Nokia 5310 Cell Phone Review - Messaging
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Marianne Schultz Published on September 23, 2008 Comment on this |
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| The Nokia 5310 has an email client, but due to its lack of functionality when you don't have a data connection available we aren't awarding any points for it. Support for multimedia and text messages is good, we especially liked the unified interface for creating messages. | |
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Supported Email Services (0.0)
Like most basic phones, the Nokia 5310 does not include a full-featured email client. There's a java application for email that allows you to access various popular services, but this application requires internet connectivity. What this means is that if you don't have a signal you can't go looking for an email you've downloaded or compose a new message to send later. As such, we won't be awarding points for email functionality on the Nokia 5310 and it will receive zeros in many of these sections. We should also note that we had some trouble signing into some accounts, before succeeding with an AOL email account. The service also charges you for a text message for each email sent or received, which should make most people consider not using the service as charges can pile up quickly.
Push Email (0.0)
There is no support for push email where an email is received as soon as it arrives at your account.
Multiple Email Accounts (0.0)
The built in java client does support multiple email accounts, however we are not awarding points for the client due to the connectivity requirement.
Email account set-up
HTML and Attachments (0.0)
The Nokia 5310's email program does not support HTML emails and does not allow you to view attachments.
Email Customizations (0.0)
There are no email customization options on the 5310's java client for email.
Time to a New Email Message (0.0)
We did not do this test as we are not awarding points for the 5310's email program. See above for more information.
Email Usability (0.0)
We are not awarding points, as explained above.
Instant Messaging (0.0)
The Nokia 5310 supports IM on AIM, ICQ, Windows Live and Yahoo messenger services. Unfortunately, you are charged for a text message for each instant message sent or received. This may be okay if you don't have a data plan, but if you do, we don't think it's fair for carriers to charge you extra for data services when you are already paying for an unlimited plan. On top of that, text message rates are outrageously expensive, and as such we don't award points for instant messaging services that use text message gateways. If you absolutely need to use the IM client, we recommend that you get an unlimited texting plan.
Instant messaging sign-up
MMS Support (8.5)
The Nokia 5310 has excellent MMS support. Not only can you easily send an MMS from the camera or album software but we were very happy to see that the 5310 has a single unified interface for creating both text and multimedia messages. This is in contrast to other devices like the Samsung M520 that have two separate interfaces for each message.
Unified SMS/MMS inbox and creation
SMS Smiley Face Interpretation (10.0)
The Nokia 5310 has good support for inserting smiley faces into an outgoing message. While creating a message, you can press the 1 key twice to insert the simple smiley, :), quickly since it's the 2nd punctuation option available. For a larger selection, you can press the left soft key labeled Options, choose Smiley from the resulting list, and select from 16 different smileys in the next screen. The 5310 also correctly interprets smiley faces you receive and turns them into graphical equivalents. If you don't like graphical smileys, you can turn this capability off in the Message Settings menu.
SMS/MMS Ease of Use (7.0)
The Nokia 5310's SMS/MMS interface is straightforward. When you open the messaging application in the menu, you get a list of mailboxes including your Inbox, Drafts, Outbox, Sent, and Saved items. There are also shortcuts to some other features like Delivery Reports, Delete Messages and Create Message. This last option brings up a menu where you can choose to create a new message form scratch, go the voice recorder, or use a template. Yeah, we don't know what that second item is doing there either.
New SMS
When you choose to create a new message you get the nice unified interface, with a field for To:, another for the body, and a strip of icons at the bottom that allow you to insert a variety of items into the message, including video, photos, and audio. This allows you to seamlessly create a multimedia message from any text message. We like this unified interface much better than those in phones that artificially divide text and multimedia messages. What's missing is support for threaded text messages as seen on devices like the iPhone 3G or Palm Centro. This aside, the interface is easy to use and shouldn't give anyone any problems.
Time to a New SMS Message (4.03)
The Nokia 5310 took an average of 2.48 seconds to create a new text message. Unlike many phones the 5310 doesn't have a shortcut to text messages on the home screen, this is due to the presence of the myFaves plugin that means you can't assign directions of the D-Pad to programs. As such we had to enter the menu, open messaging and create a new message from there. Despite this, the 5310's performance isn't bad and you can see below that it's better than average, however you'll also note that all of our comparison phones performed significantly better than the 5310. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.
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