Best Nokia 5610 XpressMusic Deals
A Worthy Musical Adventure
Nokia’s XpressMusic series is determined to keep the Sony Ericsson Walkman series on its toes, and before SE came out with the W960i, it certainly did with the Nokia 5610 XpressMusic mobile phone. An upgrade from the already popular Nokia 5300 XpressMusic, the 5610 boasts of an advanced music player that recognizes all formats, supported by the Digital Rights Management, Nokia’s improved audio chip for excellent sound quality, an equaliser and an FM radio with RDS. Loudspeaker mode will give good audio, although the whole listening experience goes up several notches when using the inclusive stereo headset. You can also buy a separate Bluetooth headset for the 5610.
The screen is also an improvement from the 5300, which would easily break and was the phone’s major disappointment. This time around, the 5610 has a hardier, sturdier frame. It may be a bit plasticky, but we are distracted from this by its sleek black casing, accented either by red or blue. The design has been called “sexy,” by some satisfied users. Now that it’s an established fact that, because of its function as a music player, the XpressMusic series is going to be handled a lot more than normal mobile phones, Nokia has added scratch resistance to its screen and aluminium side panels to its frame. Nokia also assumes that you’ll be using this phone more to listen to music than to make calls or send and receive messages, which is why the keys and controls for the music player and radio are upfront under the screen, and the keyboard for calls and SMS is found underneath, after sliding the unit open. Despite all the different keys, the mobile phone is quite easy to use and, in this way, is a league away from most SE Walkman mobiles.
Another advantage of the Nokia 5610 XpressMusic is that its 3.2 megapixel camera is as good as the same size megapixel cameras of the Nokia N series. In contrast, the Sony Ericsson mobiles have split between Walkman phones and Cybershot phones. This means that Walkman phones don’t have very good cameras, while Cybershot phones have poor music players. The exception to this is the Sony Ericsson W960i, but that unit is quite expensive. The Nokia 5610 may actually be a bit pricey overall, but definitely less costly than the W960i, making it quite a bargain.
The display is both a plus and a minus to the 5610. A plus because it’s an enormous, high resolution 2.2 inch screen featuring 16.7 million colours and 240 x 320 pixels. With such a screen, you can easily manage playlists and album art, and enjoy Visual Radio, which gives details on what you’re listening to. It’s also great for watching crystal clear videos and browsing the Internet, especially with Opera Mini already installed.
Unfortunately, it’s a minus because the display is known to suddenly blacken whilst in use, signalling its unfortunate hanging. This is fixable with updated firmware, and isn’t the norm for all units, although it has been reported enough times to cause alarm. However, if you don’t mind updating your firmware at the first sign of trouble, the Nokia 5610 XpressMusic is a great phone all around.
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