Design and Looks
Design-wise, the Nokia 5235 is exactly the same as the 5230 but with a glossy metallic ring around the front frame instead of the plastic one on the 5230. The form factor is chubby and there are other phones with a bigger feature set that weigh much lesser than the Nokia 5235. Nevertheless the dimensions aren't so big that single-handed operation isn't possible.
The phone's display is an adequately sized 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen. It's definitely not the biggest display around but it's the best you can get in this price range. This haptic-feedback enabled screen is fairly sensitive but the screen's legibility under direct sunlight is poor. Below the display are the call and menu hardware keys. They feature good tactility and adequate press-feedback. Other important buttons are the touchsensitive media key just above the screen and the sceen lock to the side. The flat volume rocker at the side is not very easy to work because it is hard to press and generally uncomfortable. Other than this the design and construction of the phone is both ergonomic and appealing to the eye.
The Symbian OS onboard is quick and responsive thanks to the 434MHz processor running it. As a music phone, the 5235 performs amazingly well offering users with an audio output that shows good frequency response, low noise and distortion levels and a good dynamic range.
The phone's 2MP camera performs decently for 2MP standards but in regard to other better cameras the photos have high noise levels, poor contrast and less resolved detail. The company claims the camera is capable of recording VGA resolution videos at 30 frames-per-second but this is not really the case and the frame rate drops much lower than 30fps to produce highly pixilated and overly compressed videos. There is also the presence of many artifacts and the colour balance of the video is bad.
A good thing about this phone is that it has adequate connectivity options with the exception of Wi-Fi. Among the more important connectivity options, you have 3G and GPS. The phone's inbuilt GPS receiver features A-GPS functionality which is fairly responsive and accurate.
This phone is an excellent music player. It performs most other functions just as well and given the price it is selling at, users could not ask for more. To top it off, the access to free music downloads for a period of 18 months makes this phone a steal.
The phone may sell at a starting price of 10,000-12,000 Rupees.
Features
- 3.2” 16-million colour TFT touchscreen
- ARM 11 434MHz CPU, 128MB RAM
- GPS with A-GPS functionality
- Symbian OS
- Standard 3.5mm audiojack
- FM radio with RDS
- Excellent audio quality
- Ovi integration
