This is my first time reviewing a S40, but with the experience I got with S40s, I can tell you that these phones have improved a lot.

One thing that I don’t like is that Nokia was very focused on music instead of making the phone generally good, even though it is a Xpress Music, I will explain this later.

Like any other S40, this is basically a simple phone and it should be cheap, it’s small, slim and attractive.

If anyone is wondering, yes, this is a probably a direct competitor to Sony Ericsson W880i, I don’t think that it can stand the Walkman series due to its simplicity.

They tried to make it a modern phone and succeeded, but their idea wasn’t developed enough, maybe on purpose, to keep costs down.

This phone will keep people happy if they are only looking for the essentials in connectivity and a good music player.

Small and slim. That’s the easy way to describe this device. It simply fits greatly in your hands and you won’t even feel it in your pocket. Again, the slim factor is a competitor to the Sony Ericsson W880i.

The buttons are very cheap plastic, but I believe it’s a good thing because it has a nice tactile feedback which is rare in these kind of small buttons.

There is a 5-navigational key joypad beneath the small screen. Let the small screen not fool you, it’s equipped with 240x320 resolution and 16m colours.

The volume buttons are on the left and there is no camera key. On the left of the LCD, there are 3 keys: Previous, Play/Pause, Next. There is a call speaker on top, and there are two loudspeakers at the back, like some Walkman phones. At the back there is a camera with no flash. The back cover is difficult to put back on.

There is a satisfying BL-4CT 860maH battery present which apparently lasts 300hrs in stand-by and has 5hrs and 20min talk time. The back cover feels like carbon fibre. The weight of the phone is just 71g. It is 10,4cm long, 4,5cm wide and less than 1cm thick. Perhaps the most stupid thing is that we need to take the back cover out to remove/insert the microSD memory card.

On top there is a 3.5mm jack, a microUSB port (not miniUSB), and the usual ON/OFF/Profiles key. The charger port is on the left.

You might want to call the S40 v3 a simple Symbian but it’s more like a cheap imitation, something to people who don’t want a smartphone but want something modern that fulfils. The stand-by screen was totally refurbished in terms of layout, not the same old layout we were used to on 6230s. Besides the active stand-by, we see the network status, battery, time and all basic symbols on a first row on the screen. Below that there is a moving active stand-by, you can scroll horizontally between the program icons. On the next row there is a calendar view, we can scroll between the days. All these views can come handy but I believe a stand-by screen should be neat and clean, not like this, but we do have the option to turn active stand-by off.

The Menu layout is still the old 3x3 but there are many view options: Grid with or without labels, tab, and list. The icons are animated, and as usual, if you wait too long, a help pop-up comes up.

All applications are revamped, Messaging includes an email client and an IM client, Contacts give you the ability to synchronise from the phone itself, Log shows all sorts of communication and you can even synchronise the log. One improvement I see in most new phones now is Videotones, and the 5310 has it. Many programs come with the phone: Widsets, Opera Mini v3, Search by Windows Live, Nokia Sensor, and World Clock. There are 3 games: City Bloxx, Music Guess, Snake 3. Another trend nowadays is PTT, I never tried even though I see it in most phones that I review.

The phone is triband, and there is no 3G or HSDPA. There is EDGE class 32 at 172kbps and it is pretty fast to connect. One problem is that the Web browser is very poor and extremely slow so the only way you can enjoy full speeds is Opera Mini. There is Bluetooth v2 with ADP, no infrared and a microUSB port. It supports Mass Storage mode, PC Suite and PictBridge.

I am totally disappointed with the camera, I rather have a VGA than this. It’s not only because there is no flash, but there is simply no quality in the camera, no image stability, and the capture time too long, I uploaded some pictures to show how bad it can be. The same with video quality, 177x144, that is lower than the screen’s resolution itself. The video stops recording after 21s, but it can be used as a screensaver. When playing videos, the sound isn’t muted if you select mute, a software bug.

The 5310 is a Xpress Music phone, so it’s naturally focused on sound, a custom graphical equaliser is present, the music player supports Album Art, but there are no visualizations on landscape mode to go with the music keys.

It has RDS Radio, but no visual radio. There is a handy 3.5mm jack and a 2GB microSD bundled in the package. The speakers become useless because they are at the back of the phone. There is no TrackID or anything to face up to the Walkman Series. The earphones are the same as the N95 ones but with a different adaptor.

After this simple review, we can again state that the 5310 is a phone dedicated to someone with a low budget who seeks a simple modern life and has a taste for music.

Advantages: Music Keys, Small and Slim, 3.5mm jack, microUSB, Bluetooth, 2GB card, QVGA resolution.

Disadvantages: Poor camera quality, Speakers badly placed, buggy videoplayer, no 3G, slow Web browser.

Rating: 6.0/10