Nokia X5-01

 

On occasion Nokia will experiment with form factor and shape. The Nokia X5-01 is the kind of phone that might just leave you wondering. Is it having a bad slider day or a great square day? No, the Nokia X5 is better than that. It’s a neat and chubby Symbian smartie with a QWERTY keyboard and a 5MP camera.

Nokia X5-01 official photos
The struggle to provide a better system of text input while keeping the size down is still ongoing. Touchscreen provides an answer of sorts, but nothing yet really beats an old-fashioned hardware QWERTY keyboard.
The full four-row keyboard on the Nokia X5 has a long list of applications – from SMS and email, to IM and social networking. The Nokia X5-01 sports a dedicated media key too – it’s no square when it comes to having fun.
The 5MP camera is a constant source of photos to share with friends and you can do it over Wi-Fi, no need for a data plan. The Nokia X5-01 is a full-blown smartphone too – 600MHz and 256MB RAM put it within a stone’s throw of the Nokia N8 performance. And the Ovi Store is steadily growing with new and useful apps.
We were a little disappointed to find the X5-01 doesn’t have a GPS receiver. Check out our list of pros and cons to see what made the cut and what didn’t.

Key features

• Full QWERTY slider form factor
• Quad-band GSM/EDGE, tri-band 3G with HSDPA and HSUPA
• Symbian S60 UI, 3rd edition FP2
• 600MHz processor, 256MB RAM; 200MB user-accessible storage
• 2.36" 256K-color QVGA display
• 5 megapixel fixed-focus camera, LED flash, VGA@15fps video recording
• Standard microUSB port (charging)
• microSD card slot (32GB supported, 2GB included)
• Wi-Fi b/g; DLNA and UPnP support
• Bluetooth (with A2DP)
• Accelerometer-based controls
• Dedicated media key
• Stereo FM radio with RDS, Internet radio
• 3.5mm audio jack
• Excellent audio quality
• Comes With Music bundle in select markets
• Good email and social networking support
• Office document viewer; ZIP file support
• Quick Business and Personal homescreen toggle

Main disadvantages

• No GPS receiver
• No office document editing
• Small, low-resolution screen
• Non-hot-swappable microSD card under the battery
• Fixed focus camera
• Poor video recording
• No camera lens protection
• No DivX or XviD video support out-of-the-box
• No smart dialing

So, some things were left out, but Nokia managed to fit a lot of features in a small package. The last square-shaped QWERTY messenger we reviewed was the Motorola Flipout, which had its own set of pros and cons. For one thing, the Nokia X5-01 is a cheaper entry into the world of smart messengers. And it’s an entry with a bang.

Nokia X5-01 live shots
It’s clearly not a phone that will appeal to everyone, but some will fall for its looks and rectangular charm. And as far as non-touch smartphones go, the Nokia X5-01 actually ranks pretty high on features.
It has a couple of nice accelerometer-based tricks too. If you press and hold the volume key, then shake the X5-01 it will “knock” several times – according to how many new messages you have. You can also skip a music track by shaking the phone.
Now, you can go ahead and skip to the next page for the hardware tour. We begin with unboxing and the 360-degree spin.

Square phone in an oblong box

The in-box contents of the Nokia X5-01 package were not really out of the ordinary and to be honest were a little disappointing. There’s a charger (the big one, not the nicer compact variety), a short microUSB cable and a one piece headset.



The Nokia X5-01 retail package is unimpressive
The best bit in the box besides the phone itself is the 2GB microSD card. The phone can handle cards of up to 32GB.

Nokia X5-01 360-degree spin

A compact but capable messenger is what the Nokia X5-01 strives to be. And it almost achieves it. The face measures 74.3 x 66.4mm, which is good but the 16.9mm of thickness is a challenge to pocketability.
The 129 grams of weight don’t do much for the small stature of the device either. The screen and QWERTY keyboard are pretty cramped – a necessary sacrifice to reach the size limit of the X5-01.

Design and construction

The Nokia X5-01 is not a phone that will be universally regarded as attractive but it does have its charms. It’s fairly unique in a sea of bar-shaped phones and the occasional slider.


