A new phone that was music to my ears (Nokia 5200)

Member Name: Vialdana

Product:	Nokia 5200
Date:	12/06/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, lots of features, stylish, comfortable to use

Disadvantages: music function could be a bit easier to find the song you want.

I was late coming to use a mobile phone, everyone else around me had one and I held out and said why do I need one of those! Eventually someone gave me an old phone of theirs and I plodded along with that for a while getting sniggered at until it finally drove me nuts because of lack of signal.

It was at this point (about a year and a half ago), when I decided it was time to take the plunge and buy myself a phone. I wanted something not too hard to figure out, but that would be dual purpose - act as a phone, and also as a music player. Oh, and not be too expensive either.

I chose this phone for various reasons. Firstly being a nokia the simple text/phone functions were virtually the same as the one I'd had before which for someone who is a leeeetle bit scared of mobile phones was a very good thing. Secondly it plays music really easily and had the ability to pop a mini sd card into a slot and give me greater capacity for song storage. Thirdly it was quite stylish while still being nice and cheap.

Having had it for about 18mths now, I'm a lot more proficient with a phone than I used to be, and the phone being able to do a lot more than the few simple things I bought it for has kind of grown with me which has been great.

I can take photos - and send and recieve them as part of texts.

I can listen to music - although this is a little limited as it can take a bit of time to scroll through every song to find the one you're looking for. But the volume on it isn't bad and with headphones it's pretty good.

I can send and recieve texts - plain and multimedia ones, though occasionally it does have a gripe about something big coming in (I think this is network issues though rather than phone issuse - though my network thinks otherwise typically).

I can make and recieve calls - I've even figured out how to set different ring tones for different people so I know who's calling me before I pick the phone up. I rather like this touch as you can assign songs to people not just generic tones.

I've used bluetooth and I've even sync'd my phone with my pc so that I could move songs without taking the card out - this is a big advantage as when you take the card out, if you've assigned a song to a person and the song is stored on the card, you lose all the settings that are linked to the card and have to start again putting them all in which is a right royal pain in the behind I can tell you!

I know the phone can access the internet - I did it once or twice by mistake *blush*. I don't really understand this bit to be honest, but my friend did show me some stuff on hers (she had the same phone at the time) and it looked brill.

I also know the phone can do instant messaging which I'd really like to have a go at soon. I just haven't quite got up the courage to give it a go yet.

The calander function is quite useful for me as you can leave yourself notes on there and also set alarms so that you don't forget appointments as well. Very useful if your brain is like mine and forgets nice and easily.

I have to say the phone itself is very durable too. Ok I'm not someone who sends millions of messages a day so it's not getting huuuge use, but it still looks tidy and I've not had any problems with buttons or screen or anything. The battery is excellent, it lasts for about 10 days if just left on without doing much with it. Obviously if you have bluetooth on, or you have it on vibrate or use the music player etc. then the battery life is shorter, but I'm very happy with it, and for me I tend to charge it every 3 or 4 days because I do use it a fair bit for music. The buttons are not too tiny either, and the keypad doesn't have them all linked together as they are on some phones which I find very awkward.

Overall a very nice phone, simple enough for most novices to get the hang of quite quickly, but with enough features to suit the more sophisticated user I'd say.

Summary: Lots of features, simple to use, not too pricey - a good phone for most people.

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