And again I have in my hands a representative of the legendary phones. Now it’s Nokia5130 XpressMusic. The phone comes from those times when manufacturers divided their product lines not by price categories, but by areas of use. This phone player was very popular in its time. Despite the fact that I have always loved smartphones, and I had such a phone. Albeit not for long. Therefore, when it became possible to purchase this model this year, I decided to add to the collection.
I will start the review naturally with the history of the model.
The Nokia5130 XpressMusic is a phone that launched in late 2008 and went on sale in early March 2009. This is one of the first representatives of Nokia musical smartphones based on the S40 platform (not to be confused with devices on Symbian). The main competitor of the 5130 at that time were smartphones from Sony Ericsson of the Walkman line, but they were noticeably more expensive and had less interesting characteristics. The price of Nokia5130 XpressMusic at the time of release was only 90 euros. And since at that time Nokia’s position in the market was still strong, the newly released phone was doomed to success. Which, in fact, happened. Bright design, musical component, 3.5mm port, separate player buttons, support for large memory cards, low price. Nokia knew how to make a successful phone.
Specifications Nokia5130 XpressMusic
- Memory: 30MB + 2GB, 32MB RAM, microSD, hot swappable
- Platform: Nokia Series 40
- Battery: 1020 mAh Li-Ion, 6 hours of talk time (GSM), 20 hours of music
- Screen: 2″, 320×240, TFT, 252k colors
- Camera: 2 megapixel, 1600×1200, 4X digital zoom, viewfinder
- View: Monoblock, 88 g, 107.5×46.7×14.8 mm
- Material: Plastic
I think that some of my readers still have this model. Despite the fact that the model was discontinued at the beginning of 2011, during this time Nokia managed to release a huge number of devices.
And now, 10 years after the production of this model was discontinued, one of the devices is in new condition (but I think it’s a refurbished machine) fell into my hands. Let’s see, twist, remember.
The phone was delivered in a colorful bright box, clearly aimed at a young buyer:
On the box you can pay attention to the inscription 2Gb Memory Card included. Yes, the phone at that moment was supplied with a 2Gb MicroSD card, which for 2009 was quite a decent amount, and allowed you not to spend money on an additional memory card, but to immediately download music and listen. But in my case, such a card was not included in the kit. The whole set consists of a phone, a BL-5C battery, a charger:
The charger here is still the same, the so-called thin Nokia. In 2009, it was a charger that could be bought in almost every stall:
By the way, this phone could also be charged via the increasingly popular MicroUSB connector.
The Nokia 5130 phone was available in two colors: red and blue. My first 513 was red and today’s one has a blue body. It looks pretty bright. On the front side there is a keyboard block, navigation buttons above it and above it a 2″ color display, 320 × 240, TFT, with 252 thousand colors. And above it is the inscription Nokia XpreessMusic and a hearing speaker:
On the back of the phone there is a removable cover, under which there is a 2MP camera and a polyphonic speaker, covered with a mesh inscribed in the cover in the form of an original pattern:
Under the cover there is a Bl-5C battery and a SIM card slot:
On the left side of the phone there are separate keys for controlling the player: forward, backward, play/pause:
And another feature of the phone is the backlight of the music keys, which can be configured to simply glow or work in the light equalizer mode:
On the left of the phone are the volume keys, and the microSD card slot is covered with a plastic cover:
The bottom end of the phone is empty:
And on the top end there is a 3.5mm headphone port, a charging connector and a microUSB port covered with a plastic plug:
In general, the design of 5130 can be called very cool, bright, juicy and interesting. Even by today’s standards, the phone looks very good.
Now let’s move on to the stuffing and software. Nokia 5130 runs on the familiar S40 platform. The phone turns on with the usual screensaver and melody:
I think everyone heard this melody of inclusion in their thoughts.
Desktop:
Well, a few more nostalgic photos, with menu items:
The phone has a 2MP camera. Now the pictures from her look, to put it mildly, nothing:
But the most interesting thing about the phone is, of course, the player. To my surprise, the phone accepted and recognized a 64GB MicroSD card without any problems (I didn’t have a smaller volume at hand). For the proper effect, I also loaded old hits into my phone, such as Dr. Alban, Benassi, Hi-Fi, E-Type, Ace Of Base, ATB and took out headphones …. And you know, as if transported into the past.
What I have always liked about this phone is the good sound. And the sound here is its own, special. A little deaf, with a slight skew to the bottom. Yes, the sound of the Nokia 5130 is not at all a reference, and it is even difficult for it to compete with modern smartphones. But old songs from the 90s and early 2000s sound exactly the same on the phone as I heard them at the time when I had this phone. As a result, my evening with the phone turned into a constant connection of the flash drive to the computer, memories, searching and downloading songs that I listened to a long time ago. And in the end, I even made a separate collection of those songs and threw them on a flash drive into the radio. So to speak, a strong attack of nostalgia rolled over me. And even when I had already gone to bed, these already old songs still sounded in my head.
Of course, the value of such an experience for each person will be different, but I myself did not expect that I would be so imbued with audiophile nostalgia. And all thanks to such a guest from the past.
Buy Nokia 5130 XpressMusic
Conclusion:
Personally, I am very pleased that such an interesting phone came to me. It is no longer relevant this year just as a phone, except perhaps as a dialer. But it can be used as a player, it was created for this. Throw music on a flash drive, plug in headphones, and listen.
And you know what I thought? If only now Nokia returned to the market with similar models. After all, no one is doing anything like that now. They would release a kind of phone for geeks. Phone player. On Android, with a keyboard, with a bright design, with separate player control buttons. But already on modern hardware, with Wi-Fi, GPS and NFC. Even without a camera. I would buy such a phone. Not as a main, but as an additional. And I would use it all the time, as a spare phone and player. And a fashionable bright toy. But alas. This should not be. Nokia left the market forever. And what is now being sold under the name of this legendary brand is, in fact, not Nokia, but Chinese crafts that have nothing to do with the Nokia that we all loved.
This concludes my review. Everyone 63214
I also advise you to look at my other reviews on old Nokia phones:
Phone legend? Nokia 6300 review in 2021
Retrophilia. Nokia 1600 phone review in 2021
Legendary Nokia Phones You Can Buy on Aliexpress
Retrophilia. Review of the Nokia 1202 phone. The most budget Nokia phone in the world?
Retrophilia. Review of the Nokia 2700 Classic phone in 2021