Nokia has announced its new product Nokia 5230 Nuron in association with T-Mobile. Nuron is a full touch screen smartphone which provides 3G support, and offers access to Ovi Store. It even offers the turn-by navigation though Ovi Maps. With the help of Ovi Maps, you can access the maps of US, Mexico, and Canada along with other premium content like forecasts, Planet guides, and so on for free.
Design:
Nokia 5230 Nuron looks similar to the Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition and Xpress Music phone. Its look is good as compared to the other phones. It comes with 4.37 inches in tall, 2.03 inches in wide and 0.61 inches in thickness. Battery cover doesn’t have the soft-touch finish as with the 5800 Navigation Edition.
It has several controls in the sides of the panel. SIM Card and MicroSD expansion slots are placed in the left side and both are protected by covers. In another side, i.e. right side of the panel, you can see the Camera Activation and Capture button, lock switch, and Volume Controller buttons. Talk Key, End Key, and Main Menu buttons are situated just below the display screen, but you will be using most of the functions using resistive touch screen.
This phone comes with 640x360 pixel resolution and it supports 16 million colors. Its display is bright, clear and fulfilling. It has an onscreen keyboard which makes you to feel restricted. It has built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor by which you can view the maps, photos, web pages and also rotate the phone in the landscape mode.
Nokia 5230 Nuron’s touch screen is quite responsive. Using your finger, you can easily navigate the menus. Opening web links is little risky, but you can double-tap in the browser to zoom in the page and tap the link. It offers more sensitive and smoother scrolling experience. The inconsistencies of the interface make the device a bit annoying to use when compared with other touch screen devices.
You can find Micro-USB port, power connector and button, and a 3.5mm headphone jack on top of the device. There is also an XpressMusic button on top of the display using which you can open the various multimedia options which are present in the phone, including video gallery, photo gallery, music player, Web browser, and many other online services like Ovi, Flickr, and so on. Camera is situated in the back side of the panel, but unluckily there is no flash.
Features:
Although the Nokia 5230 Nuron functions are same as Nokia 5800 series, it gives up some of the features to keep the costs down. It contains Ovi Map applications so that you can get the free turn-by-turn, voice-based navigation. Ovi Maps is a much more helpful tool and it also provides many advantages. Even though you don’t have the data connection, still you can view the maps. Maps are downloaded to your device so that you can continue to view it even if you are offline. Additionally, Nokia uses the hybrid vector mapping technology which assists maps to redraw faster and gives you the ability to zoom in and zoom out of the maps with the less delay. Maps can be displayed in 3D, 2D, Satellite, or Terrain view. There are also 3D landmarks which helps you by providing the reference point. You can also customize other settings like route preferences, frequency of traffic updates and so on.
Apart from Ovi Map, Nuron comes with standard personal information management tools, such as File Manager, Calculator, Calendar, Voice Recorder, Notepad, alarm Clock and so on. But, you don’t have the Document Viewer. If you want to view any office documents, then you have to download the app (for ex: QuickOffice 6 Mobile Suite) from the Ovi Store.
Nokia 5230 Nuron supports IMAP, POP3 and SMTP E-Mail accounts. Also supports Exchange via Mail for Exchange 2008. You can also use the messaging clients like Yahoo, G-Talk, Windows Live, MySpace, and AIM. Apart from these, it also offers speed dialling, voice dialling, conference calling, and multimedia and text messaging. The phone’s address book is limited by the available memory and the SIM card can hold additional 250 contacts.
It also provides Bluetooth 2.0 onboard with the support for stereo and mono Bluetooth headsets. This phone is compatible with T-Mobile’s 3G network, but it didn’t included Wi-Fi in order to cut down the price. It supports for MP3, MP4, WMA, MPEG5-SP, MPEG4-AVC, WMV9, eAAC+, AAC, and other audio formats.
The device includes FM Radio which you can use it using headphones. It offers 70 MB of internal memory and can be expanded up to 16 GB via microSD card slot. As I said above, Camera is situated in the back side of the panel. It has 2 mega pixel resolutions without flash. You can zoom the image up to 3x and can use the standard editing options. You can also record the video at 640 x 480 pixel resolution at 30 frames per second.
Performance:
Nokia 5230 Nuron’s call quality is excellent. You can hear the voice without any disturbances. As its voice clarity is good, you don’t experience any call drops during conversations. T-Mobile’s 3G network provides the reliable coverage. As a navigator, Nuron does the better job of tracking your location. It calculates routes very faster, but typing the addresses into the application is bit hard with the restricted keyboard. You can sign up for the Ovi account and use the web portal to synchronize the routes to your phone.
Its general performance is acceptable. It keeps you up-to-date with the most day-to- day tasks. Nuron comes with 1320mAh Lithium Ion battery with a talk time of 420 minutes and standby time is up to 458 hours. So, in general, this phone can be acceptable by the user who uses the maps, internet on the regular basis.