Cell Phones Blog

In the shadow of the iPhone, all handsets suddenly seem woefully inadequate. But Nokia’s unassuming 5300 Xpress Music is one of the best music phones we’ve used. Even better is its price from T-Mobile: only $99 with the usual contract stipulations. The carrier doesn’t have its own music service to fill the included 1GB microSD Card, but Nokia includes everything else you need for enjoying your favorite tunes between calls.

About the size and shape of a small bar of soap, this two-toned slider is girded with either a black or purple band and has a two-inch screen in the middle. And instead of those annoyingly fancy touch-sensitive music controls, the 5300 is endowed with large, old-fashioned tactile buttons: play/pause, rewind, and fast-forward on the left spine, and “+” and “-” for volume on the right.

Nokia’s music application works like an MP3 player, in that pressing the side Play control starts the music regardless of which application the phone is running. And the 5300 offers true random play. Most music phones create a “random” playlist that never varies, but the 5300 either picks right up from where you left off or starts from a new spot on your list. There is also a variety of track-categorization view choices (track, artist, most recently added, etc.), along with the actual random-play listing.

Transferring tracks to the phone is simple via the included mini USB cable, especially if you use Windows Media Player 11, which lists the phone by name, like it would any standalone MP3 player. Or you can slip the included 1GB microSD Card (enough for 250 to 300 tracks ripped at 128 Kbps) into a card reader and simply drag and drop the tracks. The 5300 supports MP3, WMA, M4A, AAC, AAC+ and eAAC+ files, as well as WMA DRM tracks, which means you can use this phone with any number of PlaysForSure music services. Nokia also includes an FM radio, but it was not functional on our test unit.

You have three ways to listen to music: through the ill-fitting wired earbuds with in-line mic that come with the phone (you can also use your own headphones with the included 3.5mm adapter); stereo Bluetooth headphones; or the external mono speaker. Unfortunately, the Bluetooth controls are buried deep in the Settings menu, making reconnections to paired headphones a bit more convoluted than necessary. Although not stereo, the rear external speaker nonetheless pumps out room-filling sound equal to any standard clock radio. Best of all, the 5300 plays music for up to 12 hours, but using stereo Bluetooth obviously shortens this runtime.

The 5300 is also a semi-smart phone, running the Series 40 OS and equipped with a 1.3-megapixel camera/video recorder, voice dialing/command, e-mail, and instant messaging. Voice quality on T-Mobile’s EDGE network was crisp and had plenty of volume, but the 3.2-hour talk time is surprisingly miserly considering the music-play time.

Holding the phone horizontally places the camera shutter release conveniently under your right index finger, with voice toggle keys doubling as the 8X zoom controls. Unfortunately, the shutter is recessed and difficult to manipulate. There’s a self-portrait mirror but no flash.

On the other hand, this phone is all about the music, not the camera. And in this respect, the 5300 Xpress Music would be a bargain at twice the price.