As we mentioned earlier in the workweek, SlashPhone received a Nokia 5230 Nuron for reexamination. After gift it ample play time, we’ve come to a stalls decision about the handset, and we tin safely say that while the gimmick has its limitations, we’re sure that it volition make someone out there happy. But, net ball’s get right field into it, so we tin design out if that somebody is you or not. Will the Nuron live up to Nokia’s ballyhoo? Or does it fall flat on its face?
The Basics
The consequence you proceeds the Nuron out of the loge, you’ll know it’s in your helping hand. It’s not necessarily all that heavy, so to speak, but considering the plastic build of the device, we would have been happier with a little number of a hoy feel. Though, considering how midst the handset is, we tin understand where the free weight comes from. The 3.2-in screen seems smaller than the specifications would suggest, and we imagine that comes from the large areas at the round top and bottom, which rich person been reserved for the earpiece and sensors at the top, and the terzetto computer hardware buttons on the bottom. Even the silver bezel seems thick on the sides, only aiding in the illusion that the blind is smaller than it really is.
As for the hardware keys, there’s quite a few on the Nuron. You’ve got the three briny keys on the movement of the device: Send, End, and the button that calls up the briny fare. Just above the blind, you rich person the Media Button, which, when pressed, drops down a fare that gives you quick approach to media components like medicine, the web browser, and images. Along the right field position of the device is the physical photographic camera keystone, the notorious Nokia “slide-to-unlock” key, and finally the book cradle. It should also be noted that the volume cradle also works as a zoom-in-and-out function, but we could only discovery that it deeds piece exploitation the photographic camera. It doesn’t soar in while exploitation the browser, for exercise.
At the round top of the device, there’s the MicroUSB interface, the 3.5mm audio frequency jack, and an old-schoolhouse Nokia power interface. Which, if we’re organism completely honest, we didn’t even think were organism used anymore. Nokia slipped a surprisal in here for us, it seems. And finally, on the left helping hand position of the Nuron, there’s two ports protected by removable flaps. The upper-most opening is for the SIM board, and the ace below that is for the MicroSD card. We found that opening both of those flaps was a bit of a pain, and more work than was probably necessary. But, we also know that people aren’t leaving to be opening and windup those very often, so that’s probably a non-issuing.
For the general looking and tactile property of the gimmick, we tin’t really bobtail Nokia any points. The gimmick looks like a Nokia gimmick, and there’s definitely nonentity wrong with that. It’s shiny, which should attract several new customers, and it’s midst enough that it whitethorn not worry many citizenry who are notorious for dropping their phones. All in all, even if it is too thick and heavy for us, we don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing for most customers out there. It does tactile property goodness in the pouch.
The Operating System
Symbian S60 5th Edition powers this little guy, and from the consequence you twist it on, that’s more than obvious. Truth be told, it’s not leaving to be for everyone. Even from the pure aesthetic approach, the looking alone suggests something for a kid. In this mean solar day and age of icons, widgets, and the like, the Nuron shows us that there’s still citizenry out there that believe a more “personal approach,” if you volition, is better than sleek and sophisticated. We’re not sure where we bandstand on this. As it stand, though, you don’t really get to appreciate the Operating System on the 5230, mainly because your’e stuck wait more often than not.
We noticed pretty quickly that the device runs pretty slow, more often than not. We also noticed that this would be completely off-exercise set by the gimmick’s quickness, too. There’s no midriff ground here. We would be wait several seconds for the briny fare to pulling up from the abode blind, and then later in the day find that the fare was up even before we let go of the button. We can’t quite put our digit on wherefore the system is so off-and-on, but when it’s off, the device is almost painful to use. When it’s quick and reactive, we actually had fun watching the blind animations proceeds us from ace to another.
Resistive Touchscreen
The title should probably be more than sufficiency, but we’ll go ahead and expand on this. We’re not saying that resistive touchscreens are terrible, but the Nuron’s is definitely a petition in that regard. We may just be accustomed to capacitive panels, but leaving through menus, or even selecting options (when coupled with the slowdown generated by the slow processor), is aggravating. We do like, though, that while you’re selecting items in the menu, that you rich person to actually select something twice. So, even though you’re probably not accidentally energizing anything on a resistive touchscreen, Nokia has made sure that you are absolutely sure of what you want before it activates.
Phone calls, Net, texts, and no WiFi
We intellection that not having wireless local area network wouldn’t be that big of a trade, but it really is. Utilizing T-Mobile’s 3G network is great, but the browser on the Nuron isn’t great. In fact, we really didn’t wish to use it anymore after the first day. We’re not sure if jump onto a WiFi hotspot would rich person made it any better, accuracy be told, but at least it would have been nice to try. Navigating webpages wasn’t hindered by the 3.2-inch blind. No, in this case, the processor just wouldn’t allow Web surfboarding to be anything other than bedevilment, as pages juttered, lagged, and completely stalled on every occasion.
Making headphone calls wasn’t that badness at all, actually. The sound caliber is nice, and we never dropped a call. When we ran through some noise tests, people on the other oddment did tell us that it was a bit hard to hear us, but that’s not surprising considering the gimmick doesn’t do anything to minimize that kind of blocking. The coverage in our expanse is pretty well established, and we made billet of the Nuron’s ability to reefer with the highest available signaling, making all our part calls pristine.
Text messages ar a big role of cell phone usage. It’s no different for us, and that’s wherefore we gave texting a real number blastoff on the Nuron. However, we just had to stopover doing it. The keyboard, piece in portrait mode, is usable, but there’s no full QWERTY. It’s just the standard pick for phones, with the number domiciliation. You have the pick to use T9 piece you pat along, so that helps a number, but the blind is just not forgiving. If you use your fingernail, you tin probably get some speed out of it. And then there’s the landscape QWERTY keyboard. We father’t rich person the world’s skinniest fingers, but we don’t think even that would help the typing experience on this device. It’s just not fun, to put option it plainly. The phone’s features work in junction to make it an experience we don’t recommend to anyone, so maybe you should reefer to the part calls.
Wrap-Up
In the initial post, we said that this headphone isn’t meant to blow your mind. We also said that this is probably the perfect tense gimmick for someone who doesn’t wish to spend a lot of money. Well, both those things are still true, but we should also note that the $69.99 that T-Mobile River is merchandising the gimmick for on a new, deuce-year contract is simply too much money. This needed to be a free phone. Especially with the deficiency of WiFi. There’s no means around it. And, to be be perfectly honest with you, we can’t recommend disbursement the $70. There’s other options, for just a bit more money, that volition make you a draw happier than this gimmick volition.
If you rich person any particular questions regarding the Nokia 5230 Nuron, please net ball us know in the comments. We volition be sure to answer them to the best of our ability.
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