The Nokia 5700 Xpress Music phone utilizes a twisting base design that lets you access the music player, camera, and regular numeric keypad just by twisting the lower portion. What’s great is that when this is done, the corresponding application will launch based upon what the phone thinks you want to do. Obviously, when you turn the base to the music keys side, it knows you want to play some tunes. The same thing goes for the camera — it knows that you want to take a flick. Running on the ever-so-popular Symbian S60 OS, any previous Nokia user will be able to pick this thing up and get going. As a true music phone at heart, the Nokia 5700 Xpress Music phone offers some of the loudest darn speakers I’ve heard on a mobile phone.
Like, really really loud. Pretty clear too. It supports WM DRM and even sports a dedicated audio chip to make sure you don’t miss a beat, literally. Another very nice aspect is that the music will fade down when receiving a call, and fade back in when the call has ended, from right where you left off. Go Nokia! In addition to the music playback, using the speakerphone function when on a voice call left us real impressed…it was incredible. Nokia is generous enough to include a pair of stereo headsets with the phone. If accessible, we recommend taking advantage of the built in 3.5mm headset jack and using a pair of your own favorite headphones incase the free ones just don’t cut it.
Call quality is just what you would expect from Nokia, which offers some of the best RF performance-driven phones out there. The actual layout of the keys and buttons on the phone needs a little getting used to, but we found it very easy to use after a short amount of time. Also, the music keys could have been a little more responsive by offering more tactile feedback, but it didn’t affect our ability to pause, play, and skip through music without a hitch. The joystick used for navigating the device wasn’t tedious, but we feel that it could have been a bit better. Packed with a two megapixel camera, you’re able to twist, turn, snap, and send pictures off really quickly. We would have loved to see Flickr integration here like with the N-series, though. We know, we know, N-series only. Overall, the camera quality is good, yet a software update might be helpful in fixing some of the inconsistencies in the various photos we took. You’ll find full A2DP Bluetooth support inside, and that brings us to the second part of the review: the Nokia Bluetooth BH-501 headset.
The unit we reviewed was white and grey, and in our opinion, a little less appealing than the black version of the same headset. Colors aside, the headset performed pretty well when given music duties. Music came in crystal clear, and even though bass reproduction wasn’t outstanding, it was passable to say the least. One great thing about the headset is that it uses the same standard Nokia chargers that most of their current phones do (i.e. the Nokia 5700).
On the contrary, we found the headset is a little uncomfortable to wear, and we looked a little weird when walking down downtown Manhattan (yes we got the "WTF" stares…). Then again, the sole purposes of a stereo Bluetooth headset are to listen to music as well as make and receive calls. There were no complaints from our test victims regarding voice quality when using the Bluetooth headset.
Actual specs for the handset:
- Quad-band GSM/EDGE with WCDMA 2100MHz band or quad-band GSM/EDGE
- 2 mega pixel camera
- Bluetooth 2.0 with DUN, A2DP HFP, HSP, FTP, OPP, SAP, AVRC, BIP, BPPversion 2.0 + EDR profiles
- Talk time: 3.5 hours
- Standby time: 288 hours
- Size: 4.26" x 1.99" x 0.68" wide
- Weight: 4.06 ounces
Actual specs for the headset:
- Talk time: 11 hours
- Standby time: Up to 150 hours
- Supports A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles
- Battery: 260mAh Li-Polymer
- Size: 5.55" x 4.52" x 1.96"
- Weight: 2.39 ounces
What’s included in the box:
Nokia 5700 Xpress Music phone: phone, charger, battery, MicroSD card, stereo headset, USB data cable, user’s manual.
Nokia BluetoothBH-501 headset: headset, charger, user’s manual
We’re liking the handset and headset overall. The Nokia 5700 takes a little getting used to and we wish some of the buttons were a little more responsive, but we wouldn’t be doing a disservice recommending this phone to a music lover. Let’s give them 3 and a half BGs individually.
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