 user groups can be created in the phonebook, though no group presets are available. A single contact can be a member of more than one group. If a contact has a specific ringtone associated, this will override the group's ringtone. The group affiliation is indicated right in the contacts list, indicated by a corresponding icon. The speed dial is quite a standard feature, the numericals from 2 to 9 are used as the shortcuts.

The call log shows all types of calls, - that is dialed, received, missed alike, - and every call record comes with a small icon which indicates the call type. That's quite practical, you can see all the calls and and the same time be aware of the call type for each individual call record. You can extract the phone number right from a call log record and create a phonebook record based upon that number immediately. Also you can select a call log record to send a message to that particular number, view the call time and date, duration and so on.

The Message service includes SMS, MMS and E-mail, audio messages and quick messages. SMS is just the good old SMS services save for the small addition of a shortcut bar for immediate access to the media content. The message view/send interface went through a few cosmetical changes that basically affect nothing. You are still able to insert into the message contact numbers and names, emoticons, change the message type from SMS to MMS and backwards - the overall usability is a bit higher than it used to be, you no longer have to call on the contextual menu. In the message editor you can always insert a text template, an audio fragment, an image or a video clip. Once you add something of the kind to an SMS, it's automatically converted into an MMS.

The message system features a call log of its own, it's a list of the most frequently called people of sorts, so if you write to someone frequently, the corresponding contact record is sure to appear somewhere in the upper sections of the list, so you just have to open this list and select that person prior to sending a message to them, instead of looking them up in the regular phonebook. That's quite comfortable due to the obvious reason that the phonebook's list of contacts is usually much longer and way more complicated than a simple list of people to whom you often send messages. The call log's recent records are also added to this list, which only improves the usability further. A message can be sent to a whole user group. There's also an option that lets you specify a default (a.k.a. 'favorite') phone number to which all the messages will be sent automatically unless specified otherwise by choosing another number.

The MMS-service is quite standard, the interface was changed a bit though the impact on the functionality is equal to zero - a pure aesthetical improvement. The message size limit is 300 Kb. A specific setting will automatically resize the image attachments to fit in, if activated. The voice messages are just automated MMS messages which work in the following manner: first he voice recorder is launched, and then the record is over it's immediately wrapped into an MMS message ready for sending. Then you specify the recepient and you're done.

The integrated e-mail client supports the POP3/IMAP4/SMTP/APOP protocols. Attachments are fully supported and automatically recognized by type. The mail delivery options are: load message headers only; specify the message size limit; the secure authorization method; the default encoding. Image attachments can either retain their original size or downscaled to 1280х960, 640х480, 320х240 or 120х160.

The text copy and paste function first emerged in Feature Pack 1 devices like Nokia 6132, 6233. The access to this function is only granted from the the contextual menu because there's no dedicated text edit button that is inherent to most S60 smartphones, which is far from being comfortable, yet the very possibility of text copying and pasting is a big plus.

The message settings (global parameters, SMS, MMS, E-Mail settings) include such features as sent messages saving, the possibility to change the font (tiny, small, normal and large), support for smilies and icons. An MMS message has a resolution limit for image attachments of 640x480, though you can always start an MMS-plus message which sports no limits at all.

On the whole, the messaging service is quite good, everything's up to the modern level, we were never able to spot any serious problems on this front.

The personal information manager comprises the following applications: Calendar, Tasks, Reminders, Timer, Stopwatch. The calendar supports viewing the data either by month or by week, the latter variant also submits hourly schedule for each weekday. Five types of events (meeting, call, anniversary, note, reminder) are available, recurring events are supported, any event can be given an expiration period ranging from one day to one month, after which it will be automatically deleted.

The tasklist is just a regular schedule with an option to set the priority status for each task and specify an expiration period. The reminders are even simpler, just pieces of text limited to 3000 symbols per each. The alarm clock supports both one-time and weekday-scheduled action. Any sound file can be assigned as the alarm signal.
The stopwatch, the timer and the world clock service are quite standard, there's nothing special to be said about. The currency converter supports 7 kinds of monetary units.

The calculator had gone through some serious improvements, in addition to the few cosmetical improvements in the interface, a bunch of advanced functions were added to expand the application's functionality, including the Loan Calculator module.

The voice record is a simple application with allows making voice records limited to one hour of maximal length or forced to fit the maximum limits allowed for an MMS message. Recording of phone talks is possible, but the application transmits beeping singals to the talk channel so the other person is acknowledged of the conversation being taped.

The mp3 player is among the device's key feature. The implementation quality is the same with the more expensive 5610 music, though at the same time the 5310 model is more comfortable due to the availability of extra player controls and the standard 3.5 mm headset jack . The headset can be either plugged into the phone directly or through a response-button adapter. The jack sits on the upper edge of the casing, so the plugged headset doesn't stand in the way of comfortable usage even when the device is carried in a pocket. The overall ergonomics of Nokia 5310 is especially high when it comes to the player, beating all the competitive products.

