Samsung’s baby brother to the H1 gives users many features for lesser cost. This handset comes with integrated access to Vodafone’s 360 social network, bringing combined access to all your phonebook, Facebook and Twitter contacts. The large 3.2″ Touchscreen dominates the front of the phone and around the rear is a 3 megapixel camera.The M1 has built-in GPS and Vodafone Maps for finding your way around. It has MP3 capabilities for music on the move. Talktime is an impressive 600 minutes from its battery. The Samsung M1 is a smart and stylish phone for Vodafone contract customers.

QUICK FEATURES
Display 3.2″ TFT Touchscreen
Dimensions: 111 x 55 x 13mm
Weight: 111g
Battery life: 600 minutes (talktime) 300 hours (standby)

Camera: 3 megapixel
Video: VGA Video Recording (15fps)
Music Player: MP3 / AAC / AAC+ / WMA
Ringtones: MP3 / Polyphonic

Operating System: LiMo
Memory: 1GB internal + MicroSD
Connectivity: Bluetooth / 3.5mm audio jack
Internet: HSPDA 3G

RRP: £250
Released: November 2009
The Nokia 5230 is another budget smartphone from Nokia and one of the few within its price range that boasts the amount of features this handset does, not even its predecessor: the Nokia 5530 Xpress Music.

Sadly though, the 5230 looks pretty depressingly familiar – would you really be able to tell the 5230 apart from the other 5800 or 5530 handsets? Plus it’s not a smartphone (despite running Symbian S60 operating system) but then heck, they’re only asking little over £100 for the 5230 and for that money you can’t go far wrong.

The 5230 has a wide 3.2″ resistive touch screen that covers the front of this phone and has a 640 x 360 pixel resolution and automatic display rotation. The resistive touch screen isn’t so smooth to input on as a capacitive but can work with stylus…if that’s your thing? And the stylus will recognise your handwriting.

The 5230 is larger and very slightly heavier than its 5530 brother and this is partly due to having a bigger battery. But it’s worth it, you won’t notice the weight difference and the Nokia 5230 will last for ages before needing to be recharged – one of the longest battery lives we’ve experienced.

Unfortunately constituting another part of the weight is a camera that they may as well have not put on. It’s only 2 megapixels, and the camera doesn’t even take 2 megapixel shots very well. No flash, there is video recording but no video calling.

Much like the Nokia 5530, the Nokia 5230 is equipped however with Ovi Player for music streaming and purchasing, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack so the phones double as a music player – except don’t use this for its speakers because this only does mono. As well as an Ovi Player, you get Ovi Maps that can tell you where you are through aGps. And access to an ever growing Ovi Store where you can choose from a range of apps. To store the apps and music you’ve got an impressive 70mb of internal memory, plus an SD slot where you can expand up to 16GB.

The Nokia 5230 is an all-round great phone that lacks in some surprisingly vital places (a 2 megapixel camera…seriously?) but is packed with many features that you might think you couldn’t get at this price. Lest be said, if you prefer extensive battery lifes to taking snaps, then this is the phone for you – and it won’t cost you much over a ton.

QUICK FEATURES
Display: 3.2″ touch screen
Weight: 113 grams
Dimensions: 111 x 52 x 16mm
Battery life: 450 hours (standby)

Camera: 2 megapixel (3x digital zoom)
Video: Video Recording (30fps)
Music player: MP3 / AAC / AAC+ / eAAC+ / WMA (Nokia Ovi Player)
Ringtones: MP3 / Polyphonic

Operating System: Symbian S60
Memory: 70 MB (MicroSD upgrade up to 16GB)
Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0 / micro USB 2.0 / 3.5mm audio jack
Internet: WiFi / HSDPA

RRP: £149.99

 ★★★★☆ 

SEE ALL DETAILS ON NOKIA 5230

by Vincent Lacey