Digital Trends

Nokia 5300

April 17th, 2007 | by Stewart Wolpin

Design and Features

You almost can't help thinking of a panda bear upon first spying the black-on-white version of this cuddly slider (not so much with the red-on-white version). This cosmetic comparison is not mere empty prose, however. The distinctive look of the 3.64 x 1.9 x .8-inch, 3.75-ounce Nokia 5300 goes far in differentiating you from your style-conscious mobile peers.

In the midst of the color-banded middle is a bright, 2-inch 320 x 240 pixel, 262k color LCD. The menu graphics are more Atari 2600 than Xbox, but they're easy to read. Finding what you want in these menus, however, is often problematical; for instance, we were unable to find backlighting or screen brightness controls.

On the left curved side of the top slide half are three hard dash-like keys beneath icons for rewind/track back, play/pause and fast forward/track ahead. On the right are similar dash keys marked + and - to identify the volume controls, along with a slightly recessed camera activation/shutter key. Until you get used to the phone, you'll make the mistake of pressing the identifying control icons instead of the actual raised slashes just below. These hard keys require a solid pressing, which is a good thing — it's nigh impossible for them to be accidentally activated while you're toting the 5300 in a pocket or pocketbook. But you will have to disengage the keypad lock to use them.

Pressing the play/pause key starts the music playing, but not the actual application. Whatever you were doing stays on the screen as the music starts to play. You also can continue to navigate the varying phone features while the music plays largely uninterrupted. The music application doesn't boot unless you specifically choose it from the menu.

Beneath the screen are two soft menu keys (color-coded Send and End keys) and the navigation array, which serves double duty as music control keys when the music application is running and as camera control keys when you're snapping snaps.

Up top on the rear half of the slider are the power jack and the mini USB PC connection. Where's the microSD slot? Unfortunately, it's under the stubborn battery cover.

Underneath the slide is a grey keypad with slightly raised keys. But the blue character backlight blurs the numbers and letters and is effective only in complete darkness, which results in a bit more time and squinting for texting.

Although the 5300 is listed as myFaves compatible, we could not figure out how to turn on this handy T-Mobile feature, which posts pictures of the five people you call the most on the home menu screen. MyFaves may have to be activated at the carrier store.

Running the Symbian Series 40 OS, the 5300 is a semi-smart phone and offers voice dialing/command, e-mail, and instant messaging. The 5300 is also equipped with an alarm clock, calendar, to-do list, notes, calculator, countdown timer, and stopwatch functions. When the phone is powered up, the cute flight query prompts you to see if you want to turn off the radio but leave the other non-phone options running. If you turn the flight query option off, you can simply select the "Flight" profile.

Image Courtesy of Nokia