Its been some time since Nokia 5700 has been available on the market and this is probably the 563278397545th review of this phone on the internet. The reason I'm writing a yet another 5700 review is because I enjoy reviewing mobile phones and also because some people actually requested me to do it. So then, lets begin.
The design of the phone is very flamboyant as it is basically targeted at young people. It comes in Red and Black but these colours are only limited to the sides and the rear of the phone while the rest of the phone is in milky white. The design of the phone is quite nice and appealing, however some people maybe put off by the colour scheme.
The build quality of the phone is great. The phone does not creak when held tightly in the hand and all the parts feel well put together. The phone gives a feeling of a high quality device that'll last long, which is typical of Nokia phones. The revolving joint of the phone is also solidly built. Some people fear that it might wear off in time. But from my experience I can tell that nothing of that sort will happen.
5700 is not a particularly thin phone and in fact looks quite chubby when put besides, say, Nokia 5310. But its not colossal either and carrying it in your pocket or just holding it in your hand is not uncomfortable. The dimensions feel just right and the weight also feels quite correct, neither being too light nor too heavy.
The keypad on the phone is a mixture of good and bad. The soft keys, Call/End keys, the alphanumeric keypad and the music keys fall on the good side whereas the joystick, Menu/Clear and volume keys fall on the bad side. The soft keys and the Call/End keys work perfectly. But the Menu and clear keys are too close to the soft keys. It's not uncommon to press the soft keys instead of the Menu/Clear keys and vice-versa. The alphanumeric keys also work very well because of their right size, spacing and feedback and makes typing text an enjoyable experience. But the #3 key is too close to the End key and you might know what happens when you press the End key in S60 3rd edition phones (in case you don't, the End key closes the running app and takes you to the standby screen). Imagine typing a long post in Opera Mini and accidently pressing the End key. Not only will your precious post will be lost, but the app will close as well and you'll have to start all over again (this has actually happened to me a couple of times). Grrrrr..... Then it's the joystick which is a bit too stiff for my liking. I rather prefer the super smooth joysticks on Sony Ericsson phones. But I guess its purposefully made stiff to make it last long (SE's joysticks are notorious for becoming dead after some usage). There's also the volume keys on the phone's left side which have been made so small that they are almost non-existent. I don't get the bright idea of making the volume keys in a MUSIC PHONE so darn small. Plus they are quite hard to press.
The display on the phone is totally amazing. It's QVGA resolution, 16 million colour and has a diagonal length of 2.2". The picture quality of the display is simply stunning. Everything, images, videos, even web pages look fantastic on it. Plus it's outdoor visibility under direct sunlight is fantastic as well. My only grouse is that it could've been a bit bigger. 2.2' is not enough. In my opinion QVGA displays should be at least 2.4".
Making and receiving calls is the primary function of any mobile phone and the 5700 performs just as anyone would expect of it. First off, its network reception is great (typically Nokia), the quality of the voice is great and both the parties can hear each other loud and clear. The loudspeakers are very loud too. The phone's ringing can be heard in crowded places too and the vibration feature is also quite strong. Plus the phone has a great Contacts app capable of storing unlimited numbers and thumbnail images (which are a bit too small).
Messaging on the phone is also great. If you get used to the quirks of the keypad, typing messages is not too bad. Plus the message app is great and can store unlimited messages. The phone supports SMS, MMS and Emails. You can also install additional Email apps, like the Profimail for example.
The UI of the phone is the same old Symbian S60 interface that first appeared in 7650 and which has undergone very few changes. In the latest FP1 avatar it has gained a small blue circle which comes on top of the icons of running programs and also the ability to create folders within folders. Some people do complain that there are a bit too many icons in S60 phones which intimidates newbies. I really don't think so. Everything is clear and straightforward and a person who gets intimidated by a bunch of icons should not be using a smartphone anyway and instead be living in a cave somewhere in Himalayas. 5700 has a 369 MHz processor which means moving through the menus is a breeze. Apps open and close in an instant which is a far cry from previous smartphones which were infamous for their slow responses.
