Nokia 5230 - €149 touchscreen with music and Ovi services

Nokia's touch phones are not iPhone or i8910 HD-class hardware, but you've got to be impressed by the way the prices keep tumbling and tumbling. In terms of total cost of ownership, a PAYG 5230 could potentially be TEN times cheaper than (say) and iPhone 3G etc. and in real world terms (including ad-hoc data charges) perhaps five or six times cheaper overall.

I agree Steve, the 5230 may not be in the 'iphone killer' class but at the expected retail price it will sell very well. The 5530 was nice but no HSDPA really spoilt it for me, especially music downloading and web browsing.

Even the Comes With Music version of the 5230 will be cheaper than the iPhone and that comes with a whole year of unlimited music downloads.

Hmm, the press release says it has GPS.

Yes the press release does mention assisted-GPS navigation. However the phone's data sheet does not include a GPS and I think it would be surprising to see a GPS included at this price point (the 5530 does not have GPS either). Will check.

"navigates you to where it happens, when it happens" - seems to me GPS would be included. Otherwise that statement is quite lame.

My 5800 better get the "homescreen Contacts Bar and Media Bar" with Apphia's number preinstalled.

Additionally I demand kinetic scrolling and a lot (if not all) of the fixes suggested here!

If I don't get them, my next phone sure as hell won't be Nokia branded.

As someone who was toying with buying a 5530 from Carphone Warehouse tomorrow I am very pleased to see this announcement today. That looks like a hell of a good phone for the money. Well done Nokia, more phones like this please.

It got no xenon so is crap and I dont wont ne mor Nokias Nokia will go down the pan now innit.

Nokia better give me a new phone or I wont get ne Nokia for my nex fone they loose me as a customr.

I got a Ford KA, Ford better give me a new V8 engine and headrest in car dvd player or my nex car is not gonna be a ford.

Huschke2go why the f did you get the damn phone if it dodn't do what you want?

That's why Apple has 30% of the smartphone industry profit with 13% market share: they don't make cheap cripplets.

it has GPS

Good price..but why the hell does it look exactly like the 5800 XM?

I can confirm that the 5230 does indeed have a A-GPS (sorry for delay, was waiting for confirmation). There was an omission from the data sheet (normally these are 100% reliable).

My apologies for this, I have updated the story accordingly.

This just underlines what fantastic value this handset is. I really would not have expected a GPS to be included at this price point.

So essentially the major differences with the 5800 are WiFi and memory card.

Unregistered wrote:It got no xenon so is crap and I dont wont ne mor Nokias Nokia will go down the pan now innit.

Nokia better give me a new phone or I wont get ne Nokia for my nex fone they loose me as a customr.

I got a Ford KA, Ford better give me a new V8 engine and headrest in car dvd player or my nex car is not gonna be a ford.

Huschke2go why the f did you get the damn phone if it dodn't do what you want?

I know we should make allowances for people who don't speak English as their first language, but your post makes no sense at all.

That's why Apple has 30% of the smartphone industry profit with 13% market share: they don't make cheap cripplets.

Actually I thought it was because muppets like you are happy to pay over the odds.

Wifi?

Could this 110 EUR premium for Comes With Music mean that the music in Nokia Music Store will be drm-free?

Unregistered wrote:I know we should make allowances for people who don't speak English as their first language, but your post makes no sense at all.

LOL, it might not make sense but it got a bite from you. There's always one.

Great. I know many people dont care about the WiFi,they can use EDGE when they need to surf the web.

Correct me if am wrong. 149 mean less than 200$!!!...TS with S60 alone worth more than 200$ (at least for me).

This will make Ovi services more popular while Comes with Music will be essential feature. Imagine this device with Comes with Music and the BH-503 Speakers and the cost? Bargain.

another touch phone which seems to have the homescreen worked out pretty well. nokia seems to have this down. so i say again that the 5800 really needs to be updated to match all the other touch screen phones released by nokia. if anything for consistency! it cant be hard, just copy and paste the damn code into 5800 firmware.

150� looks like an awfully large premium for Wifi and a 25� flash card.

After all, the raison d'�tre of these devices is getting on the web anywhere, anytime, which really calls for a flat(ish) data rate, which mostly negates the need for Wifi. They also can use USB to get your media from your PC, as well as for installing software packages and updates without eating into your data allowance.

The 5800 has a much better camera, though, and a useless videoconference cam, but still, now it looks very expensive. Now, if they shrink it into the case of the 5530, THAT would be very compelling.

This is a great idea and will 'democratise/ commoditise' S60 5th Ed. nicely.

A REAL PITY that Nokia didn't simply update the e61i with the metal body, styling and processor/ firmware updates of the e71 as I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds the latter TOO FINICKY to use.
This would have meant that they could have offered the N97 Mini in the same configuration, i.e. the 2.8 inch screen with the same nHD/ 640 x 360 landscape screen, the flash memory, widgets, etc and sidestepped the entire debacle of the N97 's being neither fish nor fowl.
The N97's major flaws are the crap keyboard with its redundant D-Pad (compare the HTC TouchPro2's version), the less than stellar responsiveness of the screen, the insufficient RAM (should have been AT LEAST 256 MB) and the lack of "eye candy" in the operation of the UI.
If Nokia had addressed these flaws immediately and offered the phone with either the e90's processor or the 600Mhz version of the existing one, the story could be VERY different.
As I suggested above, the "Blackberry" version (e61/i - sized device) would be an easy way of broadening the appeal of the range in the lieu of a proper range of Arm Cortex 8, OMAP 3x "dual core" processor platform offerings in the vein of the Samsung Omnia HD/i8910HD ,

Unregistered wrote:150� looks like an awfully large premium for Wifi and a 25� flash card.

In reality the 5800 sells for far less than its RRP, new phone prices stay closer to their RRP so the difference is far less.

Also, I use WiFi in lieu of an unlimited data plan so WiFi saves me a lot of cash.

What i said, no wifi is a deal breaker for me

Nokia strategy is so remarkable and ingenious ever since. They already knew what market is to target for high profitability. Say this Nokia 5230 for example. They took advantage of the scene where other competitors' were absent or goner. We don't see iPhone on this price range, not even Samsung who are market leaders known for high class or should I say over priced touch phones. Moreover, I believe that Nokia is the pioneer who conceptualize mid-entry level for touch screen enabled phones which set the mark for other competitors. The up-to-now money-maker Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is the excellent example for this.

Good move Nokia. I can't wait for a Series 40 Touch for a more affordable market.

*Also, with regards to Series 60 5th Edition. I want a shortcut for marking multiple items on Gallery, File Manager, Music Player without doing 3-actions (Options > Mark > Mark/Unmark). A gesture based shortcut or a tap command can be appropriate. The key based Series 60 3rd editions & the earlier was easierby having to press the pencil/#button with the directional pad simultaneously.

for dutch speaking people more info about the Nokia 5230 could be found at www.nokia5230.nl

nokia 5230 have a styliesh look and good performance. but poor in sound quality

Unregistered wrote:nokia 5230 have a styliesh look and good performance. but poor in sound quality

I bought one a week ago.
Keeps "doing something" so my pre-paid credit decreases Euro's per day. I can't find what causes this (every possible setting for using the internet is set to "ask" and not 'auto' as far I know).

And the battery doesn't last a day in standby (and in this case NOTHING is done with the phone, it just lies there being standby).

So it seems very interesting (that's why I bought one) but I'm not happy with it.

also for the dutch speaking people: www.nokia-5235.nl