George Pearce - iamPearce

I ordered my new phone (the Nokia 5310 ExpressMusic) two weeks ago today, from Orange. I called them, told them what I wanted and gave them the payment details. Great (so I thought).

Nearly a week later, they texted me and told me to call some random number to complete my order. I call, and am greeted with “Hi. Sorry, our system didn’t capture your security code so we need it again, then we’ll send out your phone”. Delightful

So last Tuesday, the phone actually arrived. First look: great. It’s small, smart looking and not as flimsy feeling as my old one. I am feeling pretty happy at this point.

I phoned the support thing to get it up and running, and they transferred the details to my new SIM, and told me to wait 2-12 hours for the phone to become active.

24 hours later, I called again, and was met with ” Sorry, it looks like the brain surgeons in the welcome department forgot to take the bar off your phone, I’ll do it now.” and it worked. And I even got a British person helping me!

Now that’s out of the way, I got on with playing with the phone, and I really like it. The biggest caveat that I’ve found is that the battery only lasts two days or so when you play music often-ish (like 3-4hrs a day), but that’s not the biggest issue ever.

My favourite function on the phone is the ExpressMusic keys, which can be seen in the picture on the right – they don’t seem all that special, but are really handy, and.. I really like them. I don’t know why.

The music quality from the speakers is good, and when you plug in earphones (note: universal headphone socket) it improves further (with my Sony in-ear phones).

The whole phone feels really well built, nothing is flexible like on my old N80 (which went swimming). The design on the back of the case is also pretty cool

All in all, I really like the 5310. The keys are a little small, but that’s because I have big hands, but apart from that I’ve had no actual problems with it, and found loads of stuff that I really like