Nokia 5310 Cell Phone Review - Hardware

Not surprisingly on such a small phone, nearly all of the Nokia 5310's buttons are correspondingly tiny. This hampers text entry and could make it hard to use by feel alone in many instances. Its screen isn't very bright, but still performs well in bright light regardless. The 5310 earns a bit of our ire with its proprietary power port, but it does at least have a standard headphone jack and uses widely-available Micro SD cards.

Text Words Per Minute (6.02)
We test how quickly text can be entered into a phone by timing the typing of standardized text into a phone's notes or other text entry application. We could do this in 30.11 seconds on the Nokia 5310, resulting in 31.89 words per minute. This is just a hair more than the LG Chocolate 3 among our comparison phones, and is below the average for all the phones we've tested. The keypad on the tiny 5310 is quite cramped and will be a challenge for frequent texters with larger fingers. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

T9 and Auto Complete (5.0)
The 5310 has T9 predictive text entry, and it works just as expected as other non-smartphones we've seen, like the LG Chocolate 3. It is on by default for the Notes application, though not when entering new contacts or calendar events, which makes sense. If you're not familiar with T9, it simplifies text entry from the multi-tap method, speeding up the process a great deal. For example, with multi-tap alone to type the word "speedy," you would press 7-pause-7-3-pause-3-pause-39 since you would need to wait for the cursor to move to the next space to avoid "passing" the letter you need when pressing one key multiple times. With T9, you would enter the word "speedy" by pressing 773339 without needing to pause at all since the system would guess that you are entering the word "speedy" based on the combination of numbers you entered. It's still not as fast as using a full QWERTY for all but the most experienced teenage texters, but it's better than nothing.

One-Handed Typing (6.45)
To evaluate one-handed typing, we enter the same standardized text as used in the Text Words Per Minute test above with just one hand. This typically lowers words per minute for phones with QWERTY keyboards particularly, though not as much for phones with standard keypads. In this test, it was a bit surprising to see that one-handed typing went a little faster than two-handed typing, resulting in 32.23 words per minute. With the Nokia 5310, using one hand allowed the other to hold it stable and not crowd the tiny keypad with more digits than it can comfortably accommodate. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Keypad Backlighting (4.0)
The keypad backlighting brightness is controlled by the light sensor, as is the screen, and there are no settings to adjust timing or anything else related to how the keypad or screen are lit. Lighting is a just a hair lower along the 2, 5, 8, and 0 keys but even and sufficient across the rest of the keypad. When in a dark environment, the keypad backlight turns off completely before the screen's backlight turns off, so you'll need to randomly press a button first to get the keypad's backlight to come back on unless you can operate them by feel completely. This was a little odd - we normally see keypad and screen backlighting operating in sync when governed by a light sensor.

The 5310's keypad

D-Pad/Joystick (4.0)
The 5310 has a small D-pad with a center selection button. The center button is easy to press and has decent travel and tactile feedback. The directional buttons are another story, however - those with larger fingers may have a harder time pressing on one of the directional buttons and they don't offer the same level of feedback as the center button. The D-pad is flanked by 4 buttons - the right and left soft menu keys and the send and end buttons, and its raised edges do differentiate it from those buttons well enough to operate by feel alone.

Soft menu keys and send & end buttons

Touch Screen (0.0)
The 5310 does not have a touch screen.

Jog Dial (0.0)
The 5310 does not have a jog dial.

Soft Buttons (0.0)
The 2 soft menu keys are immediately below the screen flanking the D-pad. They are the same size and shape as the send and end buttons, but as long as you remember that these two are right below the screen, you should have no problem skipping them to get to the send and end buttons by feel alone. These buttons offer slightly less tactile feedback than the center selection key on the D-pad and are large enough to avoid accidentally pressing nearby buttons at the same time for most users.

Volume Control (3.0)
The volume control is on the right side of the phone and is a single rocker button marked with plus and minus signs accordingly. It is shiny chrome, so you can't miss it when you look at it, and it's raised enough from the side of the phone to easily find it by feel if it's in your pocket or bag. Neither end of the rocker button has a lot of travel and you may not be able to tell you've pressed it enough to register by feel alone. The orientation of the phone generally gives away which end of the rocker increases or decreases the volume, which is helpful since the small symbols stamped into each end of the button can't really be felt well enough to distinguish one from the other.

Power and Standby (6.0)
The power button is on the top of the phone to the left of the USB port. It sits flush with the top of the phone, requiring conscious effort to press and hold to turn the phone on or off - this is good since you're less likely to press it by accident. It has good travel and tactile feedback, and even emits a small click so you can tell that you've depressed it far enough to register. Its only problem is its small size, which may cause trouble for those with larger fingers. When a power button is separate from the End call key, it usually offers additional functionality to immediately access different call profiles. Unfortunately, the Nokia 5310's power button does not offer this, but we still prefer it to power buttons integrated with the End call key.

