Review by Michael Primero

Nokia 5500 Sport

Table of Contents

Introduction
Design and Exterior Aspects
Phone Finish
Phone Control
Screen
Durability
Features
Telephone & Connectivity
Web Browsing
Speed
Audio
Sports Applications
Camera and Video
Battery
Games

Conclusions
Pros and Cons

Brains and Brawn

This is meant to be a standard review, but the Nokia 5500 Sport simply demands more. Much needs to be said about the quiet revolution in smartphones that this phone represents. The 5500 is just such a jam-packed and innovative little device that the discussion below is already edging on towards the size of a monster review, after only a short term review period. And it's only going to get bigger...

1. Introduction / First Impressions

Nokia’s 5500 Sport is designed to provide a compact and yet ruggedised smartphone for the highly active consumer. The marketing video that accompanies the phone depicts a collection of youths jumping and somersaulting around urban structures, engaging in acrobatic manouevres that would make the average person’s knees implode: the 5500s are strapped to fashionable (if precarious) parts of their anatomy. Fortunately, such activities are not mandatory for the 5500 owner, and so you don’t have to destroy critical parts of your body in order to enjoy the array of appropriately ‘sporty’ features that this smartphone offers. Adopting a safer path, you may even be able to enjoy the 5500’s features longer than the physical wunderkind in the promos—if only for the reason that mobiles are not allowed to be switched on in hospitals.

When you first see the Nokia 5500, there is little that grabs the eye. Given the ugliness of most ruggedised phones prior to the 5500, that’s probably a good thing. Initial inspection shows a very compact, candy bar format phone. Were it not for a crown of stainless steel on the phone’s fascia, it would be more than a little reminiscent of some old Nokia feature phones. But underneath its stainless steel and rubbery skin, the 5500 is quite a surprising device and bears little similarity to past phones. Once you start to get into the capabilities of this device, you really appreciate how much work has gone into design. It’s a physically small phone that’s big everywhere else. With the 5500 Sport, Nokia has very much succeeded in differentiating this phone from its predecessors—and in doing so, has “delivered the goods” to a whole new market segment.

Nokia have squeezed Symbian 60 3^rd Edition and a heap of features into a compact package without compromise. This phone excels in the audio department, does well at the basic sports applications provided, has a 2 megapixel camera (with video capability), and even provides a useful, bright LED torch. Perhaps Nokia marketeers had in mind that the torch would be useful for assessing the extent of bodily harm done on those dark, wet, extreme sport nights—no doubt just before you use the still-working phone to dial 000.

The phone is notable for being the first mass consumer smartphone product in a ruggedised package, and at a total of 107х45х18mm is one of the smallest Symbian controlled devices on the market. The most compact Nokia E series phones (E50 & E65) are slightly thinner (15.5/16.9mm), but also wider at 49 mm (and the E50 is 6mm longer).

2. Phone Design & Exterior Aspects

Finish

5500 battery/pop-port cover, and the area covered

The bottom of the phone has a rubber press-in cover that covers the pop port, which extends from the battery cover, which is held down tight by a metal screw, operable via anything thin and strong such as a coin or key.

The 5500 Sport is available in two colour options: either black with white trim, or silver-grey ‘titan’ with a yellow trim. A long ridge line of extended rubber (in either the white or yellow) extends around the screen in a “c” shape, and offers some protection of the screen if the phone is placed (or lands) face-down. (To see the other colour, click here.)

Phone Control

front of Nokia 5500

Although the rubber keyboard cover is one piece, the buttons have not lost usability, and they give a very positive click feedback. A horizontal ridge between rows of buttons helps to differentiate them, and the keyboard is good to operate. The only problem might be for huge thumbs that could have some difficulty in getting to the two upper soft keys. The ‘C’ ridge trim in white or yellow (bordering the screen) ends in two small loops that are actually the phone’s answer and end buttons (typically green and red on other Nokia phones), and this unusual setup is nonetheless easy to access. The ergonomic, bean like design is very comfortable in the hand.

A good looking and useful feature is the centre five-way control, illuminated with three separate coloured LEDs, depending on which mode the phone is operating in at the time.  For normal phone OS & telephone operations it appears white: for music it becomes yellow, and in sports modes it becomes red. These colours are complemented by the changing screen colours of the respective modes (but if you set alternate themes the screens may no longer follow the colour coding).

normal mode white, music mode yellow, sport mode red

Another unusual feature is the smartphone edit key which has been moved to the lower right hand side of the unit. This is a little awkward for right-handed use, but fine for the left. A dedicated Push-To-Talk (PTT) button resides at the top left, just above the up/down volume keys usually found in this area.

Right hand side of Nokia 5500 Sport

Screen

5500 main screen with standby icons

mobireader on the 5500 at various font settings

Durability

The review phone has just been received, and so we can’t give it a durability review in the same way as a monster review could. What we can assess immediately is that the whole phone appears to be built to resist water splashes. Indeed, Nokia only suggests it is splashproof. That probably means that they are unlikely to give you much leeway if you bring to them a water damaged phone, expecting an under-warranty repair. The 'insurance' that you get with this phone is just a physical one: that the 5500 is protected better than standard, unruggedised phones. That doesn't mean you can go surfing with it and expect it to survive. It's not hermetically sealed, and would probably be unusable as a phone if it was.

