Full musical keyboard - Nokia 5730 XpressMusic

No news is good news and the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is quite keen to go about humming that tune like it didn’t care. Recruiting Symbian for an entertainment job is nothing new really and no, we’re not surprised that yet another handset wants to be the N97 of its neighborhood. The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic doesn’t really shine but it’s fit enough to handle quite a workload. Whether you need a smartphone for the knack or for the fun of it, this all-in-one messenger promises a bit of everything: music, web, gaming and connectivity.

XpressMusic has long crossed the smartphone line but only just starting to take multitasking so seriously. WLAN, GPS and a full QWERTY keyboard go side by side with enhanced music and N-Gage to make the Nokia 5730 so universally appealing. We guess we’ve had enough proof that Symbian can handle it all, so let’s see how the 5730 XpressMusic lives up to its claims.

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic official photos

It’s pretty obvious there will be quite some Nokia 5630 XpressMusic here. It’s virtually the same handset – add or take. So, what’s the deal in the end with adding QWERTY and a bigger screen and taking some processing power?

Key features

• 2.4" 16M-color TFT display of QVGA resolution
• Four-row side-slide QWERTY keyboard
• Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G (with HSDPA) support
• Symbian OS with S60 3.2 UI
• 369 MHz ARM11 CPU
• 3.5mm standard audio jack
• microSD card slot, 8GB microSD card prebundled
• 3.2 megapixel auto focus camera with a dedicated shutter key, geotagging and VGA video at 30fps
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with UPnP technology
• Built-in GPS receiver and preinstalled Nokia Maps
• USB and stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) connectivity
• FM radio with RDS plus Internet radio
• Dedicated music keys
• N-Gage support
• Dedicated gaming keys
• Ovi Contacts integration
• Office document viewer
• Smart dialing
• Contacts bar on the homescreen
• N-Series-like gallery
• Nokia Say and Play (voice control to music player)

Main disadvantages:

• Fingerprint-prone cheap-looking plastic build
• No DivX/XviD support out of the box (can be installed, possibly requiring a purchase)
• Average camera performance
• Poor battery life
• Doesn't charge off microUSB connection
• No TV-out functionality

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is treating the younger crowd to the all-round skill of dad’s E75. Alright, it may not be as simple as that but the 5730 is only just some corporate email (and plenty of steel) short of Eseries excellence. The XpressMusic QWERTY messenger is heavy on entertainment of course - dedicated music keys and N-Gage-conscious design, along with full pack connectivity. The complete keyboard, elaborate organizer, the office package and GPS are enough to start talking business.

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic live shots

Well, even if the dedicated gaming buttons and the digital-style alphanumeric font used on the keys leave little doubt about the target audience demographics, the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic looks too big for its niche. The first QWERTY messenger in Nokia’s music lineup is a solid smartphone package that’s definitely worth the test ride.

Be you young in age or spirit, you are welcome to stick around. Back with unboxing right after the jump.

Decent retail box

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is reasonably equipped considering the price tag. The phone comes with a 8GB microSD card, a USB cable and of course a regular 2mm-pin charger.

The retail package

The supplied handsfree is one piece, which means you cannot use the music-enhanced remote with another headset. Alternative headphones are of course an option given the 3.5 mm audio jack.

The supplied headset seems better than standard though the white earbuds hardly match their overall style. By the way the same headset is supplied wth Nokia 5530 XpresssMusic as well.

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic 360-degree spin

The slide-out QWERTY keyboard doesn’t make the 5730 XpressMusic the most compact of phonesm but it’s quite compact for a device that has a full QWERTY keyboard. But it’s not a hard to handle chunk either – at 112 x 51 x 15.4 mm, it’s about the size of an N78, which is more than alright.

The weight of 135 grams won’t be a burden either. The 5730 is surprisingly only 4 grams lighter than the steel-covered Nokia E75 but the important thing is the phone handles very nicely. Great balance is vital for slider handsets and the 5730 XpressMusic is especially comfortable with the QWERTY keyboard slid out.

