Nokia 5630 XpressMusic | Reviews | Techie.com.ph
5:54 PM | Friday | 30 July 2010

This has to be Nokia's gazillionth cellphone, and that makes it pretty hard to distinguish it from the rest of the pack. The 5630 XpressMusic is yet another addition to its ever-growing line of music mobiles, that, we feel, is just out there to confuse you even further.

There's nothing particularly remarkable about the 5630 XpressMusic. It looks like every other XpressMusic phone, has features you expect from a music-centric handset, and the bells and whistles are like that in an ordinary mobile. In short, it's not in the league of the 5110, the N70, or the N95 – phones which you'll probably still remember in 10 years' time.

That's not to say, though, that this is not decent because frankly, it is. The controls are straightforward as with all of Nokia's Symbian Series 60-powered phones, so there should be no learning curve especially for long-time Nokia users. The dedicated music buttons on the side is, again, no piece of news but it's still just as user-friendly. T he playback icons, however, are misleading as they're not the actual buttons (the real controls are just underneath them) and you may end up pressing them from time to time.

Having mentioned the music controls, music quality is great, and the generic 3.5mm jack on top of the handset makes it easy to switch (upgrade) to a better set of headphones. The jack also makes the 5630 easy to pair with almost any music (read: iPod) dock, although it does look unsightly because of the protruding nub. There are five equalizer presets to choose from: bass booster, classical, jazz, pop, and rock. It's not exactly a cornucopia, but you'll be happy enough that they're there.

The 5630's camera is a neat extra. It's a 3.2-megapixel shooter with "enhanced fixed focus," even though the resulting snaps don't really look that "enhanced" to us. Two LED bulbs light up night/indoor shots which make photos look marginally better than many other phones out there with one or no flash bulbs.

Perhaps the most unique feature of this phone is the one that doesn't involve music or pictures. The 5630 XpressMusic has built-in Wi-Fi G connectivity which is great for spur-of-the moment Google searching and YouTube viewing (yes, it handles flash videos). Battery life was at zero after leaving it on for an hour, so you better make sure you turn off the Wi-Fi receiver after using it.

The 5630 XpressMusic isn't a bad phone. It's actually pretty impressive at what it's capable of doing. We just think that it doesn't deserve a different model number. A modifier perhaps? Like 5310 XpressMusic Mark II, Classic, or 2.0.