Being labelled as a music phone and having a dedicated audio chip on board means one is definitely looking forward to how the phone sounds. Well, it doesn't sound nearly as good as one might expect it to, despite having a decent pair of headphones along with it. The biggest problem is bass or rather the lack of it. I cannot imagine how they could've dropped out such an important part of the audio spectrum, especially considering the target audience of the phone which is mostly going to be youngsters who usually listen to bass heavy music. The phone does decently with mid-bass but when it comes to hitting the lowest notes, the phone gives up. Some songs rely heavily on their bass for their impact and they fail miserably in 5700. Plus the equaliser doesn't help either. The 5-band equaliser seems more like the last 5 bands in a 9-band equaliser which were plucked out of it. Increasing the first band for bass just adds more (barely noticeable) mid-bass to the sound. The mids on the phone are fine but the highs are a bit too exaggerated. This is fine with some low bit-rate MP3 files which get benefitted with the added sparkle and clarity but on higher bit-rate files the sound becomes shrill. The headphones coming boxed in with the phone are manufactured by Philips for Nokia and are possibly the best pair of headphones ever to be shipped with any Nokia phone till date. They have an in-ear desigh similar to SE's HPM-70 set. On their own they do a fine job. They have admirable mids and highs but cannot handle deep bass like the SE headphones. They also limit the volume a bit and one tends to increase the volume a bit more than regular on the unit to which they are connected. I've also noted they require a bit of breaking in. I had to connect them to my Sony Hi-Fi playing audio CDs at high volume for a few hours to make them sound properly. They offer a comfortable fit to me but Nokia has been miserly in not providing an additional set of eartips of different sizes. Overall the sound quality of 5700 is decent and well suited to listening Classical music. But then again, considering the target audience, finding Classical music in 5700 is like finding a raincoat in Sahara. Nokia has totally screwed up here. Even with dedicated music keys, a decent pair of headphones, remote control and a long list of supported formats, 5700 loses in the most crucial aspect, i.e. Sound quality. If I have to explain the sound quality of 5700 in one sentence, I'd say it sounds exactly like a high quality 2.1 speaker system, only without its sub-woofer.
Playing the music via the loudspeakers is a different story altogether. There are two of them which means stereo sound which is any day preferable to crappy mono. The speakers produce good quality sound. The sound has a certain amount of bass in it which makes music sound much better. They can attain a good amount of volume and even at full volume they do not distort. They aren't as loud as those of N73 but are quite good and I really liked the sound they produce. It sounds rich and has a nice tonality to it.
Video playback on the phone is not that impressive. Not until you install CorePlayer in it. Where the default Real Player has a limited format support and stutters and hiccups with high resolution files, CorePlayer can play most video formats and even high resolution ones. With CorePlayer I can even play VGA resolution 30fps MPEG videos on 5700 without problems (thanks to the fast processor). The screen is not very big but is still decent. Plus you can twist the phone to stand at a comfortable angle for watching videos.
The Camera on 5700 is a 2 megapixel CMOS unit. It has a LED flash but no auto-focus and lens cover. The odd location of the camera lens means that it often gets covered by fingers (and subsequently fingerprints). The camera is started by simply twisting the phone. The quality is nothing to write home about (or a review). The best images are captured in bright light. In the dark the the camera produces images with tremendous amount of noise. One look at these pics and you wish you were born blind. The flash only brighten ups subjects within 1 meter of the lens, but does nothing to reduce noise. Nor does the Night mode. Also once the keypad is twisted it's difficult to access the navigation controls of the phone. Also there are very few settings to tweak the pics. Only white balance and colour mode. Video is captured in QVGA (320x240) resolution at 15fps. The quality is decent but the framerate is poor.
