Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Preview

The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic phone is one of the latest “budget” touchscreen devices to hit the market, and i managed to get ahold of one from “Carphone Warehouse”, as not only has this phone recently been released in the UK – but it is exclusive (for the moment) to Carphone warehouse in the UK, so to celebrate its arrival i decided to share my thoughts  about the phone.

As you can see from the picture above the box for 5330 is not very big, smaller than the 5800 box in fact, but it still contains all the “goodies” that you need inside but as always Inside The box you will recieve:

* 1x 5530 Headset
* 1x Nokia Battery
* 2x Stylus Pen
* 1x 4GB MicroSD Memory Card
* 1x Nokia Headset
* 1x Nokia Charger
* 1x USB Cable
* 1x Manual
* 1x Nokia OVI Suite CD

The 5530 is, in a sense, similar to the 5800, espically in terms of specification, as both phones feature 3.2 Megapixl Camera, Built in Wifi, Touchscreen, music applications and up to 16GB MicroSD Memory card support. The major differences between the two devices is the size screen and the design of the phone.

The 5800 (on the right) design is shaped like a rectangle except with curved corners, where as the 5530 (on the left)  is a smaller “box” styled design, both phones do fit rather well in the hands, but the 5530 has a more “metallic” feel ot it instead of the “rubber plastic” on the 5800. Other notable changes include that the 5530 has no physical buttons on the front of the device, as the “Call” , “Menu” and “End Call” buttons on the 5530 are actually touch sensitive buttons – for me this took some used to as i liked to push the button down to know the call has started or ended. Pressing the “Menu” button brings up the main menu which is exactly same as the 5800, and similar to other nokia devices released in the past year.

As i mentioned earlier the 5530 is more of a “metal” phone rather than the 5800’s plastic rubber, it still feels just as good to hold, but can easily slip out of pockets and slippery (wet) hands such as mine, the feature i did like on the 5530 is the Stylus pen is still located in the bottem left hand corner of the phone, however it is smaller and alot more tighter (so more secure) than the 5800 stylus pen. As after a few uses the pen on the 5800 seems to slip it, luckily i havent lost mine yet, where as the 5530 seems nice and secure.

These two photos are for the left and right sides of each phone, the 5530 is on the top and the 5800 is on bottem and you can easily tell that the phone designs are extremely similar, espically in the first picture, as on both phones the 1st button is used for taking photos (when using the camera), the 2nd button is the “unlock” function (to lock or unlock the phone) and the 3rd button is for volume control. In the 2nd picture its similar again, on the 5530 there is one hatch to open to slide in the sim-card and memory card, where as on the 5800 there is two hatchs to open, one for the sim-card and the other for the memory card.

So as you can clearly see from the pictures, and my short explanations, the 5530 is very similar to the 5800 and even boasts the same amount of features, so this 5530 could be the best “budget” touch-screen device since the 5800 was launched. If you still arent satisfied then check out the pictures below:

At the moment the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Edition is only available to buy, in the UK, at the Carphone Warhouse. The 5530 costs from £15 p/m on a Vodafone or T-Mobile contract or can be bought from £129.95 on Pay As You Go, which would be locked to 02, Orange, Vodafone or T-Mobile – depending on which network you would choose. To Put it simple the 5530 is a nice smaller version of the already impressive 5800.