Other Buttons (6.0)
The music control buttons on the front of the phone to the left of the screen have raised markings that are somewhat rough, though these are not distinct enough to be able to tell which button is which by feel alone. The orientation of the phone will tell you which is which, though - the top button is the rewind/skip backwards button, the center button is play or pause, and the bottom button is the fast forward/skip forward button. They don't have a lot of travel when pressed, but the click can be felt when they are pressed enough to register, and will be easy enough for most to use while the 5310 is in a pocket or bag. Such music control buttons appear to be becoming de rigueur on music-oriented phones, but we still appreciate them when we encounter them nonetheless because of how they facilitate using the features of the phone.

Primary Screen Gross Resolution (8.0)
The 5310's screen has a resolution of 240 x 320. This is nothing extraordinary, but it's fine for such a small screen.

Primary Screen Pixels per Inch (10.06)
The amount of information that can be shown on the screen and the depth of color it can show is measured as pixels per inch. The higher the number, the better. The Nokia 5310's screen has 201.26 pixels per inch, which is fairly high and is good for such a small screen where it can already been challenging to view video and pictures.

Screen Physical Size (4.97)
We measure the 5310's screen at 1.989 inches, shy of the claimed 2.1 inches. We generally prize larger screen sizes since this provides more area to view more information while browsing, viewing videos, and more. The 5310 is meant to be a compact phone, so we don't hold its screen size against it too much.

Screen Brightness (5.55)
To measure screen brightness, we browse to a blank white web page, ensure the screen's brightness is at its maximum level, and use a light meter to measure the screen's brightness. The 5310 does have a light sensor that automatically adjusts the screen's brightness level, and there is no many way to adjust this, so we must illuminate the sensor so it will brighten the screen, but block it so that it does not contaminate our results. The 5310's screen isn't that bright, coming in at 71 lumens. This isn't far behind the Samsung m520 at 73 lumens, and it surpasses the Samsung Beat by 16 lumens.

Screen Bright Light Performance (8.0)
To evaluate a screen's performance in bright light, we shine a 3000-lumen light on it and view the screen and attempt to navigate around to see how easy it is. Despite its low brightness level, the 5310's screen is surprisingly easy to navigate once you get around the glare of the glossy surface. The only things that are hard to see are the menus in white text, but the icons can still be identified fairly easily. Here, a screen's color depth and contrast have an impact and help the 5310's screen remain readable in bright light despite its low brightness level.

Color Depth (10.0)
The 5310's screen can display an impressive 16 million colors, earning it 10 points in this area. However, in reality, this doesn't enhance your viewing pleasure since you're unlikely to encounter a video or web page that would need to display such a wide range of colors that would take advantage of this capability.

Secondary Screen (0.0)
The Nokia 5310 does not have a secondary screen.

Power & Data Ports (4.0)
As is typical with Nokia phones, the 5310 has a proprietary power port. The data port on the top of the phone is micro USB. We always find it odd that Nokia separates these two when micro USB is perfectly capable of charging a phone's battery. We prefer to avoid proprietary chargers altogether, since finding a replacement isn't as easy as digging out another USB cord you might already have.

Headphone Compatibility (8.0)
The 5310 has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, which we like to see since this is the most common headphone jack size and there are many, many headphone products to choose from. The phone does come with a pair of earbuds and a separate microphone with a clip to make it easy to place it near your mouth on your clothing, and music playback and calls work just fine with these, as expected. Since the microphone is a separate accessory, you can use another set of 3.5mm headphones you may have with it and still be able to take calls while using them. This is a nice touch, though it can result in a lot of cord to get in the way.

The Nokia 5310 also supports the Bluetooth A2DP profile and can use Bluetooth stereo headphones.

Internal Storage (1.0)
The 5310 has 30MB of internal storage to store your contacts, calendar information, and other data, as well as any pictures, videos, and music you choose to save to the phone instead of the included Micro SD card. While it is nice to have some internal memory beyond the bare minimum to store your contacts, you'll barely be able to squeeze in a song or two in addition to your data, and the 5310 earns only 1 point for this amount of internal storage.

Expansion Slot & Format (4.0)
The Nokia 5310 has a Micro SD card slot that can only be accessed by removing the battery cover on the back of the phone, though you don't need to remove the battery itself to get to it. The 5310 can take Micro SD cards in capacities up to 8GB, so it's possible to increase the amount of media this phone can hold dramatically. The phone comes with a 1GB card in the box - we always love to see cards included like this, though this capacity is a little low since music can eat up space pretty quickly, particularly for those who will use the 5310 as their only digital music player.

Micro SD card slot

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