Nokia has just announced a new touchscreen handset that they plan to release, this time aimed at the low-cost entry level market. Although it is low-cost it still has a great range of features that you would expect from a more expensive phone and much of the price reduction seems to have come from the decision by Nokia to leave out Wi-Fi support.
The 5230 only comes with a 2 megapixel camera which is to be expected from a low-end phone although there is no news on what other features will be involved (for example, if there is a flash). The camera does record VGA video at 30fps which you would not expect from a phone like this so it is possible that there will be other options on board.
Using Symbian S60, the 5230 has a 3.2″ resistive touch sensitive screen with a resolution of 640 x 360. There is support for Ovi Maps which makes use of the phone’s GPS receiver and there is full integration for online services like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. On top of this there is an integrated web browser, email client and support for Microsoft Exchange.
There is great support for music with all the functionality that comes from Symbian. Together with the media player you can also tune into FM radio and you can listen to both of these through headphones inserted into the 3.5mm audio jack. You can stick quite a bit of music on board with microSD cards which can bump the storage up to 16GB.
The 5230 looks like it will offer quite a lot for the price that is rumoured to be attached to it. Much of the price reduction seems to stem from the omission of Wi-Fi support which also appears to be its biggest drawback. If you can make do without Wi-Fi however the 5230 looks like an excellent choice for a low cost touchscreen phone and it should be available during Q4 of 2009.
Tags: Nokia-5230