Nokia C5
What you need to know
We like:
Simple interface; massive, comfy buttons; great build quality; 3G support
We don’t like:
No Wi-Fi connectivity; occasionally disruptive pop-up messages
CNET.co.uk judgement:
The Nokia C5 offers a good deal of functionality at a reasonable price. While some other devices may look better on paper, the C5′s large buttons and simple interface mean that using this phone is a very pleasant experience indeed
Score:
7.9 Very good
Full Review
Reviewed 8 June 2010
Reviewed by Luke Westaway
Remember the good old days when phones were chunky, and batteries lasted for weeks? Nokia does, and it wants to bring your once super-nimble texting fingers out of retirement. The C5 channels the mobile phones of old, with a few modern niceties bolted on.
It’s available for free on a £10-per-month, 24-month contract with T-Mobile, or you can pick it up for around £150 SIM-free.
Skinny and tall
At 12mm thick, the Symbian-based C5 (no relation to the promising car of the future) features an extremely slim build, which makes it easy to slip into a pocket. Look at this phone side on and it’s liable to slip into the sub-atomic realm and become invisible to human eyes. At 112mm tall, it’s also an extremely long handset, which is a very, very good thing. “Why?” we hear you ask.
Well, the extra length has been used to accommodate a gigantic alphanumeric keypad. As sworn enemies of cramped keypads, we found this very pleasing. In addition to being really big, the keys themselves are arranged in a precise grid, and each button is slightly raised. That means you’ll be able to tap out texts at a pace that would put even the speediest teen to shame.
The C5′s build quality is especially impressive for a device at this price. The phone has a pleasing weight, doesn’t feel cheap or plasticky, and has a smooth, rounded finish. It feels like a cohesive piece of technology, rather than a heap of components hurriedly glued together.
The C5′s display has a 320×240-pixel resolution, and is clear and bright. Text is sharp and easy to read, and images render very well indeed.
Interface pace
As well as looking the business, the C5 also boasts a very natty user interface. It’ll be familiar to anyone who’s used a Nokia device over the last few years. You’ll find a few key applications along the bottom of the home screen, with a more detailed menu accessible via a quick tap of the left button.
We love the speed at which the interface moves. We didn’t notice much delay at all when clicking our way around the various menus, and the C5 is an extremely snappy device overall. Our only complaint about the interface is that there are quite a few pop-ups and warnings that get in the way of navigation, particularly when you’re using Web-connected apps — you’ll have to register your approval of splash screens even if they’re just informing you that you’re now communicating over a secure connection. Such pop-ups may prove useful to some people, but they do detract from the user experience slightly.
Map app happiness
The C5 supports Ovi Maps, Nokia’s free GPS navigation system. We didn’t have particularly high hopes for a maps application on a phone without a touchscreen, but controlling the maps software using the four-way central button feels surprisingly intuitive — and speedy. We were surprised by how helpful the app was in actually helping us find our way around town.
The C5 includes a host of other extras too. Most notable are optimised versions of Twitter and Facebook (pared-down interfaces make using these services very easy), a built-in FM radio and access to YouTube videos, via either the browser or an app.
The phone’s connectivity options are also pretty comprehensive, with HSPA and 3G support allowing for speedy Web browsing. We lament the lack of Wi-Fi connectivity though.
3.5mm of joy
Saints be praised and glory to Him on high, for the C5 is the first Nokia handset we’ve seen in a while to feature an industry-standard 3.5mm headphone socket. This means you’ll be able to plug in your own set of headphones, rather than the uncomfortable and poor-sounding set that come in the box. The bundled set does, however, include a microphone and call-answer button, enabling you to take calls without fishing your phone out of your pocket.
The C5 also sports a 3.2-megapixel camera that takes photos of a thoroughly adequate nature. The quick shutter will help you capture the moment, but don’t expect to craft any photographic masterpieces. Video captured using the camcorder mode proved impressively smooth — even when we spun the camera around very quickly while filming.
We have no complaints in terms of call quality, and the C5′s battery life is impressive. You can expect the battery to last for around 4 days with normal use, and less if you’re consuming heaps of data or watching loads of video.
Conclusion
You can find a phone with more features than the Nokia C5 for a similar monthly price. What really makes the C5 stand out, though, is its clear user interface, wonderfully large keys and excellent build quality. The C5 is perfect for anybody who uses their phone primarily for texting and, y’know, actually calling people. Throw in a few extras like an email client and decent browser, and you have a lovely handset.