Design and construction

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is a nice looking phone with a very distinct XpressMusic styling. The red frames around the front and the QWERTY keyboard contribute to the familiar feel. Actually, the handset’s front is an almost exact replica of the 5630 XpressMusic. It’s all plastic there, no fancy stuff and that’s no news.

The 5730 XpressMusic build has its issues

The very solid looking, ample QWERTY keyboard is an excellent performer. It has the same font styling as the alphanumeric one and its handling is comfortable and secure.

The ambient light sensor and the video-call camera are at the top of the front panel of the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic, either side of the earpiece. The secondary camera is enabled for QVGA still shots and QCIF video at 15 fps. Between the screen and the earpiece is a rocker key – those are the two gaming buttons.

Below them is the 2.4" display, followed by the D-pad, which is very comfortable to use. It has a programmable LED in the center that can be set to indicate missed events or simply serve as a standby breathing light.

Ambient light sensor, video-call camera, N-Gage button and the earpiece

There are six system keys around the D-pad, including the usual Nokia foursome - Call and End keys and two soft-keys. The End key also doubles as a power switch. The other two knobs are menu and backspace.

The problem of the soft keys and the call controls is – quite surprisingly – the great D-pad. It’s ample and comfortably raised for precise and effortless handling. But it does make the completely flat and deep-set soft keys harder to press right. The buttons bordering on the D-pad must be pushed precisely in the center or otherways they just won't work. Press feedback is quite poor and every now and then you might need to push again and again to get a response.

The Menu and Clear keys are slightly raised and sufficiently apart from the D-pad, hence a lot more comfortable.

On the left side of the screen are the standard music player controls, typical of the XpressMusic lineup. They are thin, with overall adequate press and friendly white backlighting. The problem is there plastic coating looks and feels quite frail.

The excellent D-pad obscures the soft-keys * the music controls are comfortable but of questionable durability

The left side of the Nokia 5730 is where the microUSB port and the microSD card slot are. They're both covered with plastic lids to avoid getting filled with dust. Those fit firmly in place and can be somewhat tricky to use: they are a little stiff and you’ll need to use your nails to open them. Just like on the 5630 XpressMusic, it's quite hard to pull the microSD card out using your fingers only since the card sinks too deep into the slot and is very difficult to reach. We guess you'd need a pointed tool every time you want to take it out.

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic left: connectivity and storage

The bottom is where the lanyard eyelet and the standard charger port are. Next to the DC port is the mic, right at the very edge.

The charging port is at the bottom right next to the mouthpiece

The right side of the 5730 features two controls – the volume rocker and the shutter key. While it has full functionality, including half-press for autofocus and camera launch, it is small and poorly designed. While half-press is quite distinct and comfortable, full press is not always adequate on the tiny wobbly knob.

The right side packs the volume rocker and the camera key

The only thing to note at the top is the 3.5mm standard audio jack . It's not sealed for protection but is comfortably placed.

The 3.5mm standard audio jack is at the top

The handset’s rear looks a whole lot better. We do appreciate the completely fingerprint-proof and stylish opaque plastic. There we find the 3 megapixel camera lens and the smallish LED flash.

The back cover and the camera lens

Removing the battery cover is a tough job: you need to poke a nail or a thin pointed object and push up. Underneath lies a 1000 mAh Li-Ion BL-4U unit, the SIM bed and the loudspeaker. We were surprised to find no actual loudspeaker grills on the casing of the 5730 XpressMusic. Actually, the handset doesn’t sound muffled, but we wonder whether it could have been louder.

The 1000 mAh battery, the SIM bed and the loudspeaker

The 1000 mAh battery needed recharging every other day during our tests, extensive use of Wi-Fi and GPS on top of a few calls a day obviously taking its toll.

In terms of design, the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is hardly a revelation. The styling is obviously taking after the 5630 and of course the Nokia music lineup is keen on keeping things simple. The handset handles pretty nicely and the side-sliding QWERTY is very well implemented.