«the 5310 model is more comfortable due to the availability of extra player controls and the standard 3.5 mm headset jack »

Nokia are placing their bet on the dedicated DSP unit utilized in all of the XpressMusic models. The Digital Signal Processor offers improved sound processing algorithms and allows for the wanted signal to be efficiently separated from the noise, so the when the signal comes to the output point crystal clear. The DSP operates such sophisticated characteristics as the dynamic range (the ability to reproduce both high and low frequency sounds with equal quality), the frequency range, the noise levels, non-linear distortion and so on. Combined with the multitude of customizable settings, the sound quality of the 5310 and 5610 stays on an unmatched level. These two are among the best music phones ever, as far as the objectiveness of such a criterion as "the best" goes (since tastes differ). Some of the consumers are only concerned with the maximum loudness, some prefer the high quality of sound and so on, some are keen on equalizer settings and some care mostly for the long battery life. The notion of a perfect music phone comprises a multitude of factors, and keeping with all of them won't ever make product with a price easily affordable to its target audience.

However Nokia did their best to realize most of these features in the 5310 and 5610 model at the same time keeping the price on a tame level, the principal advantages are the long-lasting battery charges (18:50 and 20:20 hours of continuous music playback cycle respectively and the unmatched sound quality - as for the latter aspect, the two Nokias are clearly leading in the whole segment. The Walkman phones produced by SonyEricsson have a worse audio quality, less loud speakers, they lack dedicated player controls and are generally inferior in the realization of musical features except the player interface. The new Samsung F330 and i450 phones pose a worthier challenge to the 5610, sporting some advantages and disadvantages as compared to the former.

«the principal advantages are the long-lasting battery charges (18:50 and 20:20 hours of continuous music playback cycle respectively and the unmatched sound quality - as for the latter aspect, the two Nokias are clearly leading in the whole segment»

Getting back to DSP, let's check out that besides just having one stuffed inside your phone, a great amount of technical adjustments and preparatory work is required to provide a high audio quality. The smart and well-orchestrated coherence between the software and hardware parts is what in facts stands for the high quality of audio signal in music phones, but in some cases the manufacturer does little effort to force their high-quality sound processing units to do their utmost (also in order to provice an artificial field for advancement of further models). Not all of the DSP functions are necessarily engaged in a single model, a device is only given enough audio quality to justify its price and positioning so it can successfully participate in the market competition. Artificial software-side downgrades can be introduced as well to differentiate the lower-ranking solutions from the top one.

The interface of the Nokia music phones is traditionally smart and versatile - both the radio and mp3 player can have separate skins independent from the main menu theme. Comparing this functionality to the interface of the third revision of FP2 (which is the same for all FP2v3 devices regardless of positioning) makes you think that this personalization feat is something that will be highly appreciated by all the users since no alternate solutions is available from the competitive brands. The preinstalled interface themes come in keeping with the color version of the phone itself, for instance the blue version features themes where the blue color is dominant. In the playback mode it's possible to assign an album picture to a track or a number of tracks so it will displayed during playback. Depending on the selected theme, this logo will be displayed either in the center or to the side of the track title and performer name.

The following music player themes are available on different Nokia phones based on Series 40 5th Edition as well

The following audio formats are supported: AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, MP3, MP4, (SP)MIDI, (WB-)AMR, WMA, XMF. The equalizer has five bands and two user presets. Keeping up with the main player interface, the control elements of the equalizer are few and easy to use, the interface animations are rich and amusing. The enhanced stereo setting resides in the Multimedia submenu, though no radical changes are introduced on activation.

A variety of miscellaneous options are available: sorting content by performer, album, genre, repeated and random playback. Switching between tracks and performers is done by pressing the navigation button, the controls didn't change from the previous versions. The player application submits a summary of the current playback parameters to the screen during standby and can function in minimized state, at the same time a single Java application can be functioning parallel to it.

The FM tuner has an equally comfortable and appealing interface, the headset audio output sports a great quality. The FM tuner can be customized with a selectable skin independent from that of the mp3 player, the RDS feature is fully supported as well as the auto scanning, a memory sufficient to store up to 50 frequencies and a selectable favorites folder.

Summing things up, we'd repeat that all the XpressMusic are extremely able in terms of audio functionality. Hardly any feature gives a reason for reproaching, the audio quality is on an almost unmatched level and so is the maximum volume, the controls sport great ergonomics and the battery life is extremely long, - by saying 'long' we mean it's just as long during music playback as in other modes. The only (and hardly explainable) drawback is the bundled headset which is of a poor quality and no remote control is found in the package, though it includes an AD-56/AD-57 jack adapter with a response button on it.

