Nokia 5510 Review

Overall Rating

Easy to use.
Loud, clear earpiece.
Accepts generic 3.5mm headphones.
Design turns heads.

Size and weight.
Unresponsive keys.
No Macintosh compatability.

When the Nokia 5510 was first released in New Zealand, the going price was $900 (that's about 1800 euros). When I went into a shop recently, I noticed that they are now down to $260 (520 euros). When I questioned why the price has dropped so dramatically, the sales assistant told me that they had bought all of Nokia New Zealand's stock at a huge discount. It makes sense; the trendy young people at whom the 5510 is aimed would never be able to afford to spend $900. However, at a more reasonable price, the 5510 would be a huge seller.

It was disappointing to discover that there is no software to download music files from a Macintosh, but I prefer to listen to the radio on the move so that was my main reason for buying it. The radio produces good volume and sound quality, and allows you to preset up to ten stations along with tags so that you can assign the name of the radio station to a particular preset. The FM reception could be improved a little, though. One of my biggest concerns initially was the possibility that it may only be possible to listen to music using a special proprietory headset. Fortunately, this is not the case; the sales package includes an adaptor so that you can connect any standard 3.5mm headphones.

The idea of having a full QWERTY keyboard is novel, but not particularly beneficial, which is probably why the 5510 was the first and last non-PDA handset to include one. The keys are too small and unresponsive which means that the full keyboard is no better, but no worse, than using the conventional T9 system. I suppose that getting rid of the QWERTY keyboard would also allow the size of the handset to be reduced.

The 5510 has the same excellent user interface and sound quality as other Nokia handsets. If you like the 3310/3330 and like the idea of the radio and digital music player, then this is definitely a good option.

Members' Comments onAlastair.'s Review

• Nivram. on 2nd Jan 2003

  The only reason DSE are selling this handset so cheap are because Nokia have discontinued this model due to a number of issues with the handset.

• Jerry. on 10th Jan 2003

  And the user interface is not good. It's the usual boring interface Nokia have on most of their phones. It's getting really tedious. I'm glad the new 7650 and other models have a different interface for a change.

• stu. on 27th May 2003

  the phones are down to $199 now !

• Dan. on 4th Jun 2003

  Alastair hasn't been reading his exchange rates, NZ$900 is about 450 Euros, not 1800 Euros as he states (1800 Euros would be about NZ$3600 - making one expensive nokia!)