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic in hand

Very good display

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic may lack the thin and compact body of its candybar counterpart but full QWERTY keyboard is not its only edge. Screen estate is another major point in favor. The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic has a nice 2.4” QVGA display of great sunlight legibility. In direct sunlight, even if the colors get washed out, the display remains perfectly readable even on the brightest of days.

The display has very decent picture quality

Brightness levels are good and contrast is pretty decent. In terms of size, the 2.4" screen of the 5730 is acceptable but it sure feels like – at least for some users – a 2.6-incher could’ve been a better deal than N-Gage buttons.

Excellent QWERTY, middling numpad

The alphanumeric keypad of the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is hardly a stunning looker but does an OK job. Tactility is adequate and for the most part the keys have nice and solid press. Our only grudge is the lowest row of keys is somewhat limited by the ornamental front frame – and obviously less comfortable to handle.

The keypad is decent overall

However, with a QWERTY keyboard as good as this, you are likely to forget the minor drawbacks of the numpad. The keys on the four-row QWERTY are large and provide excellent feedback. The layout is also well thought out, with the stop, the comma and the @ symbol each having a dedicated key. Text selection for cut, copy and paste is extra smooth. You just need to hold down the Shift key and move the cursor with the D-pad.

The QWERTY keyboard is almost as comfortable as it gets

The handset is extremely well balanced for a solid hand feel and the QWERTY keyboard will let you take full advantage of the messaging and office document support on the 5730 XpressMusic. Once you slide the phone open, you are in for very comfortable typing and there are very few handsets to rival it. The 5730 XpressMusic is in pretty much the same league as the Nokia E75 and the HTC Touch Pro.

A nice touch to the 5730 is the vast number of customizable options for the slider action. You can pick an application to launch upon sliding the keyboard out and you can set it to return to homescreen upon closing.

S60 3.2 UI: Homescreen redesigned

The Nokia 5730 runs on the Symbian 9.3 OS with S60 3rd Edition user interface. It has Feature Pack 2 but there have been changes since its previous incarnations.

The biggest (and best) change is the Contacts bar option for the standby screen which we also saw while reviewing the 5630 XpressMusic. It is similar to the typical Active standby screen but things have been reordered and as the name suggests - a bar with contacts has been added at the top.

Each contact is represented by the contact photo and their first name - and it's possible to have three contacts visible at a time though the list allows for scrolling left or right.

For each contact you can add an RSS feed, so we guess a nice trick is to add a contact that isn't a person just so that you'll have quick access to your favorite feeds from the homescreen.

Selecting a contact from the Contact bar brings up a screen with info on the contact (a different one than you get if you select the contact from the Contacts list). It has the contact photo, name and phone number. Under that are four buttons - call, send message, update feed and settings.

Bellow that is an area that shows the communications history for that contact - both calls and messages. And finally, at the bottom there are the top two lines from the RSS feed.

The new Contacts bar • viewing a contact from the Contacts bar

Under the Contacts list, it's pretty much standard Active Standby. First up is info on the email account showing the number of unread messages and sender and Re: fields of the most recent message. Under it is the status and number of friends online for Ovi Contacts, which gets replaced by song info if the music player is running. At the bottom is the shortcuts tab.

The old Active Standby layouts are still here and include Basic - you can assign shortcuts to the D-pad, Horizontal icons bar - the old Active Standby and, finally, the Vertical icons bar, which has only tabs (shortcuts, calendar, music player and personalization) but doesn't hide much of the wallpaper. The last theme variety is the Talking theme which cane be quite useful at times. Only if the voice wasn't sounding that robot-like.

Basic • Horizontal icon bar • Vertical icon bar • Talking theme

Finally, the S60 UI Feature Pack 2 brings some graphical improvements as well, such as animations when browsing the menus.

The task manager has also received a face-lift and now appears on every pop-up menu. It's actually placed on top of every list, which can be a little irritating at times. Alternatively, you can still use the well-known shortcut of pressing and holding the menu key to bring up the task manager.

