Digital Trends

Nokia XpressMusic 5610

October 10th, 2008 | by Nick Mokey

Video

Nokia claims you can watch videos in "near DVD quality" on a screen with resolution of only 240 x 320 pixels (an absurdly optimistic claim when DVDs have more than four times the resolution) but we found the 5610 to be less amenable to video. Though the display is relatively bright and vibrant, you can only get so much mileage out of staring at a 2.2-inch box, and we certainly wouldn't want to sit down and watch anything of length on it. The phone will also only handle the highly compressed and obscure 3GP video standard, meaning all of your favorite digital movie files will have to be converted down to low resolution and a choppy frame rate before the phone will handle them. It's a cute novelty for music videos, but you're not buying a mini cinema.

Web

While the XpressMusic 5610 does have 3G Internet capabilities, the lack of a QWERTY keyboard and shoddy Web browser crippled most of our browsing. Almost all of the pages we tried to visit outside of T-Mobile’s mobile-formatted “T-Zones” ended up garbled into an unusable mess, so the true power of its connection will mostly go untapped. 

Accessories

Besides converting a 2.5mm jack to 3.5mm, the included extension cable also terminates in a button for stopping and starting music without touching the player itself. While convenient in theory, the design of the button, which encompasses the entire clip, makes it far too easy to accidentally press as you connect or disconnect headphones, attempt to clip it onto clothing, or even just it brush it. In use, it turned out to be more of a liability than a convenience. The phone also includes a short Micro-B USB cable for data, and of course, an instruction manual. 

Camera

A full 3.2-megapixel camera sensor, 8x digital zoom and flash make the XpressMusic look, on paper, a lot like a low-end point-and-shoot camera. However, the resolution serves as a poor substitute for what all cell phone cameras really need, which is a physically larger image sensor to capture more light.

Test images from the camera had plenty of resolution, but suffered all the same pitfalls of lower-res cell phone cams, including heavy speckles of digital noise, lack of color, and poor low-light performance. It especially seemed to have difficulty handling bright scenarios - in many scenarios, white and grey objects not only ended up completely washed out, but produced a halo effect that spilled a white glow onto their surroundings.

Despite these criticisms, Nokia did manage to edge the camera ahead of the competition with the focus, flash and form-factor. Like a point-and-shoot camera, taking photos with the XpressMusic requires to users hold down the shutter button halfway for focus, then press it all the way to take the shot. This extra level of control seemed to produce better focus in our shots than we're used to with camera phones, though it was still far from perfect. The flash also zapped out quite a burst of light for such a tiny camera, and did a respectable job lighting up close-in shots in darker settings, like the shots you might take of a group of friends at night. Finally, the phone's rectangular profile and side-mounted shutter button made it comfortable to hold for extended shooting, and easy to use.

While we would never trade a real digital camera, even a cheap one, for the XpressMusic, it held up reasonably well for a camera built into a phone, and we wouldn't mind using it for impromptu shots.

Battery Life

In our relatively modest use of the 5610, we ended up needing to charge it just about every other day – not an especially impressive stat for a brand new phone. While all the music-playing, and certainly the exterior speaker, must have contributed to the problem, we would still be wary of relying on the XpressMusic when on the road or in other extended periods without outlets. At the very least, cutting back on music-playing might be necessary.

Conclusion

Nokia’s XpressMusic 5610 won’t surf the Web competently, allow you to tap out texts in seconds with a QWERTY keyboard or let you pass your flight watching Mad Max without some serious eye strain, but as a phone and a music player, it does the job. As a trade-off for all that other missing functionality that could be found in a real smartphone, you get a slim, durable and easily pocketed little guy that puts those other bricks to shame on portability and style. Despite some slight software hiccups, Nokia has otherwise done a very neat job tucking a functional PMP into the phone.

Pros:

• Slider button makes accessing music easy
• Sleek, well-built case
• Compact
• Respectable sound quality and EQ

Cons:
 
• Software needs a little refinement
• Not suitable for movies, only music
• Sketchy battery life when used with music
• Non-standard headphone jack