Design
Music is obviously a priority for the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic phone, even beyond the dedicated music and volume keys. The phone has a playful look, more rugged than compact. The red band that encircles the phone has a rubbery finish, and the buttons (especially those dedicated to music) have a tight, rubbery feel. The slide has a larger gap than you'll find on Samsung's thin, fashionable sliders, with exposed rails on the back and a 1.3-megapixel camera that remains visible when the slide is closed. The phone is quite thick; at 0.8 inches, it is only a tenth of an inch thinner than our Palm Treo 700p. The slide is spring loaded, and we liked the rubberized border around the screen that helps flick the phone open.
Music - Very good
Unlike phones that cram in music functions as an afterthought, the Nokia 5300 is a true music phone, with dedicated buttons that start the music with one touch. The music player is simple but effective, with equalizers and playlists. Nokia includes a low-end pair of stereo headphones with a microphone for calling, as well as a small (and easy-to-lose) adapter for attaching your own cans if you so desire. Stereo Bluetooth was easy to set up and use, but we can't say the same about Nokia's dreadfully unfriendly music management software. Not nearly as slick or intuitive as Apple's iTunes desktop client, the buggy and tricky-to-use Nokia music manager is just a single step above a folder hierarchy menu. Back on the plus side, our music transfers were speedy via USB 2.0 to the phone's microSD slot, and though we received a palty 256mb card with our review unit, cards up to 2GB are available. FM radio was easy to use, though we encountered a lot of static in our New York office.
Calling - Very good
The Nokia 5300 is quite capable when it comes to handling calls and contact lists. Voice quality was good, though callers complained of background noise as we made our way through the packed, noisy streets of Manhattan. Signal strength was always strong in New York using a T-Mobile SIM card. The speakerphone is among the loudest we've used, but while the phone sports speaker-independent voice dialing, we found performance on voice commands to be very poor; the phone didn't recognize a single name we spoke. Bluetooth and push-to-talk capabilities are present, and conference calling was not difficult. The contact list accommodated plenty of fields, though you must add them one at a time if you want more than a single name and number per contact. Through the Nokia PC studio, the phone syncs your desktop-based Outlook contacts.
Messaging - Very good
Messaging functions on the Nokia 5300 are better than expected. Text on the clear, bright screen looks rounded and clean, not blocky, and the SMS viewer shows up to 128 characters on incoming messages, just shy of the 160 we prefer. Typing on the phone is comfortable, with its wide, rubbery keys. Messages can be sent from your contact list, but the while-you-type searching requires you to search for surnames and will not find first names in your contacts. We would also prefer to be able to search directly from the "To:" field in the messaging app. E-mail setup was easy, especially with a range of preset accounts such as Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL, though the phone can also handle manually entered POP3 and IMAP4 accounts. (taken from infosyncworld.com)