 
The Nokia X5-01 is one unusual looking phone
We got the Graphite Black version, but there are more playful colors than that to choose from. Not for the suit-and-tie businessmen certainly but maybe Nokia want to appeal beyond that niche market.
The screen is vertically centered, but because there’s little above the screen it appears to be lower than it actually is. This makes it a bit of an odd fish in a world where a screen is usually on the upper side of the phone’s face.
The landscape 2.36" 256K-color display of 320 x 240 pixel resolution is actually what the E72 and E5 have to work with. But still, sliders traditionally have bigger screens than their candybar counterparts so we were a little disappointed.
The image quality of the display is average – it’s bright enough but the colors are a bit washed out and the contrast doesn’t help much. You can actually spot some slight but distracting flicker on the display too. The viewing angles are average but the sunlight legibility is good.


 
The average 2.36” display
Underneath the screen, the navigation deck is squeezed on a long but rather narrow strip. It’s built around a smaller than usual D-pad, whose Up key is harder to press than the other directions.
There are three keys on each side of the D-pad – each group of three is made of a single piece of bendy plastic. There’s one soft key and one call key on each side and the Home key on the left and the dedicated Media key on the right.
The keys are close together and there’s no clear separation between them. That makes them hard to use and mispresses are fairly common. If you have big fingers, you may be in trouble. By the way, the D-pad has a notification backlighting and pulsates when there’s a new event.


 
The earpiece and light sensor above the screen • The stretched out navigation pad
Now is a good time to visit the QWERTY keyboard. A short slide of the top half reveals it. And we mean short – it barely makes it across half the height of the phone. This doesn’t leave much space for the four-row QWERTY and it shows.
The top row is unpleasantly cramped (a common problem with QWERTY sliders) but the other keys are decently big and with good tactile response. However, there’s no separation between them and the typing experience overall is worse than other compact messengers we’ve seen recently.
Other than that, the backlighting of the keyboard is even though not very strong.


 
The full QWERTY keyboard feels cramped
The slider is spring assisted and smooth. You can also set it up to answer incoming calls when you slide it open and lock the keyboard when you close it. The only thing here to complain about is that it doesn’t slide a little further to give the top row of the keyboard some breathing space.
The sides of the Nokia X5-01 are nearly free of controls – the left side has nothing to show, while the right side features a small, thin volume rocker.


 
Not much to see on either side of the Nokia X5-01
On the top side we find the 3.5mm audio jack and the microUSB port, which is hidden under a protective flap. The audio jack is left in the open – with music taking up such a big part of the Nokia X5-01’s resume, it will probably be busy all the time anyway. The microUSB port takes on charging duties – the traditional 2mm charger plug is MIA.


 
microUSB port and 3.5mm audio jack on the top • The loudspeaker on the bottom
The bottom has two grills – but the only loudspeaker is under one of them and the other is just for symmetry.
On the back is the 5MP camera and its tiny LED flash. The camera lens is unprotected – it only has the curviness of the back to protect it from scratches.


 
5-megapixel camera lacks autofocus
Above the camera lens is the largest lanyard we’ve ever seen. Most of the rear is a metal battery cover, which locks into place via a latch at the bottom. Under the cover is the 950 mAh Li-Ion BL-5F battery, which powers the Nokia X5-01. The battery is quoted at up to 384 hours of standby and up to 5 hours of talk-time.


 
The 950 mAh Li-Ion battery
The Nokia X5-01 is a bit wide compared to most other phones, which can make handling it uncomfortable. Still, you can find a comfy hold for the X5-01 (its curved back helps in this regard). The build is pretty solid, it’s just that the slider has a slight wobble to it.
The brushed metal back and the unusual overall look of the phone add a few points to its likability and someone with a limited purse space will find that the Nokia X5-01 is a perfect fit. Pocketability is less certain – those 16.9mm of thickness rule out tight pockets.


 
The Nokia X5-01 held in hand

Symbian S60 feels like a pair of comfy old shoes

The Nokia X5-01 is powered by Symbian 9.3 and runs on the S60 3rd edition user interface with Feature Pack 2.
The device uses the so-called Active Standby homescreen. It is available in several different flavors so you can prioritize the set of shortcuts you need on the screen.




