Nokia 5233 ; Review, First Impressions & Pics

SPECS :
Dimensions - 111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm, 83 cc
Weight - 115 g
Display - TFT resistive touchscreen, 16M colors
360 x 640 pixels, 3.2 inches
Memory 70 MB storage, 128 MB RAM
microSD, up to 16GB
Connectivity GPRS Class 32
EDGE Class 32
Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
USB v2.0 microUSB
Camera Primary 2 MP, 1600x1200 pixels
Video VGA@30fps
OS Symbian OS v9.4, Series 60 rel. 5
CPU ARM 11 434 MHz processor
Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion 1320 mAh (BL-5J)

Build Quality & Box :



The box contains :

• Nokia 5233 [The Handset]


• Nokia High Efficiency Charger (AC-8)


• Nokia Battery (Bl-5J)


• Nokia Stereo Headset (WH-102)


• Plectrum Stylus CP-306


• 2 Colour Changeable battery panels


• User guide


• Cool Nokia strip :)

Build Quality - Nokia has to do some serious cost cutting to launch 5233 in just 6.5K and you can easily feel that from its build quality.



It is mostly made up of plastic but still by now way it is fragile and all and doesn't looks cheap. Side slot for Memory card and sim is good. No hassle of removing the battery.





Screen :





We all know that resistive touchscreens can never be as good as capacitive one. But still I was really surprised to the responsiveness of touchscreen. It may take a day or two to get used to it, but after that you will feel pretty comfortable using it just with your hands. I must say display quality is really top notch. While watching images or videos it looks fabulous. Though this phone doesn't have that glossy screen, like 5800XM, but it still looks stunning. Screen is comfortably usable even in sunlight if you turn brightness to maximum.

Video playback :



Video playback of this device is pretty good if you encode videos properly. It plays videos of 640X480 with ease with MP4(Xvid). I played videos with bitrate of as high as 2100 and there was no shuttering at all. This is pretty impresive considering its just a phone.

I have uploaded one encoded video http://rapidshare.com/files/405106432/S ... 4.MP4.html anyone having 5233/5800/5230/N97 can try this.

Performance :

This phone is powered by ARM 11 434 mhz processor with 128Mb ram and it does the job pretty well. For me, phone was not at all slow to use. However it will become slow if you try to open 3-4 application simultaneously.  If you are a patient guy you will be able to deal with it, then speed is not a big concern. Sometimes it's RAM becomes full when there are already 3-4 apps running and if you start browsing with some really heavy pages, it gives error-" Please close some applications and try again". However this error was pretty rare for me.

Sound quality :

I must tell you that I am an audiophile and have been a fanboy of Sony Ericsson because of its Sound Quality(SQ). But Boy O Boy! Trust me Nokia has made some serious improvements in sound quality. 5233's SQ is damn good. I tested it with my Sennheiser's HD 428 and it was awesome. Bass booster equaliser works pretty well and delivers awesome bass with clarity as well. The fact that it was able to drive a 32Ohm headphone with ease and sound was not breaking at all even at full volume, which  really tells you a lot.

Camera:



Camera is just 2MP, but since its a Symbian phone you can do a lot with to improve quality. There are many options which you can tweak a bit. It can record videos at resolution of 640X480 at 30FPS. I was really happy when I did recording with it. Will uplaod recorded video later.

Applications & Games :

My biggest reason for purchasing this up was since it is symbian, it has fabulous app support. Will tell you folks up in brief which applications I am using right now
PDF reader - Works flawlessly
Office suite - Awesome app. even works with .docx, pptx files
Opera browser - A lot better than default browser
Nimbuzz - Awesome app for all chatting purposes.
SWYPE - The next level of QWERTY !
MobiReader - Best eBook reader on the planet.
paintpad, accuweather,power mp3, wikipedia, facebook, antithief etc etc etc, the list is just looong !

Battery Life :

Battery life is pretty good since mine easily lasts for 2 days.

Call quality :



Call quality is descent. Its not that great. Sometimes you might hear some static and sound does lacks a bit of clarity. On loudspeaker it is pretty bad. Clarity is pretty good in headset though I am using same cover which you can see in above pic. Phone sometimes become a bit hot from back while charging or while using a lot of apps on it with browsing so I sometimes prefer to remove cover. Thers is no memory card in sales package so I bought mine for just 400 bucks for 4 GB

Conclusion :

All is all I can say that this phone does pretty well which it is intended to do. This phone has not disappointed me even one single bit. I must say it has awesome VFM & a Must Buy for  med budget.

Reviewed By Prashant Chhabra [4th Year ECE,BSAITM/MDU, NCR]