Build Quality: The C5 has a solid feel to it, the keys on the keypad offer good feedback and are large enough for easy typing. The numpad keys are also slightly raised individually, making it easier to type/dial on the go. Finally, the Memory card slot has a hinge which doesn’t threaten to fall off every time you open it.

The buttons are tactile and well spread out.

The battery case is a beautiful stainless steel cover with a brushed finish. i was really impressed by the battery cover, but after a weeks worth of usage i noticed a lot of  tiny scuff and scratches on it even though the phone hadn’t been dropped even once. Guess The battery cover isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. :P

Brushed Stainless Steel Finish

I also noticed that volume rockers aren’t the most comfortable to use – they seem to be positioned too low and are quite recessed. The D-pad is a dust collector and is quite a pain to clean.

Small pin charging point, Micro Usb port, 3.5mm jack

The C-5 has two charging points both located on the top of the phone along side the 3.5mm jack. This is a good idea because the wires never interfere with your hands while charging or if the headphone jack is in.

Menu: We have the standard fare S60 menu, with List, Grid Horseshoe and V-shaped menu options. The Grid option seems the most practical layout, its unlikely you’d use the others too often.

Music Player: Once again the standard music player as on all S60 devices, the C5 isn’t classified as an XpressMusic phone but the speaker quality is sufficient, though it does get tinny at higher volumes. One good thing is that even though the speaker is on the back of the phone it doesn’t gets muffled even if its laid on its back.

General Usage: I had no issues with the call quality of the Nokia C-5, the standard headphones are quite useful and comfortable. The Battery lasted 3-4 days while on roaming, and I think even with GPRS being used constantly the phone will easily last 2 days.

One major grouse i had with the C5 is the poor visibility it had in sunlight, with darker themes it’s virtually impossible to see anything on the screen. The only option is to switch to a lighter theme and squint.

Thank God for real GPS!

The Nokia C-5 DOES come with integrated GPS, making it the cheapest Nokia with true GPS capabilities. which really is a selling point for the phone.

Pros:

• Price-  At around  8000 INR this is definitely a good buy, looks classy as well
• Decent camera, with a good LED flash
• Solid build
• Easy to use
• Good battery life (2-3 days)
• slim and compact

Cons:

• Screen visibility is abysmal in sunlight, couple that with a darker theme and its pretty much useless
• No WiFi
• No auto focus
• The cool stainless steel battery cover is prone to scratches even with careful use

For a little more you could get the E63 with similar capabilities with WiFi ,a qwerty keyboard but no GPS. For slightly less you’d get the Touch based 5233 and 5230 phones.

All said and done the Nokia C5 is a good phone, for the price it is excellent and if it’s in your budget, buy it.

That’s all for now, please do let us know if we missed anything out.

Follow us on Twitter we’re @mynokiaworld. Also, do visit our Facebook Page.

The Primary camera has no lens cover, but is recessed so you won’t have to worry about scratches. The LED flash is a decent distance from the lens so there isn’t any  fear of the flash blurring the photographs.

The lack of a dedicated camera key is rather annoying ,especially since all the main camera functions are controlled by the same key that is used to capture images. But this is more a matter of getting used to that particular function.

Image Mode: The camera on the Nokia C5 is quite basic, you can choose between 3 different resolutions for images, (3M,2M and 0.3M).  The scene modes are your standard fare, with one customizable setting in which you can preset colour tone, white balance, flash and exposure.

One of the cooler features of the C5′s camera is the sequence mode, in which you have the standard multishot ability where you can keep taking shots in a sequence until the memory runs out. The feature of sequence mode is that you can configure the camera to take a shot every 10 seconds, or 30 seconds upto time increments of half an hour, perfect for  capturing sunsets or long drives. You’d have to figure out the image compilation after you transfer the pictures onto the computer, but nevertheless this definitely is a good addition to the list of functions the C5′s camera has.

I’ve just added a few shots i took under varying light conditions.

Daylight, Bright Light, Automatic mode

Indoor, Low light ,Flash

Outdoor , Low Light , No Flash

Low Light, Adjusted White balance

Panorama Mode: The panorama mode on the C5 is quite effective, Nokia seems to have upgraded the software. The mode is quite useful you, but you’ll have to keep a steady hand. Though i have to add trying to use this feature while on the move  renders it pretty much useless.

Panorama Vertical

One thing missing is the inability to adjust the image size or quality. Though honestly you won’t need to figure out how to use the panorama mode, the phone handles almost everything by itself.