Basic standby mode • Vertical icon bar • Horizontal icon bar • Active standby
The Basic layout just shows you the wallpaper (and the usual status indicators of course) and you can assign shortcuts to the D-pad directions.
The Vertical icon bar layout has four tabs - shortcuts, calendar, music player and personalization and it doesn't hide much of the wallpaper.
The other three layouts are more elaborate. They offer several rows of “homescreen applications” (e.g. upcoming events from the calendar, received emails and so on) along with shortcuts.
The Horizontal icon bar is the most basic of the three. You get a row of six customizable shortcuts at the top of the screen, below are email, calendar, Ovi Chat and WLAN notifications (they also act as shortcuts to their respective apps).
When the music player (or the radio) is on, a new row is displayed with the track info.
The Active layout is the good old Active Standby that was on the Nokia E71/E72 and others. It looks like the Horizontal layout, but tucks in an analog clock on the left of the screen and lets you customize what rows to appear under the shortcut toolbar.
There are numerous options to choose from (e.g. missed calls, voice mail, to-dos and so on). You could turn them all on, but only five slots are visible at a time and you can’t scroll up and down to see the rest.
The Active layout features two modes – Business and Personal, which have been borrowed from the E series. They allow you to quickly switch between two sets of shortcuts and homescreen apps – one with business apps at hand, the other, say, with Twitter and Facebook shortcuts.



The Contacts bar • viewing a contact from the Contacts bar
The other option is the Contact bar layout, which has been available on Nokia handsets for quite a while too. It puts a row of favorite contacts on top the three homescreen applications - Calendar, WLAN wizard, Ovi Contacts – along with the usual six customizable shortcuts (this time at the bottom).
The Favorite contacts are placed on top, each represented by the contact photo and their first name. Four contacts are visible at a time and you can scroll left and right for the rest. The music player traditionally has a tab for the homescreen – but because space is limited, it usually ends up replacing the Calendar tab.
There’s one final layout – the Talking theme. It enhances accessibility by reading out loud the option you’ve selected.
As with all Symbian phones, there is a built-in voice recognition system. It does a good job, being fully speaker-independent.
The Symbian task manager appears on every pop-up menu. It's actually placed on top of every list, which can be a little irritating at times, considering you can still invoke it with the well-known shortcut of pressing and holding the Menu key (the one with the House pictogram).



The Nokia X5-01 is a good multitasker
The Nokia X5-01 is powered by a 600MHz CPU with 256MB RAM, which is plenty for a Symbian smartphone. The UI is speedy, the only lags we noticed concern some transition effects when going through the menus.

An excellent phonebook

Symbian handsets have an excellent phonebook. There is storage space for a practically unlimited number of contacts and fields with all the available memory potentially usable for the purpose. Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name and can naturally be searched by gradual typing of any of the names.



Contact list • searching • viewing contact details • linking to the Facebook profile
Editing a contact offers a great variety of preset fields and you can replicate each of them as many times as you like.
Personal ringtones and videos can also be assigned to a contact. If you prefer you may group your contacts and give each group a specific ringtone.



An enormous variety of fields is available when editing a contact
Synchronization is also nice and easy although you do need the Ovi Suite for things to go smoothly. Sending and receiving contacts via SMS or Bluetooth is also a piece of cake.
The Call log on the Nokia X5-01 is organized and efficient, typical Symbian. It holds up to 20 call records in each of the tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls. These are all accessed by pressing the Call key on the homescreen.




The call log is there to keep track of your communications
If you enter the Log application from the main menu, you'll see a detailed list of all your network communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data.

Ovi Contacts

The Ovi Contacts app comes preinstalled on the Nokia X5-01 but you can also install it on most other Nokia smartphones. It integrates tightly with the Contact list and you can easily switch between the two.
Contacts are synced with the Ovi cloud (along with calendar items and notes) and they can either be existing Ovi Contacts or G-Talk users (that’s Google’s own IM service, which is also integrated into Gmail).
Thanks to the Ovi Contacts and Ovi Chat integration, you will be able to chat in real time with all your Ovi/Google Talk-connected contacts, change your status messages and mood, and all that kind of social stuff.



Ovi Contacts is a capable IM client
Ovi Contacts can also be used to share the name and artist info of the track you’re currently playing.



