Digital Trends

Nokia XpressMusic 5610 October 10th, 2008 | by Nick Mokey

Can a phone serve as a workable PMP?

Part of the issue we run into with most typical phone-PMP mashups is that most of them feel like, well… mashups. By cramming the controls from two devices into one, often you end up with a cluttered mass of overlapping menus and a confusing interface.

Nokia has attempted to solve that problem with software that more or less treats the PMP and phone as different devices, with a slick little spring-loaded slider beneath the screen to switch between them. Flick once and you go from phone menu to radio. Flick again and you’re on the media player.

Not only does the slider feel great to play with, it makes it much easier to navigate between the different systems. No longer do you need to memorize which menus you need to go rooting through to pause the phone’s music player or load up a new playlist. The flick works no matter how deep into other menus and options you happen to be. However, it also makes it impossible to go back to what you were doing afterwards - you'll have to return to the phone’s main menu and find your way back. Browsing the Web and want to switch to the next song on your playlist? It will only take a second to bounce to the media player and handle it, but on the way back you'll have to totally reload the page you were on and scroll back to where you were, making it hardly worth the hassle. To draw a computer analogy, it's like Windows quitting every other application you're using when you open up iTunes. We loved the idea of a dedicated button for switching between phone, radio and PMP functionality, but Nokia's implementation of it could use some work.

The interface for the music player is nothing spectacular, but it does the job. It offers familiar navigation by artist, album and genre, along with the ability to create and use playlists. IPod aficionados may scoff at its lack of an analog input like a scroll wheel for whipping through enormous lists, but given the relatively limited storage capacity, we found the standard interface just fine, and the four-way directional key made navigating it simple.

Nokia’s built-in radio function worked acceptably, but it requires a headset plugged in to pick up channels since it uses the cable as an antenna, and we still had reception issues indoors. The lack of AM radio also confounded us, since every FM radio we’ve used in the last decade has had this feature built in. Though Nokia did add RDS, which can digitally broadcast station names, artist names, genres, song titles, and other information, the player only showed extremely abbreviated pieces of data like “Valen-“ and “SPORTS,” making it far less useful.

Sound Quality

The included ear-bud-style headphones were par for the course with phones and personal media players: cheap, but functional. Audiophiles will want to upgrade to something nicer, but for those without overly picky tastes, they'll sound just fine, and even felt fairly comfortable thanks to plush foam covers.

The player produces crisp, clean sound, with no hiss in quiet parts of songs and plenty of volume to drive a pair of less efficient headphones, if need be. Even better, it includes a five-band equalizer for tweaking sound to taste, with five different presets plus two customizable extras.

Though we’re wary of built-in speakers, and set the bar unusually low for them, the speaker that came with the Nokia actually produced listenable sound. No, it doesn’t pump out any bass, and you can’t throw a party in the conference room by throwing your phone down on the table, but it worked well for taking in a quick song when no one else was around, which is all we imagine must people would want to begin with. 

Phone Functionality

Despite the bevy of other features Nokia has packed into the 5610 and its decidedly musical aspirations, we found it also performed reasonably well as a phone. The keypad, while small, doesn't interfere with dialing at all, and we could easily perform the sliding motion needed to reveal it one-handed. Call quality was a mix: we were able to communicate with callers without any difficulty and volume was outstanding, but we also experienced an omnipresent hiss in the background regardless of who we called, an annoyance that seemed to be unique to this phone. It didn't intrude enough to ruin conversations, and callers couldn't hear it, but picky phone users should be forewarned that it will have to be overlooked.