The good: The Nokia 5230 Nuron has free maps and voice-guide navigation via Ovi Maps, 3G, and excellent call quality, all at an affordable price. It's also the first Nokia smartphone with a U.S. carrier to offer access to the Ovi Store.
The bad: The Nuron lacks Wi-Fi and a document viewer. Its user interface is clunky and confusing, and we wish it had a capacitive touch screen. No flash for the camera.
The bottom line: The Nokia 5230 Nuron for T-Mobile isn't the most advanced or fastest smartphone on the market, but budget-conscious customers will find an incredible deal here.
Everyone loves a great deal, and Nokia and T-Mobile are serving up one heck of a value with the Nokia 5230 Nuron. Available starting March 24 for just $69.99 with a two-year contract, the Nuron is a full touch-screen smartphone that offers 3G support, access to the Ovi Store, and free maps and voice-guided, turn-by-by navigation via Ovi Maps. The latter is really what makes the phone such a great deal. With Ovi Maps, you're getting maps for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as well as other premium content such as weather forecasts and Lonely Planet guides, all without the monthly subscription fee that's often attached to this kind of content. Of course, to get the cheaper price you give up a few features, such as Wi-Fi and a high-end camera, but the Nuron isn't meant to be that top-of-the-line, high-performance device. It's really about giving consumers an affordable option when shopping for a smartphone. If you're on a budget, we certainly think the Nokia Nuron will give you a lot of bang for your buck.
Design
The Nokia 5230 Nuron's design is a familiar one, taking after the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music and Navigation Edition models. The white-and-silver chassis refreshes the look a bit, but the Nuron keeps the same candy bar shape and dimensions (4.37 inches tall by 2.03 inches wide by 0.61 inch thick) as the 5800s' do. At 3.98 ounces it is just a hair heavier than the other 5800. Overall, it's a very compact and lightweight handset that doesn't feel fragile. However, unlike the 5800 Navigation Edition, the battery cover doesn't have a soft-touch finish, thus it's a bit slick.
The sides on the handset house several controls. On the left spine, you'll find the SIM card and microSD expansion slots, both of which are protected by covers. Its right side has a volume rocker, a lock switch, and a camera activation/capture button. There are also Talk and End keys and a main menu button just below the display, but you'll use the Nuron's 3.2-inch resistive touch screen for most of your interaction with the phone.
With a 640x360-pixel resolution and support for 16 million colors, the Nuron's display is clear, bright, and satisfying. The screen washes out a bit in bright sunlight, and is on the small side, making typing the onscreen keyboard feel a bit cramped. Still, Nokia does a better job at maximizing the screen to the phone's size, unlike the Motorola Cliq XT, which is bigger but has a smaller screen. It also has a proximity sensor and built-in accelerometer so you can rotate the phone and view maps, Web pages, photos, and so forth in landscape mode. The transition when switching screen orientations isn't the smoothest; there's a slight lag and it almost feels like it catches halfway.
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