Nokia 5610 XpressMusic Review

Introduction:

Nowadays, choosing a cell phone is a hard task. The market is flooded with many models with different design, quality and functionality, targeted at different audiences. Some people prefer smartphones, others look for something less complicated, like a music-oriented phone. Nokia comes out with a solution for the second audience and especially for the young consumers.

The music slider 5610 XpressMusic falls in to the middle class music phones of the manufacturer, combining a youth design and a 3.2-megapixel camera with flash and autofocus, FM Radio with RDS, the ability to play videos with “quality close to DVD” and a 3G connection. With these specifications, the phone can easily be considered a direct rival of the Sony Ericsson W910.

The package contains:

Actually, the headphones that come in the box, have the function of a convertor from 2.5 mm to 3.5 mm and act as a remote control. Unfortunately, you are unable to adjust the sound volume and can only jump to the next track. To take advantage of the rest of the functions/settings, one must pull out the 5610 out of his pocket.

Design:

The sporty youthful appearance of the Nokia 5610 XpressMusic slider is a result of the color schemes used: dark gray, black and red (in our case). Besides this variant, there are two others, in which the last color of the scheme is replaced by blue or purple. For the manufacturing of the phone have been used aluminum and plastic, which are very pleasant to touch.


However, the only metal parts are the music slider key and both panels, flanking the display. The edge around the phone creates the illusion that it is also metal, but it is made out of plastic. Depending on the model, it is colored black, blue or purple.

With dimensions of 3.9 x 1.9 x 0.7 inches (98.5 x 48.5 x 17 mm) and 3.9 oz (111 grams), 5610 is far from being the smallest. In contrast, Sony Ericsson W910 is slimmer and much lighter. Nevertheless, the Nokia model is very well balanced and fits very well in your hand, but when in the pocket of your jeans, it will be felt at all times.


You can compare the Nokia 5610 XpressMusic to many other phones, using PhoneArena's Visual Size Compare tool

On the front side, we have the 2.2” QVGA (240 x 320) TFT display with 16.7 million colors. It is covered by a scratchproof glass, which is a fingerprint magnet. It has a very good contrast and the picture is beautiful with well-saturated and lively colors. We were pleasantly surprised by its performance in direct sunlight. Everything was visible, but as if slightly faded.

Over it, is located the brightness sensor accompanied by the speaker and the video calling camera, which is red and resembles a robot eye.

Below, we have the soft and the navigation buttons. The music slider is the innovation here. You can easily push it left or right and it will automatically come back to its position in the middle.

It is used as a music functionality shortcut, but we’ll discuss that in detail in the software section. There are two system lights on both its sides, which flash when the phone is in standby mode or in the event of a reminder, missed call, message etc.

The other five buttons are standard for almost every phone: the two soft ones, accompanied by the "receive" and "end" call keys, with the 5-way D-pad between them. The last one is the only one felt by touch, since it is protruding. However, it is hard to get used to and operate because of the small size of the directions. You won’t have trouble with the rest of the buttons because they are easily pressed and clearly felt.

The phone slides up very lightly, especially if you place your finger on the protruding music slider. Even when it is opened, the 5610 fits firmly in the palm of the hand (even though not as well as some top shelf models) and makes you think, that it will last long. Sliding the phone up reveals the shiny black keyboard backlit in white. The buttons have a well-expressed relief, they are easily felt when pressed and very pleasant to the touch. Only using the top row is not trouble free, since it is too close to the edge and though not preventing you from writing a text message, it is annoying.

The bottom of the phone houses only the strap hole. All the connectors (charger, microUSB slot and the 2.5mm jack) are located on the top part of the phone, accompanied by the battery lid release button. Even though such is present, the lid is very hard to remove and you have to push so hard that sometimes it’ll feel like it’s about to brake. Unfortunately, since the microSD card slot is under the cover, you’ll have to deal with the inconvenience every time you want to replace.


On the right side, we have the volume control and the camera-dedicated button. The first one is not easily felt and is hard to press because it doesn’t have a well-expressed relief. However, the second one is well protruding and is user-friendly also. Once pressed, it quickly activates the camera and if held a bit longer, the camcorder is started.