The Nokia C5

Nokia remembers how good phones could be and it’s obvious they still remember how to make them. So get your fingers back into training and prepare to text and email like you really want to.

The C5 is a breath of that good old fresh air, pun intended, bringing the classic chunky modelled phone back into the foreground. This phones battery goes on for longer than the Energizer bunny could ever dream to and is updated with a few modern niceties to boot.

Super Model

At 12mm thin, the Symbian-based C5, this phone is perfect for fitting in your pocket, even for the modern tight trouser generation. This phone is so slim that when you pick up the phone and twiddle it around, you could swear from the side view, the phone dissipates into the matrix. As with most size 0 models, no Kate Moss, the slim line waist is made up for with a few extra mm in height. At 112mm this is an extremely long handset and that’s good, very good. “and why?” you ask.

Well, those extra notches on the ruler, accommodate a perfectly oversized alphanumeric keypad. That’s right “perfectly oversized.” To us at businessmobiles.com there is nothing worse than those blasted tiny cramped keypads, forcing you to misspell and unexpectedly delete your messages. Nokia have acknowledged these unfavourable ailments and, in addition to a really big keypad, the keys themselves are arranged in a precise grid, and each individual key is raised ever so slightly. This means you will be able to text at a pace that seems as if you left your fingers bathing in an energy drink for a whole month.

The C5 takes us back to all the old school glory but without the cheap plasticky feel. The phone is low priced has a more than pleasing weight and, like all good models, has a smooth and rounded finish. This doesn’t feel like technology devolving, a collection of parts mashed together by angry chimps, but a cohesive piece of technology made for the user, not for an advert.

The C5's display has a 320x240-pixel resolution, and is clear and bright. Text is sharp and easy to read, and images render just as you want them to.

Inter-pace

As well as looking the business, the C5 also boasts a very speedy user interface. It'll be very easy to use for anyone who's used a Nokia device, and lets face it who hasn’t? You'll find a few useful applications running along the bottom of the home screen, with a more complete menu accessible with just one quick tap of the left button.

We love the speed at which the interface for the C5 moves, and so will you. We didn't notice much, if not any, delay when clicking our way around the various menus, even when we tried our damndest to make it. There is the odd pop up and tutorial screen that open when the user tries to use web orientated apps, but such pop-ups just help users embrace the new features of this old, but strikingly modern, model.

Map app happiness

The C5 supports Ovi Maps, Nokia's free and handy GPS navigation system. We did have our doubts about a map app on a phone that wasn’t a new age touch screen, but controlling the maps software using the four-way central button feels surprisingly intuitive….and speedy. We were shocked at how many meetings we were now prompt too using this incredible bit of technological genius, in fact we get there early. Good job there are a variety of apps that can keep you busy while you wait.

Features:

• Symbian OS v9.3, Series 60 rel. 3.2
• ARM 11 600 MHz processor
• SMS, AMS, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM, RSS
• WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• GPS; Ovi Maps 3.0
• Yes, MIDP 2.0  - MP4/H.264/H.263 player
• MP3/WAV/eAAC+/WMA player
• Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
• Video/Photo editor
• Organizer
• Facebook, YouTube, hi5, Friendster, MySpace apps
• Flash Lite 3.0
• Voice memo/dial
• T9 dictionary

Specifications:

• 112 mm
• 46 mm
• 12.3 mm
• 89.3 g