Panorama Horizontal

We have the massive flagship Nokia N900 along with the sleek (but now unavailable) Nokia 5310 XpressMusic and my very own ancient artifact, the Nokia 8310.

The Nokia C-5 is definitely a Sleek phone with a good solid feel the it, the stainless steel battery case adds a touch of class and it completely resistant to fingerprints.

]]> http://www.mynokiaworld.com/2010/07/nokia-c5-size-comparisions/feed/ 1 http://www.mynokiaworld.com/2010/07/nokia-c5-unboxing/ http://www.mynokiaworld.com/2010/07/nokia-c5-unboxing/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:51:58 +0000 mak http://www.mynokiaworld.com/?p=3359 A few days ago we were finally able to get our hands on a Nokia C5. The first of the C-series devices available in India. For those still confused by the Nokia Naming conventions you could check out their Blog over at Nokia Conversations. So the C5 represents the Core Product range and is priced Bang in the middle of the C-range, if we go by the naming convention.  For the rest of us the Nokia C5 is a low-end, monoblock Symbian 60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2.

Some of the specifications of the  C5:

• Dimensions: 112 x 46 x 12.3 mm
• Weight (with battery): 89.3 g
• Volume: 56 cc
• Screen size : 2.2″
• Resolution: 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA)
• Up to 16.7 million colours (TFT)

• BL-5CT 1050 mAh Li-Ion battery
• Talk time (maximum):
  • GSM 12 h
  • WCDMA 4.9 h
• Standby time (maximum):
  • GSM 630 h
  • WCDMA 670 h
• Quad band GSM EDGE 850/900/1800/1900

• GPRS/EGPRS MSC32 class B, maximum speed up to 298/178.8 kbps (UL/DL)
• HSDPA cat9, maximum speed up to 10.2 Mbps
• HSUPA cat5, maximum speed up to 2 Mbps

What do we have in the box?

First off we have the  C5-00, with a  2 GB microSD Card , a BL-5CT 1050 mAh Li-Ion battery, a Connectivity Cable CA-101D. The headset for the C5 is the Nokia Stereo Headset WH-102 (3.5mm jack- very important), and the charger is the tiny pin Nokia High Efficiency Charger AC-8. The box also contains a couple of “Thank you” notes from Nokia along with the user guide.

The Nokia High Efficiency Charger AC-8 is pretty cool, but what confuses me is why they haven’t provided a micro usb charger, especially since the C5 supports usb charging.

We’ll have our First Impressions of the C-5 out soon, so stay tuned for more!

Until then follow us on Twitter, We’re @mynokiaworld!

Key Hardware Specs

CPU and chipset

• Intel® Atom™ Z530, 1.6 GHz
• Intel® Poulsbo US15W

Memory and hard drive

• RAM: 1 GB DDR2
• Hard drive: 120 GB

Display and keyboard

• 10.1″, 1280 x 720 pixel display
• Glass window
• Frame keyboard

Wireless

• WiFi: 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Built-in 3G modem (data calls only): WCDMA 900/2100 or 800-850/900/2100

Battery

• 56.8 Wh 16 Cell BC-1S Battery
• Rated for 12 hours of usage

Audio and video

• 1.3 megapixel FF camera
• HDMI port for HD video out
• Built-in stereo speakers, and microphone
• Analog audio output / headphone out (with OMTP headsets also functions as audio-in)

I/O ports and slots

• HDMI 1.2 out for HD video
• 3 x USB 2.0
• 3.5 mm headphone out (OMTP: with OMTP headsets also functions as audio in)
• DC-in
• SD card reader
• SIM / USIM slot

If you want more detailed specs of the Booklet 3G head over to Nokia’s site.

Build

The Booklet 3G has an Aluminum chassis, crafted from a single piece of aluminum. The build on the netbook, along with the evenly spaced “chicklet” keyboard are part of the appeal. But what makes it stand out from the rest of the netbook crowd is the unbelievable battery life. It’s 56.8Wh battery is rated at 12 hours of usage.  It uses the Intel Poulsbo US15W chipset with  fan-less design, and is very, very quiet.

The 10.1″ display has a glass layer, and the images are quite crisp. The 1280 x 720 pixel display is more than adequate for standard web browsing, and using office, which is what I mainly used the Booklet 3G for. The only thing was the reflection off the glass cover. It isn’t too bad indoors, but working on the Booklet 3G tends to be a strain on the eyes outdoors due to the reflections on the screen.