You can use Ovi Sync to synchronize your contacts and organizer items with the cloud
While you probably don’t have many contacts using Ovi for chat, chances are quite a few of them have a Gmail account and they can use that to chat with you. They could use iGoogle as well or a desktop client such as G-Talk. Multi-protocol clients can usually handle G-Talk too.

Telephony is OK

Signal reception is good on the Nokia X5-01 and as for the in-call voice quality, it is great with loud, crisp sound. Vibration is also strong enough to make sure you never miss an incoming call or message.
Sadly, Smart dialing isn’t available on the X5-01.



Calling Dexter on the Nokia X5-01 • No Smart dialing on board
The results from our loudspeaker test are at your disposal - Nokia X5-01 turned out to be a very good performer. Check out the table showing how it stacks up beside some of the handsets we've put to the same test. You can find more information about the test itself and the whole list of tested devices here.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overal score
Nokia E72	65.7	60.2	66.3	Below Average
BlackBerry Bold 9000	70.0	66.6	68.9	Average
Nokia E5	75.1	66.2	75.7	Good
Nokia C3	75.8	66.6	77.5	Very Good
Nokia X5-01	77.7	66.6	82.7	Very Good
LG GW300	78.6	75.7	80.7	Excellent

QWERTY-fied messaging

The Nokia X5-01 has great messaging capabilities. With a comfortable QWERTY keyboard and solid software support, managing your correspondence is as good as it gets on this kind of devices.



The Messaging department
To easily check the number of unread messages, just make sure the keypad is locked then press and hold any of the volume buttons and shake the phone. The number of tones you hear indicates the number of unread text and multimedia messages.
The X5-01 handles all common message types - SMS, MMS and email. It also supports more specialized ones like Microsoft Office Communicator (which is a replacement for the Microsoft Exchange Messaging server) and the most popular social networking platforms.
Texts and MMS share an editor. Things are pretty straightforward here so you’ll get the hang of it right away.



Turning an SMS into MMS is as simple as adding any multimedia content
The email client is also quite similar to what previous Symbian powered phones have offered. The app can automatically detect the settings for over 1000 email service providers, all you have to do is enter your username and password.
There is support for attachments, signatures and basically most of the things you can think of, so the Nokia X5-01 can meet almost any emailing needs. There’s even a preinstalled document viewer on the X5-01 so you can view attached office files.




The email client
The Nokia X5-01 also supports Ovi Chat, which is a part of Ovi Contacts, as well as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace – we’ll cover those in their own sections.

Image gallery is fine

The image gallery used on the Nokia X5-01 is the Nseries Gallery that’s been around for quite a while. It offers all the needed functionality and works quite fast.




Browsing the image gallery
Photos can be organized by Albums and you can add tags to them – so even if you have a vast photo collection, the Nokia X5-01 will keep things neatly in order.




Zooming in • Tags and Albums keep things organized
Zooming and panning are fast and smooth, even for 5MP photos. Not that we expected anything different from a 600MHz processor pushing images to a QVGA screen.
Using the Home Media app, you can easily share photos, videos and music from your phone over Wi-Fi with DLNA capable devices and also play files from those devices directly on the Nokia X5-01.

An impressive music player

The music player on the Nokia X5-01 is the exact same one found on the other Xseries devices. It is accessed either through the dedicated hardware Music key, through a shortcut on the homescreen or through the main menu. The music player handles the most common audio formats - MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA, and the standard 3.5mm audio jack is a welcome perk.
By spinning the device you can make it play a random song. You only need to put the phone on its back, spin it, and once it stops spinning, the next track will start playing.


T
he music player "Now playing" interface
Sorting your songs by artist, album, genre and composer is automatic and searching tracks by gradual typing of the desired name is also available.



Searching the music library
It is worth noting that the 950mAh battery of the X5-01 is supposed to play music up to 24 hours on a single charge. That’s a whole day – music fans should be pleased.
The player comes with five equalizer presets and, should they seem insufficient, you can edit them or create new ones in a matter of seconds. There are also Bass Booster and Stereo Widening options.




Five equalizer presets are available • creating a new one • Bass Booster and Stereo widening are here
The Playlist DJ app lets you easily create playlists that suit your current mood.