The embedded 128MB of RAM are an important factor for OS performance. In Symbian terms 128MB is virtually impossible to deplete even with several applications running in the background. You shouldn't expect any memory full warnings on your Nokia 5730 XpressMusic.

The 369 MHz ARM 11 CPU is fast enough (although not as snappy as the new 600 MHz first seen in 5630 XpressMusic). Navigating the menus is quick with an instant response to user commands. The blue circle next to the icon of a running application is a well known Symbian indication reminding users to quit unwanted applications that are still running in the background.

As with all Symbian phones, there is a built-in voice recognition system. It does a good job, being fully speaker-independent and recognizing a fairly high percentage of our commands.

Telephony

Signal reception is great on the Nokia 5730. The phone has commendable speaker quality and the sound during calls is clear and free of any interference. Vibration is also strong enough to make sure you never miss an incoming call or message.

Calling Dexter on the Nokia 5730

The results from our loudspeaker test are at your disposal - unfortunately, Nokia 5730 XpressMusic turned out to be an average performer in this respect. You can't count on getting just everything in noisier environments, and calm and subdued ringtones surely won't do. Still, though the phone may not be as loud as others, playing music through the loudspeaker sounds quite nice.

Check out the table showing how it stacks up beside some of the handsets we've put to the same test. To find more details about our test, as well as the results of all other tested handsets follow that link.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Apple iPhone 3G	66.1	62.1	71.7	Below Average
Nokia 5730 XpressMusic	68.7	61.7	75.1	Average
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic	75.7	66.5	68.5	Good
LG KM900 Arena	70.9	68.2	78.3	Good
Nokia 5320 XpressMusic	74.3	66.6	78.3	Very Good
Samsung M7600 Beat DJ	75.7	75.7	77.8	Excellent

Phonebook is commendable

The Symbian handsets have an excellent phonebook with virtually unlimited capabilities and Nokia 5730 doesn't make any difference to the rule. There is storage space for a practically unlimited number of contacts and fields with all the available memory potentially usable for the purpose. Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name and can naturally be searched by gradual typing of any of the names.

Contacts list • searching by gradual typing • viewing contact details

Editing a contact offers a great variety of preset fields and you can replicate each of them as many times as you like. You can also create new fields if you happen to be able to think of one. We personally find it quite a challenge to think of something Nokia has missed here - there's everything from the contact's nickname to their assistant's name and phone number.

Personal ringtones and videos can also be assigned to a contact. If you prefer you may group your contacts and give each group a specific ringtone.

An enormous variety of fields is available when editing a contact

Synchronization is also nice and easy although you do need the Nokia PC suite (or Ovi Suite as of lately) for things to go smoothly. Sending and receiving contacts via SMS or Bluetooth is also a piece of cake.

The Call log application is another of Nokia 5730 strengths. It holds up to 20 call records in each of the tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls. These are all accessed by pressing the Call key on the homescreen.

The call log is there to keep track of your communications

If you enter the Log application from the main menu, you'll see a detailed list of all your network communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data transfers over the air or even over Wi-Fi.

Messaging and Ovi Contacts

Texting with Nokia 5730 is spot on. With a decent keypad and great software support your correspondence is as good as it gets on this kind of devices. Let's face it, Nokia are targeting the youth with this handset and solid messaging is key for them.

The Nokia 5730 supports all common message types - SMS, MMS and email. The SMS and MMS share an editor. It is the well known intuitive application from previous Symbian S60 smartphones.

Turning an SMS into MMS is as simple as adding any multimedia content

It goes without saying that you can activate a delivery report for messages. The reports pop up on the standby screen and are subsequently saved in a separate folder in the messaging sub-menu. If you exit the message editor without having sent the message, the editor prompts you to either save it to the Drafts folder or to discard it.

All it takes to convert a common SMS into an MMS is to insert some multimedia content. A nice feature allows the resizing of pictures automatically for sending via MMS.

