Nokia’s XpressMusic series is one of the more popular choices for music fans who wish to forgo the MP3 player in favor of music capable phone. And that means having the phone stack up performance-wise with an MP3 player – and based on our experience, the XpressMusic line does just that.
The 5730 packs quite a punch with its hardware with a design that more or less conforms to mainstream fancies. That is to say that you wouldn’t want to be flashing it about in a boardroom meeting – those fancy music hotkeys (quite eye-catching with slow fade-in and fade-out lights) won’t serve to win the brownie points with the boss. Its closest lookalike – the E75 – lends a sense of professional credence by its metallic aesthetics, which the 5730 lacks.
So that leaves the 5730 to everyone else who’s looking for a music phone, with high-power messaging features at their fingertips. There’s HSDPA (3.6Mbps) for those who require high speed connectivity for emails and instant messaging on the move and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi for when you’re stopping by Starbucks. Other notable features include the integrated A-GPS (with Nokia Maps 2.0), a 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash, front facing VGA camera for video calls and 3.5mm jack conveniently located on the top of the phone. First thing you’ll notice about the 5730’s home screen is the widgets bar located at the bottom, letting you select a few favorites apps quickly.
To accompany video playback you’ve got a 2.4 inch display whose horizontal view can only be activated if you slide the QWERTY keyboard down. But other than that, it offers capable viewing but wouldn’t undermine (touchscreen) phones with bigger displays. Videos weren’t as bright as we would’ve liked, this little drawback though was overshadowed by the music functions.
We’ve mentioned the music hotkeys next to the display so how about Nokia’s ‘Say-and-Play’ features that utilizes speech recognition to let you skip songs by track or artist. Both these of course are supporting acts to the music player which is still one of the best in the business with very good frequency range and loud, clear audio – your eardrums will burst before you manage to crank it up to max volume with a pair of decent earphones.
The 3.2MP camera will serve those looking to snap quick spur-of-the-moment photos well. It’s not up to the alley of Nokia’s 8-megapixel or even 5-megapixel camera phones though. Pictures are still worth a look with low-light situations given a boost with the LED flash. In normal circumstance you’ve got clear pictures that aren’t necessarily ring with vibrant colors but clear with good detail. Call quality was very good though we can’t vouch for battery life. The 1000mAh battery might need a charge after a long day and maybe even sooner but with casual use (phone calls, light Facebooking and few hours of the music player in commute) we managed to last almost two days.
A couple of treats to entice you: a bundled 8GB microSD card and a voucher for a free N-Gage game. N-Gage’s death is imminent (you can buy existing games until the end of September 2010).
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