The Playlist DJ in action

Impressive audio quality

The previous Xseries device we tested was Nokia X3-02 and that turned out to be a disappointment in regards to audio quality. However the X5-01 lives up to its moniker with a great all-round performance in the audio quality department. Not only is this one of the loudest handsets we have seen but it also has one of the cleanest outputs.
Starting with the spot-on frequency response and excellent noise levels and ending with the virtually non-existent stereo crosstalk - it's all perfect about the Nokia X5-01. And the best part is that it doesn't worsen noticeably when you plug in a pair of headphones. Sure the stereo-crosstalk isn't record breaking anymore and the intermodulation distortion increases a bit but it's minor.
In general the X5-01 easily ranks among the best handsets we have tested all time. Here go the results so you can compare it to some of the other handsets we have tested so far.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Nokia X5-01	+0.07 -0.32	-90.1	90.1	0.0064	0.016	-91.6
Nokia X5-01 (headphones attached)	+0.37 -0.18	-90.1	90.1	0.019	0.421	-70.7
Nokia X3-02	+0.04 -0.15	-63.2	64.0	0.051	0.134	-61.0
Nokia X3-02 (headphones attached)	+0.56 -0.17	-63.6	63.6	0.061	0.413	-50.4
Nokia 5250	+0.03 -0.05	-85.8	85.7	0.0034	0.018	-82.2
Nokia 5250 (headphones attached)	+0.64 -0.12	-83.3	83.0	0.0077	0.305	-55.8
Nokia X2	+0.10 -0.87	-85.7	85.6	0.0100	0.021	-85.6
Nokia X2 (headphones attached)	+0.56 -0.64	-85.6	85.5	0.014	0.314	-58.3
Nokia N8	+0.07 -0.33	-89.9	90.0	0.0059	0.015	-90.9
Nokia N8 (headphones attached)	+0.50 -0.18	-89.9	89.9	0.016	0.300	-55.6
BlackBerry Torch 9800	+0.20, -3.87	-89.0	87.5	0.0089	0.019	-89.2
BlackBerry Torch 9800 (headphones attached)	+0.27, -3.49	-85.7	83.3	0.0088	0.248	-40.4
Apple iPhone 4	+0.01, -0.07	-90.1	90.0	0.0068	0.012	-89.6
Apple iPhone 4 (headphones attached)	+0.01, -0.07	-90.4	90.4	0.0036	0.092	-68.4

Nokia X5-01 frequency response

You can learn more about the whole testing process here.

Video player is passable

Nokia X5-01 features Real player (as Symbian phones typically do). You can browse and watch your videos in the gallery, file manager and the Video Centre – they’ll be handled by the Real player either way, the only difference will be in the layout and the browsing experience.




The Video center
With such a small screen though, video playback is not this phone's strongest suit. And to confirm that, you'll need to install a third-party player if you want a taste of DivX/XviD video.

FM radio with RDS and Internet radio

The FM radio on Nokia X5-01 has a nice simple interface and can automatically scan and save the available stations in your area. RDS is supported of course.



The FM radio interface
And if you get bored with local radio stations, you can switch on the Internet radio and listen to a long list of stations broadcasting on the World Wide Web. Station directories are available per country and per genre so finding something you like won’t be a problem.



The Internet radio can tune in to stations from all over the world
Keep in mind that Internet radio uses your phone’s data connection, so check on your plan’s data usage. The connection bitrate can help reduce traffic if you’re not on an unlimited plan.
The Shazam app is available and ready to perform TrackID duties if you need it.

The 5MP fixed-focus camera

The Nokia X5-01 is equipped with a 5 megapixel fixed-focus camera for a maximum image resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. It has a LED flash but no lens protection whatsoever. This means that the glass covering the lens is prone to finger smudges and perhaps occasional scratches.