Netbook Best Samsung
Samsung N210
What you need to know
We like:
Long battery life; comfortable keyboard; matte coating on display
We don’t like:
No HDMI video output; fiddly mouse buttons
CNET.co.uk judgement:
The N210 doesn’t do an awful lot different to its rivals, but that doesn’t stop it being a solid all-round netbook. Its well-laid out keyboard, excellent screen and strong battery life make it an ideal travel companion.
Score:
8.5 Excellent
Full Review
Reviewed 21 May 2010
Reviewed by Rory Reid
Samsung has just added to its burgeoning netbook range with the N210 — not to be confused with the Samsung N120. This is a typical 10-incher with a 1.6GHz Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. Given the glut of machines that feature a near identical specification, is it another average face in the crowd, or is will its fashionably late appearance guarantee it some attention?
Serious business
It might be a netbook, but the N210 isn’t particularly cute. Its 265 x 189 x 35.6mm, 1.34Kg chassis is certainly small enough to draw admiring glances from passes by, but its grey lid gives it a more serious appearance than many of its rivals.
Although it’s grey, the N210 isn’t dull. The lid has an intricate miniature brickwork pattern (it’s sexier than it sounds, honest) and is coated with a silky, translucent layer of plastic that easily helps this machine look more stylish than Samsung’s first wave of netbooks. Anyone with a keen eye for design will be pleased to note that same pattern appears again just above the keyboard and again on the base of the machine.
Shiny’s crappy, people
Open the N210′s lid and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Its 10-inch display has a matte coating, which means you’ll be able to use the N210 it in a variety of lighting conditions — even outdoors — without it turning into a £280 mirror. Despite its lack of a glossy coating, the screen delivers good image fidelity — colours are punchy, there’s decent contrast and viewing angles are good for a machine at this price.
Board clickless
The N210′s keyboard is among the best keyboards we’ve seen on a netbook. Its keys, despite being relatively small, are isolated, so when your fat, meandering fingers go astray, they’re less likely to accidentally strike an adjacent button. Unlike some netbook keyboards, important, but less frequently used, buttons — such as the return key, left shift, return, and the cursor buttons — are all of a good size. This means you never have to fish around too long looking for them. The mouse selector buttons are a little too small for our liking, but given that the mouse trackpad itself offers multi-touch navigation, this is a small gripe.
Not holier than thou
Connectivity on the N210 is fairly standard for a netbook. Wireless networking is present and correct thanks to a 802.11n Wi-Fi controller and it has Bluetooth 2.1. The right side of the machine has a couple of USB ports and a D-Sub VGA video output (sadly, HDMI isn’t present) while the front edge gets an SD memory card slot and the power switch. The right side houses a 100Mbps Ethernet port, mic and headphone jacks and — more unusually — a USB port that can be used to charge your USB gadgets whether the laptop is on, in standby mode, or switched off completely.
Big Softy
The N210 comes with a wealth of, mostly useless, pre-installed software. Firstly, there’s the Game Pack, from Oberon Media — a collection of children’s demo games that anyone over the age of 9 years old will probably never touch. The best we could find was Dairy Dash — a game that involved a man feeding a goat, or something. It was rubbish.
Arguably the most interesting addition is Samsung Movies — an online service — that lets you rent movies for 99p or buy them outright for a fiver. The picture quality isn’t particularly breathtaking, but it’s on a par with similar services such as BBC iPlayer.
Pro performance
The Samsung N210 has the same internal gubbins as most netbooks, so it provides similar performance to most of its rivals. It returned a PCMark 2005 score of 1,350, which is about average, but it felt a little slow during day-to-day use — possibly due to the amount of additional (read: pointless) software installed on our test machine.Thankfully, its battery life was a little more impressive. The machine lasted a whopping 7 hours 20 minutes in our Battery Eater Classic test, which runs the CPU at full capacity until the battery is exhausted. With more frugal use, the machine can last in the region of 12 hours — which is fantastic.
Conclusion
The N210 is an excellent netbook. It doesn’t do anything particularly different to rivals such as the MSI Wind U135, but small touches, such as the matte display, isolated keyboard and extraordinary battery life mean it’s definitely one to consider.
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