Plemix

Following Samsung’s lead, Nokia seems to be preparing to flood the market with touchscreens and with the low pricing just after LG. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is the one for music. Then, they have the 5530 XpressMusic , and now, the Nokia 5230 takes the term which packed the same connectivity hardware as the 5800. Let’s take a look on their latest addition in their phone portfolio, the Nokia 5230.

What’s inside? The Phone, a battery, a charger, a data cable, a handsfree set, three extra rear panels and a user’s guide.

The 5230 is just looks like the same as 5800 XpressMusic. When the first glance on it, we thought it was the 5800 in white. It’s with the same size as 5800 though (111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm).

Nokia 5230 has the crowded top same as the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. You will find the power key, the microUSB port, charger plug and 3.5mm standard audio jack here.

The volume rocker, the screen-lock switch and the camera key are all on the right of the 5230.

How about the left side? We find the microSD and the SIM cards hide under the two plastic covers.

Here’re the changeable covers that included in the package: Pink, Blue and Red (it just remind me of Samsung Corby), however, we prefer the original one. Still, it’s certainly nice to refresh the looks of your handset without much effort.

The 5230 is having the same UI as the 5800 (the S60 5th edition UI).Here is the Menu of 5230. The icons are set in a 3 x 4 grid or a list and you can freely reorder them.

Above the display of 5230, we find the touch-sensitive Media key which triggers a drop down menu of shortcuts to media and web. The earpiece and a couple of sensors are also there.

The 5230 offers a standard alphanumeric on-screen keypad which can automatically turn into a full QWERTY keyboard when you tilt it. The 5800 didn't do that at first. It also offers handwriting recognition.

Nokia 5230 is the cheapest of the S60 touchscreen phone. It comes with colorful changeable cover, HSDPA, A-GPS, Bluetooth, a 3.2” 16 million color display, plus the full suite of Nokia Ovi apps, however, it lacks of WiFi. That’s means you can only use HSDPA for access the web. Or you can have other option: the 5530 with WiFi but no HSDPA or 5800 with both HSDPA and WiFi but higher price.