The 9.9mm thick body of the Nokia XpressMusic 5310 is sleek yet sturdy and lightweight. Reviewed here is the red-black color variant, in case red is not your thing there is a blue-black edition as well. The red coating along the sides of the front offset the dark grey tone strikingly. There are music shortcut keys on the front THE NEW DUO XpressMusic Edition from Nokia sure sound different this time around. They set new standards in their own right left side with shiny marks on them. The front panel has a 2-inch screen supporting 16 million colors with the ear-piece and ambient light sensor above it. The glossy alphanumeric keypads are nice to use but prone to fingerprints. On the back, there is a 2MP no-frills camera. Audiophiles have something to rejoice here though, a 3.5mm standard headphone port to plug in any standard headphones is on the top with the new standard microlISB port. The 5310 has 32MB of RAM and an internal memory of 32MB. The microSD slot which is located inside the battery cover is inconvenient and it supports up to 4GB. The phone uses the new Symbian 40 series 3rd edition, which is a simple and clean interface. But this restricts you to stick with only Java programs. The music player is feature-rich with its album art and exchangeable themes support, it plays all popular music formats. For sound enhancement there is a 5-band Equalizer (EQ) and Stereo Widening. FM Radio with Visual Radio is also included. We like the inclusion of Flight Mode and the feature that let us use video clip as call alert. And for connectivity, there is Bluetooth v2 with A2DP support and it's EDGE enabled for speedier net access.

Performance

Owing to its slim design, the phone is light and easy on the pocket. The keypad has great ergonomics but a big fingerprint magnet because of the glossy finish. Its display is crisp and making out the screen contents is no pain. Call quality is good and its reception is satisfactory though the loudspeaker volume could have been louder which makes the calls easy to miss in a noisy environment.

We really admire the inclusion of 3.5mm port for standard headphones.And the external music keys gave us better control over our tracks being played. The player is simple but there is a slight lag while browsing the music library or playing around with its settings. Soon, all were forgotten once we pumped up the volume. It sounds louder than the older Nokia 5700 XpressMusic which we tested last year. Both with dedicated audio chip, the 5310 stood out with its deep bass and clear vocals. The higher frequencies may be a bit harsh for some, but you can always tweak the EQ to your liking.

Browsing on the EDGE connection was average. Synching the phone with Nokia's latest PC Suite was flawless, but transferring files to and from the PC using a data cable was way too slow albeit its USB 2.0 support.

The 2MP cameras has nothing much to talk about. Lack of auto focus, the absence of an LED flash and the slow image processing speed dampened our enthusiasm for the phone. Images lacked details and there is a lot of noise on indoor shots. The battery life is below average. It hardly lasted us for two days on normal usage.

Verdict

Its sleek design and great build is one thing, its exceptional sound is the main reason why one should go for the Nokia XpressMusic 5310. The so-so camera and poor battery life may be a deal breaker for some. If you're willing to shell out more, the Sony Ericsson W880i is another good option having the similar slim profile.