Nokia 5610 XpressMusic review: Gotta love music

The fifth version of the S40 user interface is nice

Nokia has recently released several phones using Series 40 5th Edition UI. The first model to feature this interface was Nokia 7500 Prism, followed by Nokia 6500 classic and Nokia 6500 slide.

Each way on the Nokia 5610 D-pad can be assigned basically any function. The selected shortcuts can then be set to appear on the display when active standby is off. The active standby mode is a standard feature for S40.

Active standby mode on and off • screen saver • D-pad shortcuts

The main menu can be viewed in four different ways: list, grid, grid with legends and horizontal tabs). The grid without legends allows showing all icons in one display window.

Menu viewed in four different ways

Nokia 5610 offers a particularly practical voice control. It needs no voice tag pre-recording and works with many of the phone's features.

The phone's firmware is updatable straight through the GSM network. New versions are downloaded and installed on-the-fly, without the need of a PC.

Another great news is the option to copy and paste text from across applications. For example, you can easily copy part of an SMS into the calendar.

Response to user commands is instant. Even the camera start-up time can make many handsets jealous.

Brilliant telephony

Phone applications have been improved to the level of perfection in the S40 5th. The phonebook has been expanded to store up to 2000 contacts.

Each entry can be assigned numerous fields. First names are separate from last names to make synchronization with Outlook seamless.

Ringtones can be assigned to each contact. Naturally, you can also assign personal pictures or videos that will run on an incoming call. The speakerphone function is available too.

Calls can be recorded with the voice recorder, which is good news - the recording limit is set to an hour.

Phonebook: the usual treat

It is possible to view contacts saved in the phone memory or those stored on SIM, or both lists together. Searching is done by gradual typing of the contact's name.

Many will surely appreciate the option for a larger phonebook font. What's more, contacts can be filed into groups to use as call filters. Push to Talk - a function Nokia usually puts in most of its releases, is available in this model too.

Phonebook

Nokia 5610 has quad band GSM support and works in the following GSM networks: 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz. Dual band 3G support is also onboard (UMTS) at 2100 and 850 MHz. The front QVGA camera allows making video calls.

The secondary QVGA camera for video calls

Nokia 5610 doesn't have a dedicated power button, which - when available - is also used for switching between ringing profiles.

Speaking of ringing profiles - there are seven of them in the phone. Profiles can be activated temporarily with a preset expiry time. Flight mode is available too.

The phone supports 64-voice polyphonic ringtones, while MP3, AAC, WMA and AMR files cane be used as incoming call alerts too.

Profiles • flight mode on

In-call audio quality is very good, sound is rich and clear on both ends.

GSMArena editor's note: You have probably noticed that the Nokia 5610 review is not home-brewed, but is instead courtesy of our Czech partners over at mobilmania.cz. Therefore it doesn't feature our in-house loudness and audio quality tests, seen lately in all of our reviews.

One message editor for all your needs

Nokia 5610 uses the same editor for both SMS and MMS. Inserting an image, video, business card, calendar memo, etc will turn a regular text message into MMS. The message type can also be set up manually from the context menu.

One common editor for SMS and MMS

The editor offers three font sizes. With the smallest one up to 10 lines are displayed when reading a message and 9 when typing. Of course, you can refer to the T9 dictionary. SMS length limit is 1000 characters. The number of chunks a longer message breaks down to is also indicated.

The number of the message recipient can either be typed manually or selected from a list of the 10 most recent contacts in the call log. Besides, a contact can be set as favorite and appear on top of the above mentioned list.

Emailing is no longer courtesy of a Java application, we have an integrated email client instead. It works with POP3, SMTP, and IMAP4 protocols and handles up to 5 mailboxes. The user has the option to set up automatic mail check, as well as choose to download either entire messages or headers only. There's no limit on attachment size.

Organizer: top one in its class

The organizing functions in Nokia 5610 are the familiar and reliable Series40 stuff. The calendar offers month, week, and day views. Right beneath the month view you can see the events corresponding to the day you have selected.

The week can start on Monday, Sunday, and even Saturday. There are five types of events in the calendar: meeting, call, birthday, memo, and reminder. Further on, each event has its own specific fields like start and end time, type of alert with various advance intervals, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly repetition.

Sundays in the month view are marked in red, while days with events appear in bold (not easy to recognize at first sight though).

Calendar, reminders, event alert

The to-do manager offers three priority levels. Tasks can be assigned a reminder, as well as marked off once accomplished. They are easily synced with the calendar too.

Text notes are available as well; their length limit is 3000 characters.

The alarm clock is repeatable and can be set up to wake you up on chosen days of the week. It works with the phone switched-off too. As usual for all mobiles with a radio, you can set your favorite station to act as the alarm. In this case, make sure you've plugged in your headset.

Among the other organizing functions of Nokia 5610 we should not leave unmentioned the voice recorder with 60-minute long recordings, the stopwatch and the countdown timer.

An especially detailed calculator is available too, offering powers and square roots, for example. Nokia has even thought about more advanced users adding a fully-featured scientific calculator. A practical loan calculator is also at hand.

High on math: a loan calculator is available too

The folder with Java applications contains a pre-installed unit converter, a world time application, and the favorite Opera Mini 3.0. Other applications here are Sensor for communication via Bluetooth and Yahoo! Search - an engine that brings all Yahoo services to your phone.

Nokia 5610 boasts 4 very good games for your moments of leisure: the 3rd version of the unbeatable Snake (yet missing the mysterious attraction of the good old snake for monochrome dsiplays), City Bloxx, a breath-taking 3D rally, and Music Guess.

Music Guess draws details from the music library. The more players participate, the more interesting it gets. The game plays a fragment of a song and offers several possible titles, which gradually disappear one after another. The objective is to guess the right title in the shortest time possible.

Games feature beautiful graphics