The Nokia 5730 also features a dedicated audio message editor. Although technically a type of MMS, the audio messages have their own separate editor. You can either record the message on the spot or use a previously recorded sound clip.

The audio message editor has questionable applicability

The email client is also very similar to what previous Symbian powered phones have offered. If you are using any public email service (it has to be among the over 1000 supported providers), all you have to do is enter your email address and password to start sending and receiving emails. The Nokia 5730 takes care of downloading all the relevant settings to get you going in no time.

The client can download headers only or entire messages, and can be set to automatically check mail at a given interval. There is also support for attachments, signatures and basically most of the things you can think of, so the Nokia 5730 can meet almost any requirement regarding the user's emailing needs. Thanks to QuickOffice, viewing attached Microsoft Office files is a breeze.

The email client

There's also the option to listen to the email - the Message reader app comes with one language and two voices preinstalled (one male and one female) and the option to download more. The application handles this quite nicely and while the voice didn't sound too natural, it didn't trip over difficult words and even managed to read URLs.

Listening to an email • speech settings

Ovi Contacts come preinstalled with Nokia 5730 XpressMusic but you can also install it on most other Nokia smartphones. Ovi contacts integrates tightly with the Contacts list as a new tab and offers an IM client with a twist. You can search for people already registered with Ovi or send an invitation to anybody using Gmail since the Ovi contacts supports G-Talk, Google's own IM, as well.

Ovi Contacts is a very capable IM client

Thanks to this service you will be able to chat in real time with all your Ovi/Google Talk-connected contacts, change your status messages and mood, and all that kind of social networking stuff.

In addition you can even go as far as sharing your GPS location so your friends can view immediately where you are at that particular moment using the Ovi Maps. Or you can share the name and the artist of the track you are currently listening to.

What can we say - it all works exactly as advertized. Your contacts need not have an Ovi-connected phone, they can chat with you just fine over Google Talk.

XpressMusic player: we've seen that before

The XpressMusic branding raises the bar high for the Nokia 5730 music player. While it's pretty good, it's by no means exceptional: just on a par with other recent Symbian devices. It has a huge number of supported audio formats, including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA but little to top the business-oriented Nokia E71 for example.

However, the dedicated music keys and the active standby layout, where the music player is one click away, are things that enhance the sonic experience. Quite naturally, the player can also be minimized to play in background. In this case a tab replaces the E-mail tab on the stand-by screen and indicates the currently running track.

The music player "Now playing" interface • song info on the homescreen

Sorting your songs by artist, album, genre and composer is automatic and searching tracks by gradual typing of the desired name is also available.

Searching the music library

Upon completing a USB transfer, or inserting a card, the phone automatically prompts to scan for new music tracks and, if allowed to do so, adds the new ones to the music library.

The player comes with five equalizer presets and, should they seem insufficient, you can edit them or create new ones in a matter of seconds.

Six equalizer presets are available • creating a new one

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic also features an innovative feature called Say and Play. By using the phone's built-in speaker independent voice recognition, it allows you to play any stored track by simply saying its title or artist.

The Nokia Say and Play feature currently supports English and the pre-installed UI languages. However it should be able to pick up titles in any languages if they are pronounced in an English manner or with UI language pronunciation.

To search the tracks, the Say and Play features uses the metadata embedded into the tracks. If no metadata is stored, the handset will create ones based on the filename.

XpressMusic-worthy audio quality

The audio quality of Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is good enough for a member of the Finnish company music family. The intermodulation distortion is the only reading that goes as low as being average with the rest of them being very good at least.

While the audio output of the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic can easily rival dedicated music players we canno help but notice that it is a tad worse than that of Nokia 6710 Navigator. The Navigator doesn't scream about its music capabilities from the top of the hill so we are quite puzzled why Nokia chose to implement the better audio hardware there.

