With stereo Bluetooth, dedicated music buttons and a sporty design, the Nokia 5300 boldly declares itself a music phone. Will it replace your MP3 player as well as your phone?
Review summary of the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic:
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 It's refreshing to find a music phone like Nokia's snazzy 5300 XpressMusic that actually takes music seriously. Our tunes sounded impressively good on the 5300, and with support for both stereo Bluetooth headsets and your own high-quality set of headphones, the sporty-looking slider makes for a compelling, music-minded companion. However, with its thick design and dodgy management software, the 5300 isn't quite ready to replace your iPod nano, and we wouldn't mind some improvements in the phone's sketchy voice-calling capabilities. Release: January 2007. Price: $1.
Pros: Solid music functions; stereo Bluetooth; dedicated music buttons; included headphone adapter.
Cons: Lousy music management software; bulky design; background noise on calls.
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Full Nokia 5300 XpressMusic Review:
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Competition
Find out how well the Nokia 5300 competes with similar music phones:
Nokia 5300 vs. Sony Ericsson W810i vs. Sanyo M1
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.
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