Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition review: As seen on TV

Introduction

Sometimes it’s the most unassuming of handsets that can start a revolution. The Nokia 5330 Mobile TV edition doesn’t top any geeks’ wishlist, nor does it make for the perfect business device. But what it does have is a DVB-H TV receiver and it brings this extremely rare feature in an affordable package so a wider audience can get a taste of it.

And once you get a chance to try it, you might decide that it’s exactly what you want in your next high-end phone. There is more than one way of becoming a market success and the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV edition certainly takes a risky path. But it’s a path that might just pay off for Nokia in the long run.

Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition

Key features

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Tri-band 3G
• 2.4" 16M-color QVGA display with excellent sunlight legibility
• 3 megapixel enhanced fixed-focus camera with LED flash
• QVGA video recording at 15fps
• DVB-H TV receiver
• Series 40 UI, 6th edition
• Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual radio
• Bluetooth (with A2DP)
• Standard microUSB port (charging)
• microSD card slot (16 GB supported, 1GB included)
• 3.5mm audio jack
• Dedicated touch-sensitive music keys
• Great audio output quality
• Maps for S40 preinstalled

Main disadvantages

• No WLAN
• No HSDPA
• No GPS receiver
• S40 is feature-wise outdated, though visually updated
• No preinstalled document viewer
• No smart dialing
• Below par video recording capabilities
• Poor build quality

The list of disadvantages of the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV edition isn’t the shortest we have seen but it’s not much longer than you would expect from a feature phone with this kind of price tag. After all you get what you pay for and for its price the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV isn’t that bad as a package at all.

The Nokia 5330 Mobile TV edition at ours

The touchscreen madness is rapidly taking over the mobile world but Nokia chose a non-touch device to try and achieve better penetration of the DVB-H feature. And while this somewhat limits the number of potential customers it will arguably also help bring the price down so the ones that prefer good old tactile feedback keys get a better deal.

So let’s see about that by examining the handset performance. The hardware side of things is just around the corner. Follow us to page two of our Nokia 5330 Mobile TV edition review.