And here go the results so you can see for yourselves.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Nokia 5730 XpressMusic	+0.10, -0.72	-91.3	91.1	0.0086	0.360	-90.3
Nokia 5630 XpressMusic	+0.13, -0.26	-94.0	94.8	0.466	0.876	-97.3
Nokia 5130 XpressMusic	+0.04, -0.16	-89.9	89.0	0.0033	0.014	-83.6
Nokia 5310 XpressMusic	+0.29, -1.69	-94.4	92.0	0.015	0.491	-73.8
Nokia 5220 XpressMusic	+0.29, -1.64	-91.7	90.3	0.012	0.612	-73.1
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic	+0.09, -0.77	-92.2	92.1	0.013	0.297	-75.0
Nokia 6710 Navigator	+0.05, -0.27	-89.6	89.6	0.0074	0.021	-89.5
Nokia E75	+0.11, -0.91	-91.6	91.4	0.012	0.462	-73.3
Apple iPod Touch 2G	+0.04, -0.05	-91.4	91.5	0.0027	0.012	-90.0
Apple iPhone 3GS	+0.01, -0.05	-92.1	92.1	0.0035	0.011	-95.0

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic vs Nokia 6710 Navigator frequency response graphs

You can learn more about the whole testing process here.

Video player is OK

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic features Real player for playing your video clips and the video player can be displayed in both normal and fullscreen modes. When in full screen, the softkey functions are hidden so that they don't spoil the viewing experience and only pop up when a key is pressed.

With its not particularly big screen though, video playback is not this phone's strongest suit. And to confirm that, if you want DivX/XviD playback you'll need to install a third-party player.

FM radio with RDS and Internet Radio

The FM radio on Nokia 5730 has a nice simple interface and can automatically scan and save the available stations in your area. RDS support is included and the Visual radio is also on-board. If internet connection is available, the Visual radio application can download all the local stations and save them to the handset with their names.

FM radio and internet radio are available

Should you ever get bored of local radio stations and are in range of a Wi-Fi network, Nokia 5730 offers Internet radio with an extensive directory of stations and the option to save the best in Favorites.

You can stream stations over 3G or even GPRS with separate settings for the audio quality, but it's probably not worth it. Searching for stations can be done by name, genre, language or country or if you can't find what you're looking for you can always add a station manually.

Nseries-grade image gallery

The image gallery was a pleasant surprise - it's the same as the one found in Nokia's N-Series phones and looks great. The speed of photo browsing increases if you press and hold the direction buttons on the D-pad. This allows quick skipping of tons of files if you're not in the habit of sorting out your memory card regularly.

Browsing the image gallery

Unlike Nokia 5630 XpressMusic with its zippy 600 MHz processor, where zooming was very speedy, the result here is more comparable to devices like say, Nokia N85, which shares 5730's CPU.

The gallery has a very good picture tagging system. In addition to geotagging, which is automatically handled by the camera, you can add as many tags as you like to each photo and then use them as filters. There's also the option to organize photos in Albums.

Zooming in • you can add tags to photos

Camera is good and that's just about it

The Nokia 5730 is equipped with a 3 megapixel camera with a maximum image resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. It sports an LED flash but no lens protection whatsoever. This means that the glass covering the lens is prone to finger smudges. Unlike the so called enhanced fixed focus of 5630 XpressMusic, 5730 has true autofocus.

The camera user interface is pretty familiar

As far as settings go, the camera on 5730 XpressMusic is limited, although it offers several scene presets, one of which is user defined. It is also possible to change the flash or the sequence mode and set the self-timer. On the right side of the screen, there's a bar with shortcuts for some settings. You can add and remove shortcuts so you can have quick access to the settings you need.

Among the interesting features is the sequence (read "multi shot") which captures consecutive images one after another (6 images or - if you hold down the shutter key - until you release the key or the memory runs out). After that you can pick which images to keep.

There's also an option to capture consecutive images separated by a predefined interval (from 10 seconds to 30 minutes).

Image quality

The image quality is good overall, with decent levels of detail for a 3MP shooter. There's little noise in well lit areas and the contrast is good. The color rendering is accurate; however the sharpening algorithm gets overzealous, which results in artifacts.