«the audio quality is on an almost unmatched level and so is the maximum volume, the controls sport great ergonomics and the battery life is extremely long, - by saying 'long' we mean it's just as long during music playback as in other modes»

The camera used in Nokia 5310 is just the same module found with Nokia 6500 Classic, 6300 and a number of other phones by Nokia, utilizing the CMOS 2 Mp base, which effectively stands for the same quality of photo and video records. There's no support for the auto-focusing feature, the macro shooting and flashlight are missing as well. The shots retain an acceptable quality when viewed on the phone screen only due to the high quality of the screen matrix, if viewed on your PC they're sure to produce a somewhat disappointing panorama - the quality being below average.

The camera application interface utilizes the landscape screen orientation though you can toggle the portrait mode at will, for an option like that is provided for. The screen info sums up the current settings: the image acquisition resolution for photos and videos, the specified storage folder, the zoom factor, the timer, the remaining number of available shots (depending on the rest of free storage space), the remaining video footage time. The stats are rather informative. There's no dedicated button for camera launching available, the volume buttons act as the controls for the digital transfocator. Pressing the navigation button to the sides lets switch between the photo and video modes, a corresponding icon in the viewfinder window indicated the currently selected mode.

The camera offers only a few customizable settings comprising the following points:

We were glad to discover the option to specify a custom folder for storing photos in videos in addition to the usual onboard memory / card memory choice. The image acquisition time is quite low, once you hear the shutter sound you're sure to have captured the image. Of course it will take you a few extra moments to get back to the camera menu, which may produce a false impression of sluggishness. The preliminary photo view interval is selectable from 3, 5 or 10 seconds or set to Manual.

The taken picture can be instantly sent over attached to an MMS, via Bluetooth or sent for printing. A photo can also be set as the current wallpaper, screensaver, call image for a specified person or user group. Scaling is possible, you can rotate the picture in any possible direction, a ten-point scale is available for contrast adjustment.

The maximum resolution for recording videos is 176x144 (15 fps, MPEG4), the quality and maximum record length are customizable. The overall video output quality is rather low, mainly due to the fact that this feature is only complementary and isn't one of the device's focus points. The videos can hardly be viewed on the large screen of desktop PCs, however make some sense when viewed on the phoine itself. It's possible to apply a number of special FX to the video clip image as well.

The gallery is of the standard type found with most Series 40 products, it's in essense just a basic file manager listing the content placed in the phone's storage area. There are three file listing modes (list, detailed list, icons). The slide show feature is supported, you can slideshow all the content within a specific folder which sometimes proves a useful thing when you're about to show a lot of photos or videos to your friend, but unfortunately this feature comes without any customizable settings, even the time interval between the changing frames can't be adjusted. The content can be sorted by filename, date, format and size.
The fullscreen viewing mode is supported both for the photo and video files (utilizing the landscape screen orientation, the following formats are supported: H.263, H.264, MPEG-4 and 3GPP). Progressive rewinding is supported, in the fullscreen mode the playbar is shown at the bottom of the screen, accompanied by a few control icons.
There's an option to view the memory status - the amounts of free and used storage are shown, sorted in a number of categories like the gallery, messages and so on. The gallery capabilities of Series 40 are rather modest though, the S60 devices have a lot of advantages over the former, to say frankly.

Four games come preinstalled on the phone: City Bloxx, Music Guess, Snake III and Rally 3D. All the games sport nice graphics and are in fact rather involving.

A screensaver creation wizard is available, every picture from the preinstalled set can be modified. The pictures are saved in the .jpg format and can be instantly set as the wallpaper.

Besides the games, the device sports a variety of preinstalled applications which include a downloads manager which lets automated purchase and downloading of extra content. The interface is rather simple, three folders are available (downloads, subscriptions and facorites) to which the selected files go.

Opera Mini was first introduced as a full-blown Java-based web browser in Nokia 6300, is the most powerful Java-powered web browsing application up to date. The very fact that Opera Mini comes as a preinstalled application can hardly be underestimated. In real life, very few phone users trouble themselves with downloading, installing and configuring third-party software for their cell phones. Thus such a versatile, comfortable and absolutely free addition as Opera Mini makes a brilliant selling point for the 5600 handset. The Yahoo! Search feature comes as an integrated feature, and so does the Wikipedia Search feature. All the standard page viewing parameters like the font size are fully customizable.

The Yahoo! Go! application is optimized for comfortable viewing of web pages, sporting web search and Yahoo! mail support and so on.

The search feature can be optionally integrated into the standby mode (as an additional screen bar), this function's name is quite self-explaining. An important difference from the Nokia smartphones is that you can only perform web searches, but you can't do a search in your local content.