Nokia C5 hands-on review

Look:
Technology:
Performance:
Value for money:

Good: Sound quality, high performance processor, access to Ovi maps, easy interface
Bad: Absent Wi-FI, small display, just 15 fps video recording, bad visibility in sunlight, lacks accelerometer
Recommend: Yes


Nokia C5 is another mobile handset of the C series equipped with the Symbian S60 3rd edition operating system. The look of C5 is quite decent and is equipped with most of the latest features excluding Wi-Fi.

Design of Nokia C5

The looks of Nokia C5 are moderately attractive with quite simple looks but a good build body. The body has been assembled with a number of metal parts. Measuring 112mm tall, 46mm wide and 12.3mm thick and weighing 89 grams the body is quite balanced.
The display of Nokia C5 is 2.2 inches wide with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels having support for 16 million colors. Image quality is not good and the screen is not clearly visible in sunlight but considering the low price some cons are to be expected.
Though not a QWERTY keypad but the alpha numeric keypad is of good quality with properly spaced and satisfactorily responsive.
On the top of the handset are a 3.5mm audio jack, a micro-USB port and charging jack. The right side contains the micro-USB card slot and the volume rocker control. The battery cover is metal and can be easily removed.

Interface of Nokia C5

Operating system of Nokia C5 is Symbian S60 3rd edition. It is almost entirely same as of Nokia Express Musics OS. The phone book has been synced with your social networking sites- Facebook and Twitter, updates from your friends will automatically appear on the home screen along with the particular contact. You can select your favorite contacts and then customize it so that you can view their updates with just a click from the home screen.

Connectivity and Internet on Nokia C5

Data transfer can be done through the Bluetooth or USB and the Bluetooth headset can be connected for wireless audio transfer. Web browsing is enabled though facility of Wi-Fi is not available. The speed of the internet is enhanced with Edge.
You can set up multiple email accounts and can also switch between them. Support is available for various email services like Yahoo, Google, Hotmail, Ovi Mail and other email services.
Social networking has been fully integrated with sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Myspace and Hi5. Instant messaging support for GTalk, Yahoo and Windows messenger is available.
Nokia C5s web browser supports full HTML as well as Flash lite v3.1.

Camera of Nokia C5

Camera of Nokia C5 is equipped with a 3.2 MP camera with auto-focus and flash. The interface of C5 is richly equipped with 4x zoom, photo editor, video editor, panorama mode, manual exposure settings, color tones, white balance and red eye removal.
The image quality is good, bright and crisp though the video quality is moderate. Flash is not strong enough to take good pictures in the dark.
Memory of the phone is 50MB and external can be extended up to 16 GB.

Multimedia Features of Nokia C5

The interface of the media player is user friendly and simple supporting most of the popular formats of audio and video. A equalizer is built in to boost the sound quality. The sound quality in the earphones and the speaker is good. There is also a FM radio built in with RDS feature. Songs can be listened and downloaded from Nokia music.

GPS

Nokia C5 supports A-GPS which can locate your present position within seconds. Moreover this facility is available for free through Ovi Maps for lifetime of your Nokia C5 handset.

Performance and Conclusion

Powered by a 600MHz processor and 128MB RAM, Nokia C5 runs smoothly without any break. The call quality of this smartphone is clear.
The battery is 1050mAh Li-ion with back up excellent for a phone of this price range and category.