Nokia 5730 XpressMusic camera samples

As for video recording, the camera shoots in VGA resolution at 30 fps captured in MPEG-4 format. Although this is a decent achievement, the quality is rather poor actually much like it is on the Nokia 5540 XpressMusic, which also turned out equipped with VGA@30fps video recording.

Synthetic resolution

Finally it comes the time for our studio resolution chart. This is a standard ISO12233 chart used for evaluating the synthetic resolution of digital cameras. It is an excellent tool for measuring pure horizontal and vertical resolution and also offers a good reference point for comparison of resolution between cameras. You can check out what that test is all about here.

Here's a comparison of the camera on the 5730 XpressMusic and the one on the iPhone 3GS. They perform about equally, as might be expected (both are 3MP autofocus snappers). The iPhone 3GS has a really small edge in resolved resolution. The noise suppression algorithm on the Nokia is too aggressive, resulting in perhaps cleaner but more processed-looking photos.

Nokia 5730 resolution chart photo • 100% crops

Apple iPhone 3GS resolution chart photo o 100% crops

All-round connectivity

Data transfer options are numerous on the Nokia 5730. Every common network data transfer medium is supported and so are USB 2.0 and Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP. HSDPA support goes up to 10.2Mbps and HSUPA is also here at 2Mbps. Nokia 5730 also has Wi-Fi capabilities to really sweeten the deal.

There is also a card slot so if you have a card reader lying around you can transfer the data directly to your memory card. The card is accessible from a slot on the right side, but it's too deep and getting to it can be quite a challenge.

The web browser gets a QWERTY keyboard

Browsing the internet with the Nokia 5730, like with all Nokia smartphones, is a pleasant experience. Even the most elaborate pages are rendered well and finding your way around them is a piece of cake.

The virtual mouse cursor earns the browser another point as it is easy to control and generally works great. A mini-map can be activated to help you find your way around large sites where lots of scrolling is required. The zoom level is also easily adjustable and searching for text on a page is easy.

The large amount of RAM is surely one of the best things that could happen to the browser, as it is clearly one of the most RAM-intensive applications. Now, even if you load very heavy web pages and have a few applications running in the background, you are extremely unlikely to run out of RAM.

The perfect combination: great web browser and a comfy QWERTY keyboard

The web browser also has full support for Flash and Java content so you should have no problem watching content found on the Internet. If you're watching a video on YouTube for example you can click on the video and view it fullscreen. That doesn't always work as some sites use clicking on the video for play/pause but the option is accessible from the menu. That option is needed as videos generally are too big to fit in the QVGA display, which a real shame.

YouTube video playing in the browser (50% zoom) • the video playing in fullscreen

The only problem could be the kinda smallish display (compared to the competition). 2.4 inches means the smallest fonts aren't always readable and you have to go for larger ones. This in turn limits the amount of text that can fit on screen and forces the user to scroll even more.

The QWERTY keyboard, on the other hand, is remarkable.

Organizer and apps

The time-management skills of Nokia 5730, like most other Symbian handsets, are really good. Just name the application and you can bet the handset has it.

We start exploring the rich application package with the calendar. It has three different types of view - monthly, weekly and daily, and four types of events available for setting up - Meeting, Memo, Anniversary and To-do. Every event has its own unique fields, and some of them allow an alarm to be activated at a preset time to act as a reminder.

The calendar month, week and day views • setting up an event

The mobile office is also very well supported with preinstalled applications able to view Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files seamlessly. Editing documents is not supported out of the box, but hey, we're not talking Eseries here.

If you would like editing enabled you will have to purchase an upgrade to Quickoffice straight from the device.

Nokia 5730 handles .doc .xls .ppt and .pdf files seemlessly

Some of the other included PIM applications are a great unit converter, calculator and voice recorder, as well as the Notes application. We are not going to go into detail with them, as their functionality and performance are familiar enough. The ActiveNotes application is also on board allowing multimedia content to be added to your notes.

Calculator, ActiveNotes and converter

The alarm application allows a huge number of alarms to be set, each with its own name, trigger day and repeat pattern.