Camera interface
The X5-01 is not a cameraphone by any means, it’s what you use when you’ve forgotten your point and shoot camera.
As far as settings go, the camera on the X5-01 offers several scene presets, one of which is user defined. There's limited control over light sensitivity (it has low, medium, high and auto settings) as well as some control over sharpness and contrast.
The bar on the right side of the screen hosts a set of shortcuts to various camera settings. You can add and remove shortcuts so you can have quick access to the settings that matter to you – adding to a total of 16 viewfinder shortcuts.
The rest of the settings include flash control, self-timer (2, 10, 20 seconds), night mode, automatic panorama mode and multi shot.
There's also a Sequence mode to let you capture consecutive images at a predefined interval (from 10 seconds to 30 minutes).
The image quality is below the best of the 5MP range but still, the Nokia X5-01 produces some quite usable photos. The contrast and color rendering are good and the amount of captured detail is decent. However, the produced images are quite noisy which, combined with the sharpening algorithm, produces jagged edges. The noise reduction algorithm also has a tendency to smear out areas of low contrast.
The major missing feature – autofocus – becomes apparent when you try taking a macro shot. Anything closer than 50cm is a no-go.



Nokia X5-01 camera samples

Synthetic resolution

We also snapped our resolution chart with the Nokia X5-01. You can check out what that test is all about here.

Nokia X5-01 resolution chart photo • 100% crops

Video recording

As for video recording, the Nokia X5-01 shoots in VGA resolution at 15 fps. Videos are MPEG-4 encoded. Although the specs sound decent, the quality is quite poor actually. The compression is dialed a bit too high, which brings the effective resolution down, and the modest framerate brings down the perceivable quality even further.


Video recorder interface
Here’s a video sample from the Nokia X5-01 – VGA@15fps.

Connectivity is good

The Nokia X5-01 has all the connectivity basics covered – quad-band GSM/EDGE support make sure that if there’s a GSM network around you can connect to it. Tri-band 3.5G (HSPA) is also available.
The X5-01 has Bluetooth covered too – v2.1 with A2DP – and also Wi-Fi b/g (no 802.11n support though). You can also tick the UPnP and DLNA checkboxes.
The microUSB port can be used both for charging and for data connections. In the case of the Nokia X5-01, this will probably be the quickest way to transfer a few files to the microSD card, since it’s hidden under the battery.

Such a great web browser deserves a larger screen

Browsing the Internet on the Nokia X5-01 is as good as it gets on a non-touch phone. Even the most elaborate pages are rendered well.
For navigation you get a virtual mouse cursor and a mini-map, which can help you find your way around large sites where lots of scrolling is required. The mini-map activates automatically if you scroll longer, and you can use it as an overview.
The zoom level is also easily adjustable and searching for text on a page is straightforward. Scrolling, panning and zooming are fast in all but the most complex pages.




The very good web browser downed by the small display
The browser offers goodies like visual history, form and data saving and multiple tabs –there is no way to open a new tab however, unless the web page opens a pop-up. This is an old problem with the Symbian browser and we’re not getting our hopes up for it to get fixed before Symbian^3.



YouTube video playing in the browser • the video playing in fullscreen
The Symbian browser has had Flash support for ages and the Nokia X5-01 is not an exception, though the small screen makes viewing less than ideal and the performance is not as smooth as we would have liked. To be honest, you’d be better off using the dedicated YouTube app.



The YouTube app is easier to work with
The setback of the Nokia X5-01 web browser is a hardware problem, not a software one. At only 2.36 inches and QVGA resolution, the smallest fonts aren't always readable and you have to go for larger ones. This in turn limits the amount of text that can fit on screen and will force you to scroll even more.

Organizer and apps

The time-management skills of Nokia X5-01, like most other Symbian handsets, are impressive. Just name the application and you can bet the handset has it.
We start exploring the rich application package with the calendar. It has five different types of view - monthly, weekly, daily, Agenda and To-do, and five types of events available for setting up – Meeting, Meeting request, Memo, Anniversary and To-do. Every event has its own unique fields, and some of them allow an alarm to be activated at a preset time to act as a reminder.




The calendar
Mobile office is also very well supported with preinstalled applications able to view Word, Excel, PowerPoint (including Office 2007 files) and PDF files trouble-free. Unfortunately, editing isn’t supported out of the box. The final ingredient here is the included ZIP manager, which allows extracting archived files straight on your phone.




Nokia X5-01 displays .doc .xls .ppt and .pdf files seamlessly
The X5-01 sports a great unit converter, calculator and voice recorder, as well as the Notes application. The Active Notes application is also on board allowing multimedia content to be added to your notes.




