The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic : First Impressions

We’ve had the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic for about 2 days here at ZCJ. I can honestly say, at first I wasnt really expecting much from this device, but I was really suprised by how much I’m liking the 5530 so far !

What we liked :

• TouchScreen feels more responsive than the 5800. Near N97-level responsiveness I’d say.
• The firmware feels finished, which we didnt really think about the 5800 or N97. There are menu animations everywhere (turned on by default) that are fast and look decent. Plus that kinetic scrolling everywhere (except the app grid) really helps.
• The Contacts Bar on the Homescreen has finally gotten (slightly) more useful. You can now list up to 20 Contacts, and have 4 shortcuts and an Email shortcut on your Homescreen, all at the same time. Woo !

• The 5530 is kinda tiny. Sure it wont break any world records, or maybe I’m just too used to the N97′s size, but we found the device to be pretty small for what it can do.

• Build Quality isnt as bad as we thought it’d be. It doesnt feel as “Plastic-y” as the 5800, although there is plenty of plastic everywhere on the device.
• The 5530 ships with a VERY decent pair of In-Ear headphones with 2 extra sizes for the ear cups. Finally a decent pair of headphones !

• The microUSB cover has a nice tight little plastic cover to prevent dust getting into it. We approve.

• Has a 3.5mm Audio Jack.

• Messaging app automatically shifts from T9 in Portrait to the Virtual Fullscreen Qwerty Keyboard using Accelerometer.

• This thing is pretty loud. Near to 5800 Levels. It has FOUR speakers. Two at the bottom.

And Two at the Top.

• The red and green Call buttons, as well as the Menu button are all touch sensitive too, which doesnt take away from the “Touch” experience like the 5800′s hardware menu and calling buttons did.

What we didnt like :

• Doesnt Charge via USB. Why isnt this standard yet ?
• Homescreen isnt as useful as the N97. Being an XpressMusic Device, it might never get the Nseries Homescreen though.
• No Ovi Store included out of the box. No Internet Radio either.
• No Tv-Out
• Sliding Keypad-Lock key is a little stiff and hard to slide sometimes.
• No GPS or 3G but that doesnt matter so much here in India anyway. Google Maps was still able to get an approximate location using the network.
• The 3.2 Megapixel Camera is very basic. No Carl Zeiss. Has a Single LED Flash. Takes “okay” photos but nothing brag worthy.

Sample :

Sample 2 :

Sample (With Flash) :

Sample Video :

What we werent too sure about :

• There’s only ONE stylus that shipped with our box. That was already inside the 5530. (Might change with retail package though). So be careful not to lose that if you get a 5530. Not because you’ll need to use it to navigate on the 5530 (which you definitely dont). Its because you’ll need it to take your simcard out or your microSD card.

• Kinetic scrolling isnt in the Main Menu Application Grid. Still have to use scrollbars there. Boo ! The 5530 has Kinetic scrolling everywhere else though.
• The in-box microUSB-to-USB cable is really short. Like. Really. Short.
• The screen while smaller at 2.9″ compared to the 3.2″ of the 5800, isnt really that bad. The display resolution is the same as the N97 and 5800, which means some icons and details look a lot crisper on this display.
• Battery life wasnt as great as we wanted it to be. The device survived just a day and 6 hours after about 2 hours of calls, 30 mins of Wifi, display at full brightness, Haptic Feedback at level 2, about 10 mins of GPRS and about 10 mins of installing apps and messing around the UI. Definitely not great as we expected the 5530 to be one of those “charge it and forget it” devices but it looks like you’ll deffo need to charge it up every night.

The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic definitely suprised me. I’m not sure if its the “finished feeling” firmware, or the Kinetic scrolling, or just the overall look of the device that has me liking it so much, but I can tell you right now, that if you’re looking for a low-end Music device, this one’s definitely recommended.

The 5530 doesnt do a lot of things, but what it does (Music & UI), it seems to do pretty well. Consider us suprisingly impressed.