..:: My New Phone::..

Design and Ergonomics
Nokia 5610 XpressMusic utilizes the slider form-factor, the dimensions are 98.5 x 48.5 x 17 mm. The body of the phone is made from black plastic, glossy from the front and matte texturized on the backside (while the casing of 6500 Classic was made from steel). The back panel feels much like SonyEricsson W850i - a similar dotted pattern can be observed, functioning in a similar manner to prevent scrathing. The aluminium pieces are integrated into the side edges of the casing - two thin metal strips painted red or black. Similar to 5310, to color variants of the casing are available: black and red or black and blue, both combinations express equal harmony and don't look too flashy. The red variation also sports differently colored pieces along the sides of the screen while the more strict blue variant has none. The physical dimensons are quite comfortable - this model can neither be called slim nor bulky.

The build quality is on a very high level, the sliding mechanism is very smooth and precise, no play between the parts can be observed, just like with Nokia 6500 Slide. Most of the device's surface has a wet asphalt texture - matte, hard and resistant to fingerprints and worn spots, which also makes a good practical use. The face panel of the handset looks quite appealing. The buttons look as if they were of the touch-type, since no physical borders between them can be observed and they look absolutely flat. However that's not true, the buttons are quite traditional mechanical ones. All the keys have a good keystroke and respond to the touch quite accurately. The glossy plastic of the keypad is the only disappointing feature because it's easily soiled. This problem is common for all glossy surfaces in general, especially plastic ones. The navigation button is marked with a play/pause symbol in the center, it's quite comfortable to use. The numerical keypad looks quite traditional, the keys slightly stick out above the surface, they're made of a black plastic just like with the 6500 Slide. The keypad backlighting is of a bright and even white color.










The top end of the casing hosts the 2.5 mm headset jack, the miniUSB and the charger slots. The small button found nearby is the battery cover holder. The right edge of the casing hosts the camera rocker and the volume controls. The left edge is free of any control elements, and the bottom edge has a hole for fastening the wristband. Supplying a music phone with a non-standard headset jack only seems a bit illogical, for instance Nokia 5310 comes with a standard 3.5 mm jack. The bundled adapters differ accordinlgy: the 5610 model comes with an AD-56 while 5310 has an AD-57. The headset is same for the two - it's a HS-45.

The camera lens resides on the back panel, it's almost the same with Nokia 6500 Slide save for cheaper optics - the actual difference in the image quality is present yet it's not critical. There's no lens guard, so the lens is prone to greasing. As a matter of fact, the camera is what makes Nokia 5610 truly unique among the rest of music phones available on the market today, even the top Nokia phones (N81) as well as phones by competitive brands (Samsung i450, SonyEricsson W910i) come with worse cameras (2 Mp without auto-focusing).

The screen of Nokia 5610 is also the same with Nokia 6500 slide, based off a 2.2 inch matrix with a color palette of 16M colors. The screen quality is quite high, even in the broad daylight the information on the screen remains perfectly legible. Along the sides of the screen the CIF camera lens and the luminance sensor are located (so the phone auto-adjusts the brightness level depending on strength of the ambient lighting. Unlike the latest Samsung handsets, there's no way to turn the sensor off.

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