Budget smartphone braves odds

MANILA, Philippines—Nokia’s C5-03 may be likened to a football goalkeeper standing resolutely firm amid hordes of frenzied and determined attackers.

With the unprecedented demand for the iOS-powered iPhones, the ever-increasing popularity of Android-powered smartphones, and more significantly, Nokia’s recent announcement to use Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone 7 operating system as the foundation for the Finnish giant’s upcoming mobile phones, we may now be looking at one of the few remaining standard-bearers of the Symbian OS.

Somehow, this also makes the C5-03, a prized commodity for those who find it tough to imagine a Nokia mobile phone using a different OS.

And what’s not to love about the C5-03? It’s priced just around P9,000, which is way below the price tag of an iPhone and most of Android-powered smartphones.

Dated Symbian

It’s sad that it comes equipped with a dated Symbian^1 OS (otherwise known as the Symbian S60 5th edition). To compensate for this handicap, Nokia equipped this tri-band with a 10.2 Mbps HSDPA, a 2 Mbps HSUPA support, as well as Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g connectivity.

The C5-03 also comes with a 40MB internal storage and can support microSD cards with up to 32 GB, so plenty of space to store Ovi store apps and games.

Unlike the alphanumeric keypad employed by its predecessors, the C5-03 opted for the virtual keys on its 3.2-inch TFT resistive touchscreen display (with a 360 x 640 pixel resolution).

The only actual keys in front are the three buttons below the screen for activating Call, Menu and End functions.

The resistive touchscreen works well, though not as good as its capacitive counterpart.

Younger crowd

Like its earlier versions, the C5-03 is designed to attract the younger crowd. Its plastic shell has rounded edges with the bottom sporting a unique color accent, a welcome break from predominantly white-gray-black-colored smartphones.

It’s compact and lightweight enough (10.58cm long, 5.1cm wide, 1.38cm thick and 93g) to be carried around.

But what is more endearing to know is that 80 percent of the C5-03’s body comes from recycled material and, thus, is recyclable.

On the right side of the phone lies the volume rocker and the lock button. On the top is the audio jack and the microUSB port while the charger slot is on the bottom. The 5 MP camera located on the back offers 4x optical zoom but there’s no sign of a flash so prepare for some blurry photos if you are in low-light environment.

The on-screen menu is pretty straightforward to navigate as it is nicely laid out in grid format (though that could be changed to a list if you so desired). Social networking apps (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube appear as standard, but also in the mix are Hi5, MySpace and Friendster) are already bundled in their own folder just like the music player and gallery that are also separated from the app folder, thus simplifying media file access.

Indeed, the C5-03 is a great-looking smartphone that is simple and easy to use. It’s perfect for newcomers to smartphones as well as those who are not easily swayed by apps or a phone’s glamor.