Introduction, packaging
Another Nokia and another XpressMusic. The Finnish guys had a great idea of creating this series as a rival to Sony Ericsson’s Walkman line. As a matter of fact it is successful, as the Japanese-Swedish company has a very steep growth graph – the problem is that it’s going down. The first of the series were the red-white and blue-white wonders (5300 and 5200), then they have spiced up the design a bit with 5700 and finally they produced the highly successful 5310. And this is in fact my biggest problem: the subject of this review resembles a lot 5310, the only significant differences can be seen on the design. And we won’t be wrong with the product number: they have really just swapped two digits. Of course we can’t put it this simple, but at first glance we won’t see much differences on the list of features. To tell the truth I don’t even remember if the phone has been displayed at Nokia’s stand at Mobile World Congress, as everyone has been into the new Eseries models.
Of course there is a reason for this phone as well: 5130 is cheaper. We won’t see major differences between the prices of the two models in the first weeks after launch, but the starting price of about 100 euros isn’t very much at all. The price defines the targeted users quite a lot: it’s made for those who would not like to pay about 65 euros more for a new 5310. These users usually include those youngsters (and their respective parents who sponsor them) who would like to own the features of an XpressMusic phone, but the slim size and the metallic materials are no top priority features.
Although the Hungarian Nokia website categorized the phone as “coming soon”, our partner has again been very fast. The box we received from XXL GSM is trendy and small, includes the handset, a charger and a stereo headset, while in the phone we can find a 1 GB microSD card and on the bottom of the package we can even see a 15 cm long data cable.
Exterior
The handset, even in spite of gaining some weight compared to its predecessor, is not too large, its size is 107.5 x 46.7 x 14.8 mm and weighs 88 grams. Its shape is not as manly as the 5310’s, but the blue one fits the hands of male users as well. As for the colors: it comes in red and blue editions, these colors can be seen on the sides and the rim of the navigation ring. The blue version comes with an almost black back cover, while the red phone’s back is wine-red.
The top of the front part is taken by the 2” QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) display, capable of displaying 262 thousand colors, its brightness can be set by the user, there is no light sensor to help in this. On the two sides there are Kevlar-like parts. Below these there is the usual Nokia keypad with hard plastic buttons, the pressure point being okay and the button size is also good. The navigation ring has a proper size and it’s embossed enough to be easy to use.
The back is made of a shiny, fingerprint-collector plastic, its corners are neatly rounded. On the top there s the camera’s silver frame, while on the bottom we can see an interesting pattern, which is in fact a group of small holes, covering the handsfree speaker – IT guys can probably decode the meaning of the pattern that resembles a punch card.
On the left there are the music playback buttons in line with the side of the phone, thus making it hard to press them accidentally. On the right there are the volume control keys, while the memory card slot is just above them, being covered with a small plastic plug, just like on most Samsungs. On the top there is a 3.5 mm headset jack and a microUSB connector, which is also covered with a plug. The phone we had for testing has been in Romania, the assembly quality is good, the phone won’t crack if we push it a little hard.
Menu, software
The handset has the good old Series40 platform running on it. Its peed is okay, 5130 had no problem with the keypad lock test used by Bog (i.e. he measures the phone’s speed by looking at how fast the keypad lock works). There is no active standby; the display has a very low view angle, so it is very hard to read if we don’t hold it properly. Using the menu should be no problem even for kids in the kindergarten; those who are younger get Nokia’s system in their head with the genetic code.
We can store 1000 contacts in the phonebook, a contact can have more phone numbers and email addresses. There have been no changes affecting the contact list display and editing, the system is good and works fine.
I can’t report any groundbreaking new features related to messaging either. SMS and MMS have the same editor, while the email client is in a separate menu. The past comes alive: the handset can send “flash” messages. A couple of years ago Sony J70 had this feature: this is a normal SMS message as well, but upon delivery it is instantly displayed on the addressee’s display. It’s a cool feature but it doesn’t have any practical use. MMS messages have a size limit of 300 KB. The e-mail client is a good friend of servers requiring authentication and if we connect to the internet a wizard helps us set up access to our email account on the phone.
