Home > Consumer Reviews > Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Phone, Red (T-Mobile)

Advantages: This is an excellent phone especially if you want it for the music player capabilities. You can use it with your regular headphones which is really nice and the buttons on the outside make it really easy to play music. It's pretty tiny, which is something I like in my phones.

Disadvantages: It really picks up every little noise on my end, so if I'm trying to do something while talking on the phone, people have a hard time hearing me. Also at home I don't get very good service, and my boyfriend who also has T-Mobile (but has a W490) usually gets a better signal on his phone.

Pros:
Form factor - nice thin and compact
FM radio/MP3 player
Takes 3.5mm regular earphones
Cool looking
Cons:
Durability - I had to replace it once already.
Camera - Shutter speed too slow, can't keep it still enough to get a decent pic. They need to increase the shutter speed.

This is my first Nokia phone, I wanted something different and didn't want a flip or slider phone. I love the form factor, it's very thin, very light, but still feels fairly solid in your hand. The actual media capabilities of this phone are decent, I had a Sony Ericsson w810i before this. The controls on the 5310 are much better. The screen is nice size, has good resolution and while not totally viewable in the sun, it's better than a lot of phones. The speaker isn't LOUD loud, but it's pretty clear, music sounds pretty good and voice calls over it are good too. The keypad is soft but solid, I have fairly fat fingers and find texting on it to be pretty good. On T-Mobile adding your own ring tones and pictures isn't locked so you don't have to pay them (which is GOOD!)

The PC Sync software isn't bad, you can edit your phone book directly on your PC and sync your calendar from Outlook, both of which are really nice features. The battery life seems pretty decent, for a phone this thin you really can't expect too much more. Reception is about on par with other T-Mobile phones in my area, and call clarity is nice. I can't comment on AD2P as I don't have the means to test it, but the phone does support stereo bluetooth - if that's your thing.

cons - depending on how you look at them:
no 3G so internet will be slow, I don't use my phone for internet so this means little to me.
camera is pretty crummy, no flash & it's slow. But this is a phone not a camera so...
depending where you're at coverage is iffy, not Nokia's fault though. At my GF's condo I get no signal, and a few sites I work at the signal is low. Blame T-Mobile here.

For the price this is a very solid phone, I think it's very sexy and the media controls are wonderful, I need to get some stereo Bluetooth headphones so I can test out A2DP. I would recommend this phone highly, and I'm someone who's owned A LOT of phones (10-15 different ones)

I had to buy this as a replacement when the Nokia 6126 I was using kicked the bucket after the warranty expired. I depend on wireless phones to make all my calls since my house is sans 'land line', so I wasn't walking out of the T-Mobile store w/out a phone. I saw this phone featured amongst the inventory and initially thought it was just another flashy piece o' eye candy. Well I picked it up to see how it handled and I was impressed with its build quality. It felt (feels) like a sturdy enough piece of equipment. I bought it and so far no regrets.

I've had the phone for a few weeks now and I've enjoyed its performance thus far. I've dropped it a few times and it seems no worse for wear. All the major function keys seem well placed and ergonomically sound. The screen resolution is one of the best I've seen. The camera quality seems to have taken a step backwards compared to my old Noki 6126. (How does that happen?) Shutter speed is sloooow and that makes for a blurry picture. The MP3 playing capability of the phone is decent enough, though the majority of your song storage will be through the included 1GB mini SD card. The phone's internal memory is paltry. The FFW, Play and RRW buttons are easy to activate accidentally. I'll think I'll have a call coming in but then realize that I just bumped into something and turned on the music player.

Will it replace my current MP3 player? Well no, (I will not part w/ my Creative Zen!) but it's a great device to have on the go. Call quality is excellent and Bluetooth connections & pairing are quick and strong. The keys on the pad are VERY small. My thumb can cover the entire keypad without any of them showing. If you're a texting maniac this may not be the phone for you unless you have Robert Johnson like dexterity.

The software that you can download from Nokia for this phone is also handy to manage your various media files. With T-mobile offering this phone for free or in the realm of less than $50 I would definitely recommend snatching up this phone.

The Nokia 5310, aka "The Music Xpress", is one nifty little phone! Sure, it's no iPhone, but if you want something that got just about as many bells and whistles for a little less money, you want this phone.

The 5130 is available in purple, orange, red and blue (I own the purple). It's very thin and small, but fits easily in the palm of your hand and doesn't give the impression it's going to fall apart if you look at it cross-eyed.

The buttons are raised up just a bit. The display is bright and vibrant. If you have T-Mobile service with this phone, you'll find it can handle the My Favorites plan just fine, with nice little icons and customizable options fo each person.

The phone has several nifty features, including a 2 megapixel camera that takes good-to-very-good quality pictures. It can also function as a video camera, doing both sound and image. There's no flash or self-portrait mirror, but you can make do. The screen acts as a view finder, of course. There's also four different levels of zoom and several different video effects (like black and white, negative, false color, etc). There's a nifty little mini-USB port you can use to move your files to a computer (assuming you have a cable. Thankfully the phone comes with one).

There's also the usual selection of programs, like a calculator, alarm clock, organizer, etc. The system also comes with a few game demos, none of which are particularly memorable.

Ah, but you want to know about the biggie, right? You want to know all about the music capability!

Well, this phone doesn't disapoint. There's external music controls and an external volume control. You can turn it up loud enough to annoy the people next door if you really try. There's also a headphone jack that, thankfully, allows for normal headphones to be used. I have a neat little set I got on a Delta flight, and they work just fine.

When I bought the phone it came with the USB cable I mentioned earlier, as well as a stereo hands-free headset with a detachable mic, and, joy of joys, a 1 gigabyte memory card! That's a really nice thing to have! I've got quite a bit of music on mine and it isn't even close to being filled. Tiny card, too. About the size of a fingernail.

Overall there's no real reason not to recommend this phone. It's sleek and stylish, has a great price point, comes with plenty of goodies and plays music very, very well. It's worth every penny I paid for it, and that's not something I can often say!