The Booklet could have done with a bit more RAM. The standard 1GB is enough to run most applications, but there are times when I wished it had a bit more. Also you can’t add more RAM into this baby. I wonder why Nokia decided on not allowing users to add more memory if they wanted to.

Connectivity

Connectivity, both wired and wireless, is well covered. The Booklet supports WiFi b/g/n, bluetooth 2.1 and has a built in SIM slot, that supports WCDMA 900/2100 or EGSM 800-850/900/2100. The SIM slot is quite a boon, especially in Bangalore, where power outages are a daily affair! I used an Airtel SIM card, and was surprised to find that the EDGE connection was averaging 140kbps! Of course, you can just pop in a 3G SIM in it, and run wirefree!!  Vinu was able to get around 1.5 mbps on his BSNL 3G data service when he tried out speed tests, but then the speeds would depend on the mobile operator you’re using. The SIM card slot is also hot-swappable, so you can remove and add a card without having to shutdown or restart Windows.

The Booklet also has a built-in GPS chip, but we couldn’t manage to get it working. We were told that we need a working 3G network connection and the browser addons for Firefox/ Internet Explorer to get the A-GPS working. When we tried this out, the Location Widget couldn’t still track our location (screenshot above), which Ovi Maps was showing us we were in Delhi instead of Bangalore (screenshot below). If you were able to get position working on your unit, let us know by commenting below.

As for wired connectivity, there is HDMI and 3 USB ports. It doesn’t have an optical drive, but that’s to be expected from a netbook. You can always get an external drive and hook it up via USB. Firewire connectivity is missing on the Booklet.

Multimedia

The Booklet 3G comes with a standard 3.5mm headset jack, built in stereo speakers on both sides of the laptop. The built in speakers are good but not too loud. If you’re one to carry your music and movie collections on the go, I’d recommend that you carry a good pair of headphone with you.

The Booklet 3G also comes with a 1.3 Megapixel forward facing camera which allows you to take part in Video chat. Any video chat application can use this camera to transmit videos. None of the software bundled with the device use the camera, you’ll need to install your own software like Skype to get the camera working.

Battery Life

Even though the specs of the Booklet 3G mentions a whooping 12 hours of usage, we managed to squeeze more out of our trial unit. With some minor juggling around,we were consistently able to achieve more than 14 hours on a single charge. We set the power settings in Windows 7 to the balanced power . We also disconnected from WiFi and 3G networks when we didn’t actually require those connections for work.

Mobility

The Booklet 3G’s form factor makes it easy to slip into a small bag and carry around. It’s almost as the same dimensions as the iPad. The Booklet 3G’s dimensions are 264 x 185 x 19.9 mm compared to the iPad’s 242.8 x 189.7 x 13.4 mm. the Booklet 3G weighs around 1.25 kilograms, that ain’t too bad. The long battery life of the Booklet also means that you don’t have to carry the charger around if it’s fully juiced up.

Applications

Nokia bundles the Nokia software updater with the Booklet 3G, so the system and bundled software can be kept up to date at all times.

Nokia has bundled a few specific locations on the device, namely, the Ovi Suite, Nokia Music for PC, Ovi Maps and something called Nokia Social Hub. The first time the Nokia Software Updater runs, it gives you the option to download these software to your device. You can choose which ones to install without having to have all these on your device.

Nokia Social Hub is a pretty simple application that brings together your Twitter and Facebook feeds, onto one page, along with all your texts from the inserted SIM card. It brings up a notification window near system tray the when you receive updates.

Using  Nokia Social Hub can post updates to Facebook, tweet and re-tweet from the twitter account, and reply and and send SMS text messages using the SIM inserted. One issue was the lack of multiple account support for twitter, but that won’t be an issue for most people.

Multitasking? General daily use?

We mainly used Word, Powerpoint,Excel and of course, Firefox. Of course Firefox is quite heavy, and if you have multiple tabs open, expect a little delay when switching between tabs, or when switching between applications. There were a couple of instances when text entry was delayed, but it’s not all that bad. It almost felt like I was using my old D630 (with XP, was still slow, for a full blown laptop).  I didn’t try running movies with weird codecs, or  games on this device, if you have let us know by commenting below. But of course, this is a netbook, and as such, performed quite well.

