Nokia 5250 Review

Nokia have announced the forthcoming release of the Nokia 5250, a budget range handset with a focus on music and social media.

The Nokia 5250 runs on the Symbian Operating System, so although technically it could be classed as a smartphone, the lack of many top end features means it hardly fits the bill for such a description. The handset offers a large 2.8 inch resistive TFT touchscreen, supporting up to 16 million colours and with a pixel resolution of 360 x 640. As the device has a resistive touchscreen, it will operate with a stylus, and support handwriting recognition, which can be chosen as an alternative to the onscreen QWERTY keyboard. There is also an onscreen alphanumeric keypad for those who prefer the more traditional style of text message composition, using either multi-tap or T9.

The 5250 is rather a basic looking device, in common with many budget and mid range touchscreen handsets; the display dominates the front of the phone, underneath which are located the three keys, a menu key flanked either side by call send/end keys. Down the right hand side of the phone are quick access keys for options such as volume control, activating the camera and so on. All round the handset measures in at 104 x 49 x 14mm, and weighs a lightweight 107g.

So far so good, but once you start to dive deeper into the specifications of the 5250, you start to notice where it is lacking. One of these areas is in data connectivity, the Nokia 5250 offers no 3G access, no HSPA technology, nor even WiFi. All data is transferred either by EDGE or GPRS. The 5250 is a quad band GSM device, and does include Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, and there is a Micro USB port for the data cable.

Media features are pretty average, the camera on the phone is a standard point 'n' shoot 2.0 Megapixel offering, with video recording available at 30 fps per second in QVGA resolution. Good enough for loading up to social networks and sharing with friends. The 5250 includes easy shortcuts to all the popular social networking platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, and other applications can easily be installed thanks to the Symbian OS, as well as there being a wide range of gaming titles available too, in the Ovi Store. To start you off, Nokia will be supplying a free copy of Guitar Hero 5 with every Nokia 5250.

The handset does include a full media player, for video and music playback; onboard memory capacity is rather low, set at just 51 MB, but this can be expanded with Micro SD memory cards, with the 5250 officially supporting cards up to 16 GB in size. In some countries, where the service is supported, the Nokia 5250 will also be sold as an Ovi Music Unlimited device, which is the new brand name for the old Nokia Comes with Music service. Ovi Music Unlimited allows device owners to download as many music tracks as they like from the online Ovi Music Store for playback on the phone. As well as the music player, the Nokia 5250 also includes a stereo FM radio, and there is a 3.5mm audio jack so you can use the headset of your choice for listening to music.

Given that the Nokia 5250 is expected to retail SIM free for little more than £100, it is a tidy little phone, which should have big appeal among younger users, either on prepay or as a first time contract device. The handset will initially be available in a range of colours, including Dark Grey, Blue, Red, Purple and White, and is expected to release during Q4 2010.

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