~Pocket Friendly Entry Level Smartphone~. Review on Nokia 5233

Prelude:

I bought this as a gift for my mother. My sole advice to all prospective buyers is to buy touch screen phones only if you completely set your mind too. My experience with the phone was a bit depressing.

I was on a strict budget approx ~6000. Planned to get a touch-screen for my mother as her earlier L6i was showing some problem after serving for a loyal 4+ years. Thought an upgrade from the normal bar phone to touch screen would impress her. But it did not, not to me and not to my mother too unfortunately.

About the phone:

Being a Symbian Smartphone the phone is well paced with some solid looks. Not eye-catching but trendy. The rugged yet fluidic design bundled with three back coversand a 3.2 TFT large sensitive touch screen was enough to captivate me to buy it. And I bought it for ~6500 inclusive of tax from The Mobile Store.

The phone has well packed features at this price. It is a budget friendly entry-level touch screen phone from Nokia. It can run third-party software without any major error. The processor used handles user requests quite well and seldom hangs. Nokia 5233 has a beautiful user-interface even a kid can drool with it. This is the best part about Nokia. Although the sound output is a bit slack. I had expected the sound output to be better if not grand but sigh!! This is where Samsung phone scores. Although, the sound output through headphones topped with preset equalizers is a bliss. The phone is further equipped with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The stock headphones are just ok and in a few days you will wish to upgrade it. Message typing can be tricky. You need to get accustomed to the touch Qwerty keypad to write messages without a typo. The accelerometer operate well if used judiciously ;-) for rotating the user interface. You can also type messages using the conventional touch phone keypad. The phone also supports handwriting recognitionbut am afraid I am unable to savor the beauty of this application after multiple trials. :-(

Overall, a good package packed with a 2 MP camera. Shooting in daylight is outstanding given the 2-MP camera. Video Recording is done in mp4 format and punches 30fps which is splendid. 1366*768 resolution is a such a bliss. Viewing pictures on the large screen is something short of paradise. Internet surfing on the large screen is splendid. The battery is the next best part. ~3 days without charge with regular usage is the maximum the phone can punch with its large resistive touch screen and normal usage. The touch screen is susceptible to scratches, so beware ^_^ Other standard features include: FM Radio with RDS, Bluetooth 2.0, memory expandable up to 16GB, no GPS, no 3G.

Epilogue:

Barring a few negatives, the phone is a good choice for all prospective buyers wishing to upgrade to touch screen phones. As in my case, the upgrade failed miserably.. :-( I wish to stay put with my bar phone which seems far more user friendly and is far immune to regular rough use that my phone undergoes. Clearly, touch screen phones is not my cup of tea. Wish I had known this in the first place. After all everybody commits mistakes. As for my mother she has contended herself with Samsung C3530.

P.S. Again, this is completely my opinion. Others may have varied opinions.

~Somjeet Roy~