5700 also has a very capable FM radio. When starting for the first time, it asks you your location. Upon choosing it from a list, it connects to its database via GPRS and downloads a list of all the available radio stations in your area and then saves them with their full names in the memory. I didn't have to scan any of them and waste any time saving them. Pretty impressive! The FM receiver itself is very sensitive and also catches stations with stereo sounds indoors. My previous SE W710i refused to catch these same stations sometimes pretending they didn't even exist. But no such problems with 5700 which catches them in full stereo.
5700 supports Bluetooth v2.0. The speeds are great and it also has A2DP but due to lack of any A2DP headphones with me, I could not test it. The USB transfers on the other hand are a right pain in the ass. Despite labeling it as USB v2, the speeds are more like v-10 or something. It takes ages to transfer even small files and filling up the memory card initially makes you die of old age before the transfer finishes. In other words, it's too darn slow. Then there is the Jurassic infrared too, but I didn't test it. Its useless anyway.
5700 is also a Quad band GSM handset with UMTS support which makes it 3G. It also has good old fashioned GPRS and EDGE Class 32 for us less luckier folks and it all works well. The phone can also do video calls but I'd have to go to UK to test that. So if anyone wants to know send me airlines ticket.
The web browser on 5700 is the typical S60 3rd Edition browser. It's the the best browser on any mobile phone currently available on the market. It works just like a PC browser. Only grouse is that like the Opera Mini, this browser is also recognized as a mobile browser by the websites, like Google for example, which means they'll display the mobile versions of their websites instead of the full PC versions and you'll have to manually select the option to view the full PC site. The browser also suffers from low RAM on 5700 (which is 20 MB upon startup) and hence after browsing a few pages starts displaying the "Memory Low" messages. The S60 browser also does not download files in format which are not natively supported by the phone (like EXE or RAR files).
The battery life on the phone is not that good. It only lasts me a day. I do use it a lot though, especially GPRS and for someone who doesn't use GPRS that much can probably squeeze out another day out of it.
Overall I'd say that 5700 is a decent all round smartphone, and not a music phone as Nokia likes to call it. The rather severe lack of bass doesn't quite make it fair to call it a music phone. If music is your priority then I recommend you look elsewhere. 5700 is a phone which has good design, is well built, has good connectivity options and is a capable smartphone, running arguably what can be called as the best operating system for mobile phones, Symbian S60 OS. And for the price for which it currently retails at (Rs. 11,050 in Mumbai) it is excellent value for money.
Nokia 5700:
+Good design
+Solid build quality
+Excellent display
+Speedy interface
+Good quality supplied headset
+Long list of supported softwares, games and themes
+Excellent value for money
-Severe lack of bass in sound
-Overtly stiff joystick
-Poor placement of Menu and Clear keys
-Poor quality camera
-Low RAM
-Slow USB Transfer speeds
Design- 8/10
Build Quality and Construction-9/10
Display-8/10
Loudspeaker: Volume- 7/10; Quality- 9/10
Call Quality/Network Reception-10/10
Keypad Comfort-6/10
UI Speed-8/10
Messaging- 7.5/10
Contact Management-9/10
Sound Quality: Bass- 3/10, Mids- 8/10; Highs- 6/10
FM Radio (Sensitivity/Sound)- 8/10
Connectivity (Bluetooth, USB, IrD, GPRS/EDGE/3G)-7.5/10
Battery Life- 6/10
Value For Money- 8/10
Overall Rating- 7/10
Inbox Contents:
Nokia 5700 Handset
Battery
Charger
3.5mm adaptor with built-in remote
Headphones
512MB microSD Memory Card
Software CD
User Guide
Some more pics of the phone.
Ok I'm just pasting the review here instead of redirecting you to my blog.
My Nokia 5700 Review
Re: My Nokia 5700 Review
Re: My Nokia 5700 Review
Re: My Nokia 5700 Review
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