Setting up an alarm

If the gallery file-management options (which even include sending multiple files at a time) is insufficient you can use the file manager. It allows you to do almost anything you can think of with your files. Copying, moving, creating new folders - you name it and it's a safe bet that the file manager can do it. And the included ZIP manager allows extracting archived files straight on your phone.

The file manager is our favorite • Zip manager

The Share online application helps you to upload diverse type of files (images, music or flash files, etc.) using Ovi, Fox or another similar service. It works like a charm and since the 5730 supports Wi-Fi you won't have to worry about the data traffic caps.

The Share online takes full advantage of the inbuilt Wi-Fi support

Also very useful is the AccuWeather app which is popular enough. You can not only check up the weather forecast for the next several hours but also to take a look at a 15-day forecast.

The AccuWeather app

There is also a preloaded app dedicated to the nature lovers. It's called we:offset and according to Nokia is the first mobile CO2 emission offsetting tool. You can calculate how much CO2 will be emitted if you (and/or your friends) decide to take an airplane from one location to another and to buy carbon offsets to compensate for that.

Your money will reach fund projects which absorb, reduce or avoid an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases being released elsewhere. The we:offset app is based on JP Morgan's ClimateCare service. If you're interested in our planet's future, follow that link for more details.

A trip for two from Rome to Paris

Finally, the Nokia 5730 features a dictionary with a very rich database. English comes pre-installed but you can also download dozens of other languages for free from the Nokia website.

The dictionary

Games are N-Gaging

Nokia 5730 comes with N-Gage support, dedicated N-Gage (A/B) button and several preloaded games. They are trial versions but there's an activation code provided so you can activate one of those games for free. You can of course download new games but they are trials all the way unless you are willing to pay.

There's a lot of N-Gage games, but they are trial versions

On top of that, there are plenty of third-party games out there, so Nokia 5730 users can easily download both native and Java titles.

Final words

Whether you call it Eseries in baggy jeans and headphones, or XpressMusic on steroids, the 5730 will raise its QWERTY hand. What are you gonna do? Hit the streets in a cheap sporty roadster (5630) or a budget crossover (5730), which rides like dad's luxury sedan (E75)? We guess the carmaker (Nokia) will be happy either way.

Nokia E75

Well, for starters it can't have been too hard to build the 5730 XpressMusic. Just squeeze all the already available technology in an already available design - with a reinforced QWERTY suspension, alright. Well, the QWERTY keyboard makes all the difference between the 5730 and the 5630 XpressMusic. And it may be more than the 5730 is prepared to handle.

The QWERTY enabled XpressMusic handset is a niche version and the niche of all-in-one smart messengers isn't exactly friendly, to say the least. So, if you go around boasting Eseries and Nseries skill, you'd better be ready to take some Eseries and Nseries beating. It's true most of the big fish there are touchscreens and the 5730 XpressMusic is even more painfully out of its league. The good thing is its price is extremely competitive.

Nokia N97 • Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO • Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 • HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1

In fact, the brand new Nokia 5730 XpressMusic costs a good 100 euro less than a year-old WinMo messenger that's even a few things short of a perfect match in terms of specs. Still, it's almost impossible to imagine direct competition between the conservative and mature HTC S740 and the happy-go-lucky 5730 XpressMusic.

HTC S740

Another important thing to note here is that the XpressMusic lineup feels utterly unchallenged. Even the 5630 XpressMusic was too much already for the competing music-centric phones to beat at such a reasonable price. The 5730 goes even further to add GPS and a full QWERTY keyboard to WLAN.

Nokia 5630 XpressMusic

It feels like the 5730 XpressMusic is trespassing into higher Eseries and Nseries grounds, but perhaps Nokia don't mind as long as it doesn't cost a thing to develop. The 5630 XpressMusic is still more important to them we guess in terms of sales. We're sure QWERTY will make music in the right ears but one 5730 to every ten 5630 units sold sounds like a reasonable target to us.