Converter, calculator, recorder, active notes
The alarm application allows you to set a huge number of alarms, each with its own name, set-off day and repeat pattern.




Setting up an alarm • The World clock
The Nokia X5-01 features a dictionary with a very rich database. English comes preinstalled but you can also download dozens of other languages for free off the Nokia website.
A message reader can read your SMS and email messages out loud, which is a great option for drivers.




The dictionary
If the gallery file-management options (which even include sending multiple files at a time) is insufficient you can use the file manager. It allows you to do almost anything you can think of with your files. Copying, moving, creating new folders – you name it and it's a safe bet that the file manager can do it.



The file manager is great
The useful "Search" application is also aboard the Nokia X5-01. The application itself finds almost every item in your handset containing a given keyword. From messages to landmarks, every bit of data is checked and then all results are displayed on the screen.



Every bit of data is checked by the search application
The Nokia X5-01 also comes with Ovi Files. However, there isn’t much sense in that since the service is being discontinued as of 15 October 2010.



Ovi Files is gone
The social side of the Nokia X5-01 shows when you go into the Internet menu – you’ll see many familiar names like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and so on. Only Facebook gets a dedicated app, the others are just shortcuts to the networks’ respective web pages.




The Facebook app is available out of the box
The Nokia X5-01 also comes with some preinstalled games – PAC-MAN Championship Edition, Dance Fabulous and a demo version of California Gold Rush. You can get some more games from the Ovi Store.



PAC-MAN Championship Edition • DanceFabulous

Ovi Store

Speaking of the Ovi Store, it’s easily accessible right off the phone as well as via a desktop browser. You can download the apps straight to your smartphone or transfer them later on from your desktop computer.
The structure of the Ovi Store client is simple – the general view lists apps with their names and category, plus the price and user ratings.




The Ovi Store
Selecting an app, gives you more details - a description, storage footprint plus reviews by people who have tried it.

Final words

The squarish Nokia X5-01 is way more than just another square-shaped mobile phone. It’s a smartphone, a messenger, a music player, you name it.
This cute fella offers a comfy enough slide-out full QWERTY keyboard, diverse connectivity options, SNS integration and a great music player. What we miss, though, is autofocus on the camera, a GPS receiver and a larger screen (the small screen ruins the fun of having such a great web browser on board).
However, we should note that “low memory” issues are now history and so are sluggish processors. Thanks to the 256MB RAM and the zippy 600MHz CPU, the overall X5-01 user experience is just fine.
The current street price of the Nokia X5-01 starts at 200 euro and that is a bit much for the feature pack you get. After all, there are plenty of better equipped smartphones on the market that cost way less. And while some of them lack hardware QWERTY keyboards, many sport touch sensitive displays. And some have both.
The Nokia X5-01 is quite similar to the recently launched QWERTY-fied bar Nokia E5. The E5 is priced at around 200 euro, too, but unlike the X5-01, it packs an inbuilt GPS receiver with complimentary free turn-by-turn navigation plus a 1200mAh battery.
For a few more bucks you could even get the Nokia C6 which has both a touchscreen and a QWERTY keyboard. And if you’re on a budget, you should check out the Wi-Fi-less Nokia 6760 slide and its US sibling, the AT&T-loving Nokia 6790 Surge.



Nokia E5 • Nokia C6 • Nokia 6760 slide • Nokia 6790 Surge
Speaking of devices that have a hardware QWERTY keyboard and a touch sensitive screen, there are four more devices you should take a look at. First off, the Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro costs some 50 euro more than the X5-01 but sports a way better snapper (with autofocus and 720p HD video recording), GPS receiver and a larger (touch sensitive) display.
On the same list of phones we find the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini pro, the Motorola FLIPOUT and the elderly LG GW620. Those Android-powered smartphones share a lot of common features but it’s the differences between them that count when making a decision.



Sony Ericsson Vivaz pro • Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 mini pro • Motorola FLIPOUT • LG GW620
The Nokia X5-01 sure is a lovable phone. It does well what it’s meant to and offers a choice of nice and colorful variants. Sure, it has its flaws, but none of those is an out-and-out deal breaker.

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