Wrap up

The Nokia Booklet 3G. Now you wouldn’t really expect Nokia to get into the  netbook market. I mean, it is a pretty crowded space already, with a lotta value for money offerings, running various operating systems, all with almost the same hardware specs. It is currently listed at around 575 euros (Rs 33,500), which is quite a bit. But as we’d mentioned before, the only other well built netbooks with similar features are priced slightly higher. Nokia says that they aim to improve your mobile computing experience by using their mobility expertise. While it doesn’t really show, I’m sure with newer updates rolling in, there will a lot more that it will have to offer!!

Have a Booklet 3G? What do you think about it? Let us know in the comments section below. Also, follow us on twitter, we’re @mynokiaworld, and become a fan of our facebook page!

Photo Gallery

The retail packaging is quite brilliant. The side panels of the package house the charger and the extension! The rest of the package, including the headset, the USB charging cable, the manuals and the cleaning cloth are housed in the box underneath the Booklet (hence the small white paper tab, to pull it out!)

The booklet 3G is Nokia’s Mini-Laptop, Running Windows 7 on an Intel Atom Processor. It comes with a whole lotta goodies, including built in GPS, a SIM slot so that you can save the use of a clunky USB netconnect dongle, and the best part is, a battery that lasts forever and ever and ever (ok we kid, but Vinu did manage to use it for 11 hours before he got bored of waiting for it to die!)

Enjoy!

Keep following us more exciting news and reviews. We’re on twitter and facebook! Follow @mynokiaworld and become a fan on facebook, here.

To give you a better idea of size of the 5233, here are a few snaps of the 5233 alongside Nokia’s current flagship the N97.

Let me know if i’ve missed out anything and what more you’d like to know about the 5233.

Follow us on twitter, we’re @mynokiaworld!

First up the things we didn’t particularly like about the 5233.

Removing the SIM card- Putting the SIM card in the 5233 is quite simple, taking it out though is another story altogether(as is the case with the 5800). You need to remove the rear panel, the battery and the stylus, then use the stylus to gently coerce the SIM out of the phone. This procedure is quite a pain especially if you have multiple SIM cards. There has to be a simpler alternative to this process, hopefully this will be addressed at some point for  future models.

Removing the sim card is quite tedious.

The Media key- Like the 5800 the 5233 has a dedicated media key at the right hand corner above the screen. It manages to reduce the clutter on the homescreen and makes accessing your music,  the web and your images very easy. But unlike on the 5800 it isn’t illuminated,I was totally oblivious to the button for the first day.  Its such a neat little option to have, unless you already knew it was there you’d miss it completely. The tiny details matter and this is one of them.

Media key has no backlight

No memory card in the box- Well given the extraordinarily low price of the 5233, I can’t really complain about a missing memory card in the box.The phone memory is adequate, but if you want to download Ovi maps onto the phone or store your favorite music on the phone, its quite insufficient. I’d suggest picking up a memory card for the phone(it can support upto 16gb). Another thing that you’ll miss is the micro USB cable which isn’t included in the box.

Makes sense to invest in a MicroSD card

Kinetic Scrolling-  The main menus don’t have kinetic scrolling, but surprisingly the sub menus do. I found this really weird and annoying, for the first few hours at the very least. This is a minor grouse especially since it can be rectified(hopefully) with upcoming software upgrades.

No Auto Focus- The 2Megapixel camera is good enough, works fine in indoors and gets the job done in low light. You won’t really notice the absence of a flash, but for those close up shots you’ll really miss the auto focus.

And now to the things we liked about the 5233.

The Screen – The screen on the 5233 is top notch, it really makes the phone feel like a quality product, it is incredibly vibrant and crisp, the clarity is incredible. Honestly the phone’s screen is miles ahead of Nokia’s current flagship device the N97, which is four times as expensive. The resistive touch screen is incredibly tactile and offers good feedback.  It manages to keep itself quite free from smudges, and even if they do happen to show up you’d hardly notice them.

The screen is just brilliant.

The Battery Life- The 1320mAh Bl-5J battery has a decent backup, with heavy usage it held out for over a day and a half  on a single charge. When stretched out it lasted almost four days. I’d say with normal usage the 5233 should last two days on a single charge without much trouble.

The Recessed Camera Lens- The 5233 is built exactly like the Nokia 5800XpressMusic with the camera at the back. There isn’t a lens cover for the camera, instead the lens of the 5233 is recessed and protects it really well. You’d have to be pretty talented to scratch the lens with normal use.

