One of the most awful experiences I had to deal with the cell phone business. The first thought that came to my mind was “What the $&*# went into the heads of people at the Nokia’s design department!” This phone wasn’t purchased by choice, it was all accidental. I had to change my beloved E65 because of the broken cradle and I decided to go for an exchange. This was the painful choice I had to deal with as the dealer wasn’t offering much and I had to make “a deal”. So that’s the item-by-item anecdote attached with this phone.
In keeping with its tag, 5320 Xpressmusic sports a 3mm audio jack and dedicated media controls on the side, and I don’t find the need of them at all! A customisable key on the top launches the music player by default, while pressing and holding the said key enables the ‘Say and Play’ feature. This can play a desired track by saying the name of the track or artist aloud – generally a hit and miss, if you ask us, and mostly miss than a hit.
5320 XpressMusic is powered by Symbian OS v9.3 with Feature Pack 2 (FP2 meaning lots of cool new animations added to the User Interface). It is not meant to be a high end mobile but I was never expecting such an abysmal flavour too. If not anything, then it’s surely a case of Nokia trying to get mid-range users hooked on mobile music. So you shouldn’t expect anything groundbreaking, I just don’t remember what I was thinking before buying it.
Music quality is quite good, even with a mono speaker, but then it has to stand for its tagline Xpress”MUSIC” so I don’t count that. Has the FM Radio and quite a responsive interface when it comes to “just” Music. Otherwise, you can sleep on this gadget. The button pad is flat apart from the raised D-Pad. Its buttons are irregularly shaped with the Nokia Menu key, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 0 buttons having rounded edges and the remainder simply fitting into the space they leave behind. I understand that the R&D people tried to experiment with the keypad’s design and looks but I’m sure somebody forgot to call them back while they went tooooo far in killing it! I could hardly text on such a quirky ensemble of plastic beads! Oh God! Painful experience!
It also comes with a sub standard 2MP camera with a dual LED Flash. The camera interface is good but it doesn’t feature many customizable options. It doesn’t even have autofocus! But it was a very easy-to-use in application. Even my 4 year old nephew came out with some decent shots with its cam all by himself.
Final Words:
Sturdy phone with small screen, no Wi-Fi, poorest battery life and a crappy kepypad. BAD BUY!
Financials: This piece of $hi* cost me Rs. 12, 300 (March, 09) and was resold on the same price after three days of its purchase.
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