Nokia 5300 Xpress Music

Reviewed by: dennisd

01-24-08

Duration of ownership: 2 Months

Strengths: The music player buttons are easy to use.

Weaknesses: Upgrading to a 4GB Micro SD Card (non-Nokia) is virtually impossible. The music output could stand to be much louder. I know 2 people who returned it within a week.

Overall Evaluation: NOT RECOMMENDED! Overall the phone is OK for me, but I have bought two 4GB Micro SD Cards so far and can't get either of them to be recognized by the phone. I bought the phone with the purpose of using it as my mp3 player, which works fine with the included card, it just doesn't hold enough music for me. I also found that the process of adding files could be much simpler. A drag and drop option from my music files directly to the phone would be great. I struggled for several hours the first time I attempted to add music. My sister and a friend also bought this phone and returned it within a week. One phone decided to never ring and on the other the sound quality and reception were horrendous. Thankfully this didn't happen to me. NOT RECOMMENDED!

Reviewed by: perfectworld12

01-06-08

Duration of ownership: 6 Months

Strengths: this phone does use flash and can play 3gp movie (full length movies) formated files. does have FM radio. camera is really good

Weaknesses: battery doesn't last long.

Overall Evaluation: i love the phone its great works perfect and i use it for a lot of things. i think this phone is worth the money and more people should get it.

Reviewed by: NotEd3k

07-25-07

Duration of ownership: 2 Months

Strengths: Robust Bluetooth support. Sharp screen. Excellent music player. Good tactile button feel. Standard USB port.

Weaknesses: T-Mobile has locked 3rd party Java app access. Poor camera in anything but bright sun. Unfriendly UI. None standard 2.5mm Headphone jack. Poor battery life. Custom USB cable.

Overall Evaluation: .OK, I've had the phone for a little while and have had some good experiences and bad. Good. The Bluetooth is great. Full OBEX support is a nice change from the crippled support I had with Sprint. The screen is really sharp. Great for photos and web browsing. Music player is pretty good. Using Nokia's software it is actually quite easy to copy music over to the 5300 and it sounds good from the phone's speaker, which is amazing! Speaking of software, the Nokia PC suite of applications makes it easy to copy your Outlook contacts and schedule over, plus many other features, including backup of the phone as a whole or piecemeal. The Bad. I can't run Google maps on it. The phone supports it, but the unit has been locked down so that 3rd party applications can't access the data network. Same with the mobile Gmail app and Opera Mini. Very frustrating! Pictures look really bad if there is not enough light. It really makes me miss the quality I got with my old Sanyo phone's 1/3 mega-pixel camera 3 years ago. At least it worked inside. The battery discharges in a day. It's very frustrating to have a battery almost die on you without much use from the phone at all. You need to use a custom Nokia USB cable. Admittedly this comes with the phone, but it's still a pain. Plus the USB cable doesn't charge the phone, so forget finding a workaround for that battery issue!

Reviewed by: cheaplikeafox

Updated: 02-Feb-08

Strengths: dedicated music, camera buttons, decent picture quality, loud speaker, comes with headphone adapter, fm radio, lightweight, bright lcd screen, easy to use, great call quality, microSD expansion slot,

Weaknesses: only one alarm can be set, microSD expansion slot under battery cover, back battery cover slightly difficult to remove, no flash for camera

Overall Evaluation: This one of the best midrange phones! It has great sound quality and speaker is loud enough. It is very easy to use, great battery life, and has a easy to read LCD screen. I did have some problems sending text messages to emails but maybe it wasn't due to the phone. It has a nice slider design and easy to access music player. It also has a video recorder too. Also, it comes with a headphone adapter so you can plug your normal headphones or a speaker to it to listen to music or fm radio. It's also very easy to transfer music, pictures to the phone using the supplied microUSB cable. One thing I did not like was that you can only set one alarm at a time. I like the ability to set multiple alarms like with the motorola phones.

Reviewed by: Siddarthh

Updated: 24-Mar-07

Strengths: Looks really good, The simple to use nokia interface, soft touch buttons, extremely light.

Weaknesses: top heavy when you open the phone. Camera not that great.

Overall Evaluation: Great phone. Best i have ever used. Rate it way above razr or any of the moto phones. I had a sony w810i. I like this phone better. If you are thinking of getting a nokia, this is the one to get.