Test report and technical data Nokia 5510
THE SOUND MUST GO ON - Nokia 5510, sing a song for us !!!
Plus of Nokia 5510: keypad, mp3 player
Minus of Nokia 5510: bit too big, no IRDA connection, no exchangeable covers
To start off with, I think the Nokia 5510 is more than just a phone, believe me! The Nokia 5510 has a large memory capacity of 64mb, a built-in MP3 Player, that allows storing up to 2 hours of music. The integrated FM radio, which will store 10 presets, is another entertaining aspect, that very well convinces me.
The Nokia 5510 comes with an assortment of technical devices, one of them is the very comfortable headset of the Nokia 5510. With one plug you are able to listen to music with the Nokia 5510 and you may as well answer incoming calls with it. If you receive an incoming phone call while listening to music, the Nokia 5510 will automatically pause the music player. The great thing about the Nokia 5510 is, that you can store plenty of MP3 files on the Nokia 5510. These can be downloaded from your PC or the internet using the supplied usb cable of the Nokia 5510, which fits into a socket on the side of the Nokia 5510. There is also a cable for connecting the Nokia 5510 to a CD "line in" socket on the back of a CD player in order to copy music to the Nokia 5510. The other cable is a headphone adapter for the Nokia 5510, so as just any headphone can be used with your Nokia 5510!
The software for the Nokia 5510, which is included in the package of the Nokia 5510, is a Nokia Audio Manager Version 2, 2001. I consider it tediously slow in organizing files, it crashed my computer more than once, even after doing a clean reinstall it was still frustratingly slow.
Actually downloading files from a PC to the Nokia 5510 was fairly quick, it was just navigating the files through the system of the Nokia 5510, which was ridiculously slow.
The length of the Nokia 5510 is really not bad, 138 mm, so the Nokia 5510 is actually quite small compared to the pictures that are shown of the Nokia 5510 (manipulation!). With its 58 mm width it looks a bit bulky. But that's true: the Nokia 5510 is quite thick too at 28mm and the Nokia 5510 weighs 155 grams, similar to a Nokia 3210, but that is not the problem, the true problems of the Nokia 5510 are different ones: the awful software of the Nokia 5510 and the fact that you have to use both hands to type a text message on the Nokia 5510 using a warty (!) keypad. This is actually quite a good idea and fine if you are a touch typist, but for those who use a normal keypad, without T9, it's a lot slower and only a poor substitute. The keys of the Nokia 5510, however, are slightly smaller to those found with the 3330 for example, and there's no T9 on the Nokia 5510, unfortunately.
The Nokia 5510 also has a Lithium battery which means you can charge it anytime without having to worry about the so called 'memory effect'. Apart from this it is identical to the Nokia 3330, for those of you who don't know this phone either, it has predictive text messaging, you can send long messages with up to 460 characters, alarm clock, clock, 10 reminders, various ringer tones, wap, vibrate alert, profiles, good games.
Another little shortfall of the Nokia 5510 is that the music volume keys are situated on the outer side of the Nokia 5510 and not on the front side of the Nokia 5510. That fact makes it awkward to access them. If they had put them on the front side steering and navigating through the menu, would have been far easier with the Nokia 5510. Furthermore, they are not lit up, so if you are in a nightclub for example (!) you will have trouble identifying them. Geez, being able to see the whole Nokia 5510 can be a problem under certain circumstances...
The covers of the Nokia 5510 can not be exchange and in addition to that the quality of the music player isn't that good, but I don't really care about that in the end...
All in all I consider the Nokia 5510 a great invention and its sround quality is really good, MP3 and the radio need to mentioned explicitly again. I wouldn't want to do without my Nokia 5510 anymore. But I have to admit, the overall picture of the Nokia 5510 is declined by its terribly slow software, poor ergonomics and its bulkiness. So please: only buy the Nokia 5510 if you really love music and don't mind these few niggles of the Nokia 5510. If Nokia worked on the software of the Nokia 5510 and would get rid of the horrible keypad, the Nokia 5510 would be a best-seller forever!
Test-review of Nokia 5510:
Technical features: ++++
Reception quality: +++
Ease of use: +++
Battery stand-by time: +++
Design: +++
Instruction manual: ++
Value for money: +++
Overall rating: +++
++++/excellent, +++/good, ++/satisfactory, +/poor
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