Recessed Camera Lens a boon

Wrapping it all up I’d say the Nokia 5233 is an excellent phone. The features on offer at the price are incredible. At no point does it feel cheap, it has a real quality feel to it, sure there have been a few bits trimmed out to fit the price bracket.  This is after all a budget touch phone, and that has to be taken into consideration.  If you’re on a budget and want a touch screen smart phone look no further, the 5233 is what you need.

The media player on the 5233 is the standard player as with most Nokia devices so you won’t have any problems navigating your way through the menus. Creating your own playlists is a real breeze, so mixing and matching is never an issue. To fully utilise the music capabilities of the phone you will need to pick up a microSD memory card, the phone memory is simply not large enough to hold more than a couple of songs. You can extend the phone’s storage using microSD cards upto 16 GB.

There is only one camera on the 5233 and you won’t miss a forward facing camera on the phone, especially since it doesn’t have 3G or WiFi capabilities. The 2 megapixel camera is good enough for daytime shots, and the 5233 doesn’t have a flash. But what you’ll really miss is the auto focus, trying to take any close up shots is just impossible. The saving grace on the 5233 when it comes to imaging is the screen. You’ll really be able to enjoy the shots you’ve taken because the screen quality is exceptional.  The camera comes with usual adjustable camera settings like ISO, white balance and exposure to name a few. The camera lens is recessed so you won’t have to worry about any scratches on it. It also comes with a self timer, but the only way to balance the camera on a flat surface is by putting the phone upside down, a minor nit pick, the i’m sure the more industrious will be able to figure out way to counter it.

I’ve put up a  small gallery of snaps taken on the 5233 with varying conditions.

Outdoors with Bright Lighting

Close up shots turn out quite blurry

Indoors with Bright Lighting

Indoors with Low Lighting

Let me know if i’ve missed anything in this part of the review. Also, do let us know what else you would like to see.

Follow us on twitter, we’re @mynokiaworld!

Scrolling through the menus you’ll find the lack of kinetic scrolling quite irritating, but magically kinetic scrolling is present is the sub-menus, so brace yourself for a considerable amount of confusion for the first few hours of usage. Hopefully firmware upgrades in the future will include kinetic scrolling throughout the interface.The menu transitions are incredibly neat and subtle, with applications sliding away or collapsing gently, its a a small visual detail but does add to the experience of the 5233 and manages to never get irritating. As good as the screen is it does suffer a bit in bright sunlight, though this can be remedied to a certain extent by shifting a brighter theme. The screen is pretty resistant to fingerprints, so you won’t have to worry about cleaning it often.

Home Screen and Menu

The body of the 5233 follows the traditional monoblock design and is shaped exactly like the Nokia 5800. The volume rockers are flush, and unfortunately feel and feedback from them is a bit limited. It would’ve been better if they were protruding a bit to aid adjusting the volume. The dedicated camera key sticks out a bit, which  makes it easy to access. The slide to lock/unlock button lies in between the volume rockers and the camera key.

Volume Rockers,Camera Key and Slide to lock/unlock

The rear panel feels a bit cheap when compared to the other panels the phone, and it houses the 2 megapixel camera. The camera lens is recessed, so you won’t have to worry about scratches especially since there isn’t a lens cover.On the left hand side you have the slots for the sim card and the microSD memory card. Quite honestly they don’t seem very sturdy so be gentle while using them. On top you have the slot for the micro usb cable(which isn’t supplied!),the charging port, the slot for the 3.5 mm jack and the power button.

Charging port, slot for 3.5mm jack, lot for micro usb connector and the Power button

The 2 mega pixel camera seems quite inadequate, not because of the resolution but because it has no auto-focus, even the absence of a flash is acceptable. You’ll be able to get good shots during the day, but the camera suffers in low light conditions, and i struggled to get any decent close up shots.

GPS! I really expected the phone to have GPS, the 5230 had GPS, fine they lopped off its WiFi and 3G capabilites to make it more affordable in its 5233 guise, but GPS is really cool and a definite selling point. Running through the User guide confused me as well because of the diagram showing where the GPS antenna was/is  :S , anyway back to the point. The 5233 does not have real GPS,but it does have network based GPS.

No true GPS!

To sum it up the Nokia 5233 definitely has its inadequacies and shortcomings, but its price is a redeeming factor. For around Rs. 7500 you get an excellent touch phone, with a beautiful screen. Nokia seems to have a winner on their hands, even though most buyers will definitely miss GPS.

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