Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Review: Part 2

Picking up where we left off from yesterday, here we look at the usability and features of the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic as the operating system, camera and music player all go under the microscope. For the impatient among you, we also give our final thoughts on Nokia’s next touchscreen phone.

The phone sports the same version of Symbian as found on the 5800 which is great news for those of you (and there’s alot of you out there!) who enjoy downloading apps. The Ovi store features a wide range of free and paid apps including games, maps and social networking applications. Looking at the numbers, the 5530 actually includes a slightly more processor meaning applications run smoother and the general interface of the phone is a little bit slicker. We wont bore you with an in depth look at the Symbian operating system as chances are you know what its all about. Just as a brief round up, Symbian offers the aforementioned downloadable apps, the ability to customise menus, creating shortcuts and moving folders, adding email accounts to your home screen so you can benefit from push email and the ability to multi task, letting you run multiple applications at once.

As for new stuff, as soon as you switch on your new phone you’ll notice the changes as they all sit on the home screen. The most hyped and, luckily for Nokia, nicest addition is the scrolling contacts bar at the top of the home screen. Sitting alongside your full contacts list, the scrolling contacts bar lets you add your most frequently used contacts for easy access. As well as adding a thumbnail which pops up when they call you and serves as a quick way of flicking through your contacts, tapping on the contact will open that person as a business card. From here you can call, text, email and check web feeds. By adding web feeds, this means you can add a persons social networking profile to their contact, such as Facebook, and then with a few quick taps check status, recent photos uploaded and all the other perks of Facebook. Best of all, Facebook is one of several web feeds that can be added to a contact.

The name XpressMusic puts some weight on the 5530’s shoulders as we automatically expect the phone to be an expert portable music player. It doesn’t get off to a great start; despite the phone sporting a 3.5mm audio jack (which is a nice addition) Nokia have decided to move it to the bottom of the phone meaning when in your pocket the most comfortable way to carry the phone will be to have it upside down. This slight annoyance out of the way, it’s pretty much business as usual for an XpressMusic device. Opening the music player either from the short cut bar on the home screen or the main menu takes you to the music library where music is sorted by artist, album, your own playlists, podcasts, genres and composers. Tracks support cover art, below which you get a time lapse display which you can drag along to get to a specific part of the track. The stereo speakers (found above and below the screen) are great boasting impressive sound quality and volume levels though for the best listening experience you’re best off plugging in your headphones. The 5530 will also take a memory card supporting up to 16GB of expandable memory letting you store thousands of tracks. All in all, the 5530 is a great music phone and bridges the gap between music phones and dedicated music players.

The camera on the 5530 is much the same as that found on the 5800. You get a 3.15 Megapixel auto focus camera with an LED flash. The 5530 does unfortunately lose the Carl Zeiss lens (most likely in an effort to lower manufacturing costs) though you’d be hard pushed to spot the difference between a photo taken with this and and one taken with the 5800. The camera interface is nicely laid out. Firing up the camera application presents users with a display dominated by the viewfinder, with a small portion on the right designated to the settings bar. The 5530 lets you choose how to use the camera; there are physical camera buttons on the side or for those who want the full toucshcreen experience, on screen icons that let you capture images and control the digital zoom. As for the actual photos, the results aren’t going to trouble the 8 Megapixel heavy weights such as the N86 8MP and the Viewty Smart but still produces some good quality images. There is a good level of customisation from light sensitivity to exposure so if you fancy yourself as the next David Bailey you really can tinker to get the perfect shot. For most though the automatic settings will prove good enough for simple point and shoot photography. There are drawbacks, as well as the omission of the Carl Zeiss lens, the 5530 also lacks shutter settings such as face and smile detection and the LED flash is weak once you get past a couple of meters. All in all, a good camera none the less.

The only department where the 5530 really shows its true colours as a cheaper version of the 5800 is in the connectivity options on offer. As you’ll no doubt be aware, the 5530 is not a 3G device so if you enjoy web browsing, be prepared to wait. The addition of Wi-Fi is a nice touch and to be fair Wi-Fi connections can be found in tons of different public places but for those times when you’re not in a hotspot, the 5530’s lack of 3G does become very apparent. The other major feature to get the chop from the 5800 spec list is GPS. Personally this wasn’t as bigger deal for me as i rarely use the feature on my phone but it’s something that is nice to have should the situation call for it.

So, the pros and cons. The 5530 has a classy design, made from stylish materials that manage to outclass its predecessor. The size of the phone is also one of the 5530’s crowning glories. With bigger phones becoming the norm, it’s nice to have a sleek compact phone that fits snuggly in your hand and slides unassumingly into your pocket. The touchscreen is a joy to use and still feels precise and user friendly despite the decrease in dimensions and as for the operating system, Symbian just keeps getting better and the ever growing list of apps available on the Ovi store remind us what a great OS Symbian is. And the cons? Well, if you do a lot of web browsing or downloading then the 5530 probably isn’t for you. We can’t criticise Nokia for leaving out 3G as this isn’t what the 5530 is all about but still, going back to a GPRS device when you’ve been spoilt with HSDPA is a tough pill to swallow. Despite loving the design, i wasn’t as fond of the three buttons that sit beneath the touchscreen. Lacking the sensitivity of the display, they would have benefited from some physical feedback as you may find you’re unsure whether your tap has registered. Another minor niggle is that when navigating through menus, you must stick to the scroll bar or risk opening random applications when trying to scroll down the page, not a deal breaker but a slight annoyance non the less.

Despite these flaws the 5530 still comes out on top. For it’s price range the 5530 is easily the best in its class. Compared to the LG Cookie and Samsung Tocco Lite, at first glance there isn’t much to separate the three but dig a little deeper and the Symbian operating system and Wi-Fi put the 5530 in a league of its own. A great touchscreen device with an impressive feature list (albeit without some bells and whistles) and a smart phone operating system all wrapped up in a budget phone that looks much more expensive than it is. Expected to launch in mid August, click here to register for updates and we’ll let you know as soon as the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is available to order.