Review: Nokia 5230 Nuron
I am sad to report that Nokia has yet to make any serious strides in improving messaging features on S60. The SMS application, for example, is nearly the same has it has been for five or more years. Seriously, Nokia, speed up development on some new software here. What you're offering stinks. The message composition screen has a very dated look. Inserting or attaching media is archaic, and the whole experience needs more polish.
Users can choose to input text with either a software T9 set up (portrait) or a software QWERTY (landscape). Both work pretty well. The software QWERTY is a little crunched up, but has most of the punctuation buttons available without having to hit an ALT or Shift key.
It is definitely worth mentioning that S60 still doesn't offer a decent, native threaded messaging feature. The SMS/MMS inbox can be sorted by "Date", "Sender", "Subject", and so on. Sorting by Sender, however, doesn't mean you get threaded text conversations. Instead, it means you get all the messages from one contact listed together. You can read them all, but you still have to move from message to message, they aren't all in the same window. This needs to change immediately, Nokia. Everyone else is doing it better than you.
One thing Nokia doesn't do with Ovi (which in my opinion, it should) is to have all Nokia phone users create an Ovi profile and account. Joe Public can buy the Nuron and ignore Ovi completely and have a decent experience. That's a mistake. Look at what Apple, Google, Palm and even Microsoft are all doing these days. Users are encouraged — if not forced — to create master accounts that oversee their experience with the platform. Nokia would do well to mandate or otherwise encourage users to create an Ovi profile. This would help spur Ovi adoption and breed investment in the Ovi and Nokia brands. Another lost opportunity for Nokia, as far as I am concerned.
Moving on...
The email wizard will walk you through email set-up, which supports POP3, IMAP and Exchange. You can create and store multiple accounts on the device. The email software itself sees very little change compared to what's on S60 3rd Ed. In fact, it is disappointingly similar. No nice new graphics, no nice new user interface. It offers the same old look and feel that the email app has always offered. It doesn't come anywhere near the competition.
Via the T-Mobile web2go portal, there's a link to the Facebook Mobile site, but there are no social networking applications on board the device out of the box. You have to go searching for them online. Where's Gravity for Twitter?
As far as IM goes, the on-board client supports AIM, Windows, Yahoo, Google Talk and MySpaceIM. (What, no Facebook IM?)
The Nuron certainly covers the messaging basics, but it doesn't tackle any new ground, something that Nokia sorely needs to do.
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Nokia 5230 Nuron