Multimedia, applications
There is a 2 megapixel camera with fixed focus on the back, there is no flash to help it work and we get no mirror either. As a matter of fact we don’t lose anything, the images taken with the phone are quite low-quality. Nokia wasn’t trying to overhype the camera, there is no dedicated shoot key on the side. There is landscape mode, but we still have to take the picture with the OK button in the middle of the navi ring. We can use some effects and tamper with white balance, but on the whole we can see the that this hasn’t been the top priority feature on this phone. We can record videos at 176 x 144 pixels and 15 fps at most. Test pictures below.
 |  |  |  |  |
Let’s see the main feature of the handset: music. This is where the buttons on the side become important and the metallic grid near the display also comes alive – although it has no practical use, but at least the control buttons’ icons are nicely lit. We can sort our music files by ID3 tags. The music player can of course run in the background and we can seek or skip tracks with the dedicated buttons. Still, the keypad lock locks these keys as well. The stereo headset in the box (WH-102) is no big deal, I think those who have good ears will instantly put this away and use their own headphones. I’ve tried a Sennheiser headset and managed to achieve a pretty good sound quality. The maximum supported size of 2 GB for microSD cards is no good, nowadays a phone should support more than that, and even more, this is a musical handset. We can of course play back music through the handsfree speaker as well, 5130 can become really loud in this case.
5130 has an FM radio as well, which of course works only with a headset, but it supports RDS. It is a good quality radio, I had no problems with reception either.
There are three games on the phone, the usual Bounce Tales, Rally 3D and Snake III. Of course we can install additional games as well, since the phone supports Java. There are no new applications either: we have the converter, Sensor, Ovi and a world clock. The calendar is the usual one, it has week and month views as well. The alarm clock supports a single alarm time, but that can repeat and we can set snooze length as well. We also have a to-do list, a calculator, a countdown timer and a stopwatch too, but these are all basic features of S40.
Battery, summary
The fastest data transfer methods supported by the handset are GPRS and EDGE, unfortunately there is no 3G or HSDPA support this time. The default browser on the phone is Opera Mini, which is a great thing, although it could have used some higher speeds. There are a couple of apps that require internet connection, these would all be much better if the phone would support some kind of high-speed internet access.
The BL-5C battery in the handset should keep the music player online for up to 2 hours (based on the specs), but the normal standby time isn’t bad either. In my case the phone was online for three days with one charge, which is not a bad result, considering the above average use. Altogether I think that being the little brother of 5310, and having a pleasant price-tag, the phone can be a real success, so I can say that I recommend it.
 |
| Nokia 5130 XpressMusic |
Gubro
Nokia 5130 XpressMusic has been provided by XXL GSM. The handset can be purchased at:
Budapest VI. Jókai tér 6.
Budapest VI. Teréz körút 18.
On-line at www.xxlgsm.hu.
Specifications
| Nokia 5130 XpressMusic | ||
 | General | |
| Technology | GSM | |
| Size | 107.5 x 46.7 x 14.8 mm | |
| Weight | 88 grams | |
| Available colors | Red, blue | |
| Display | ||
| Display diagonal | 2” | |
| Display resolution | 240 x 320 pixels | |
| Display type | TFT | |
| Number of colors | 262 thousand | |
| Memory | ||
| Phonebook capacity | 1000 | |
| SMS memory / max. MMS size | dynamic / 300 KB | |
| Internal memory | 30 MB (+ 1 GB card in package) | |
| Memory expandability | microSD (up to 2 GB) | |
| Data transfer | ||
| Frequency bands | 850/900/1800/1900 MHz | |
| GPRS / EDGE | Class B Multislot 32 / Multislot Class 32 | |
| UMTS / HSDPA | no / no | |
| IrDA / Bluetooth | no / 2.0 (A2DP too) | |
| WiFi | no | |
| USB | 2.0 (microUSB) | |
| Push-to-talk / RSS | yes / yes | |
| GPS receiver | no | |
| Basic functions | ||
| Profiles | yes | |
| Vibra function | yes | |
| Built-in handsfree | yes | |
| Voice dialing / voice commands | yes / yes | |
| Sound recorder | yes | |
| Alarm clock | yes, also when turned off | |
| Predictive text entry | yes | |
| Software | ||
| Platform | Series 40 | |
| WAP / HTML browser | yes / yes | |
| E-mail client | yes (POP3, IMAP4, authenticated) | |
| Java | yes, MIDP 2.0 | |
| Games | 3 + expandable | |
| Currency converter | yes | |
| Extra software | English-Chinese dictionary | |
| Multimedia | ||
| Main camera | 2 megapixels, fixed focus | |
| Secondary camera | no | |
| Video recording | 176 x 144 pixels, 15 fps | |
| Music player | yes, can run in background | |
| Equalizer | yes | |
| FM radio | yes, with RDS | |
| Battery | ||
| Main battery | BL-5C 1020 mAh Li-Ion | |
| Standby time | 288 hours | |
| Talk time | 6 hours | |
| Other | ||
| Dedicated music playback controls | ||