The bottom of the phone has a rubber snap in-and-out cover that protects the pop port (as illustrated above), so the only completely exposed orifice in this area is for the microphone. As mentioned, the keyboard and front cover is a single piece rubber layer all the way to the stainless steel border that only opens for the front earpiece, screen and five-way control. Water ingress could occur given enough pressure, especially at the microphone and the speaker openings. If the pop port is in use whilst the phone comes in contact with the water, then the charger jack and pop port are potentially exposed, and this might also pose a danger to circuitry depending on the nature of the fluid impact.

Sadly, WSP? is liable for all damages on review phones, so we won’t be testing how far we can go with this phone just yet. Some users have sworn by these phones as incredibly rugged... and in contrast, others (they seem to mainly live in high humidity environments, such as tropical/equatorial zones) have complained about the rubber keyboard losing adhesion and leaving the phone vulnerable. We couldn’t see any sign of these suggested problems in the limited test period, being in urban Sydney with what appeared to be a nearly brand new unit. (The only way of getting a better idea about whether these issues are potential problems for the Australian user is via the upcoming Nokia 5500 Sport monster review, so please stay tuned…)

3. Phone Features

Telephone and Connectivity.

The 5500 is a tri-band device (900/1800/1900 MHz) that supports class 10 GPRS and EDGE data transfer. Infrared and Bluetooth 2.0 are present. The Bluetooth supports most functions except for A2DP, and is Enhanced Data Rate (EDR, which is specified to 3.0 Mbps). As might be expected for a model designated "sports", there is no Wi-Fi.

 
Call quality of signal for both reception and transmission has been good, and relative network reception is similarly good. The high quality of the handsfree speaker, the headset and the audio components of the phone no doubt help with this.

Web Browsing

Excellent S60 3rd Browser

Excellent S60 3rd Browser

CPU, OS & RAM: Speed & Multitasking  

The phone’s CPU operates at 220 Mhz, and in practice goes a little slower than the E and N series Nokias, but it's not very noticeable most of the time. There is still enough speed to be doing most of what you can do within this OS without any annoying lag. The amount of phone memory available is 10 Megabytes, but this is complemented by the micro SD card slot (Nokia bundles a 64 Mb card with the phone). The official specification for the add-on card is 1 gigabyte: However, users have reported using a 2 gig card without any problems. 

Audio Playing

Music Player Main Screen.

There is an exceptional amount of control over the music given via electronic filters and effects. Equalisation can be done via presets, and these are infinitely adjustable. The audio player also offers five levels of reverb, as well as stereo widening effect and a bass boost. Combining bass boost and reverb settings together can easily lead to distortion in the supplied headphones, but that is only natural given that combined filters are pushing the elements just too far. Place the wide array of adjustments at a reasonable setting and the sound quality will not disappoint. If you really need to use all the filters, use some expensive aftermarket headphones and you can enjoying low distortion and—as a bonus—assure the rapid onset of hearing loss.

One of the sporty themes supplied with the 5500 Sport.

The corded AD-45 remote controller/mic supplied with the HS-29 headset. It is a pop-port to 3.5 mm standard jack adapter, so that the user can attach any set of standard headphones equipped with a 3.5 mm plug. The remote also has controls for play/pause, track forward/reverse, song fast forward/rewind, answer/hang-up, volume up/down and PTT. The only complaint with this system is that RF emissions from telephone calls, browsing and SMS messages tend to be picked up by the remote unit. Not strongly, but definitely detectable. This is a disappointment given the great control and utility of the adapter. Thankfully it is only a transient problem, when the telephony side of things is operating concurrently with the music. It doesn’t occur with a pop-port to earpiece headset, such as the HS-23 or 31, and so it’s definitely the AD-45 that is the culprit here.

The FM radio depends on the corded remote controller (or another headset) for reception, so it must be plugged in for the radio to operate. The 5500 comes with visual radio, which allows interactivity with radio stations so that you can obtain information on a song that is playing such as title and artist, as well as voting for songs and direct downloading of purchased songs.

The handsfree speaker also does an admirable job, and is definitely louder than some of the 5500’s bigger brothers in the Nokia stable, not to mention some high end (and music-focussed) smartphones from other manufacturers.

In short, the audio section of this phone is brilliant in its own right, but as an integrated component with the rest of the sports package, is a masterful piece of work by Nokia designers.

Sports Applications

Title page to 5500 sports applications

Camera and Video Performance

The camera on board the 5500 is 2.0 megapixels, with a 4x digital zoom. The modes of use are still shots, a sequence of shots (‘burst’ mode) or video, as well as a reasonably effective night mode, white balance and colour/effect adjustments. Theres also a 10, 20, or 30 second delay timer. A nice touch are the options in the menu to directly add a photo to a contact, and another to go straight to the phone gallery—these menu shortcuts save some time playing around in menus. The burst mode of the camera is a bit on the jerky side, and only slightly improved when the camera saves to phone memory. A faster trans-flash card may improve performance.

The camera, although 2 megapixels, is not very adequate except to grab shots of friends or places to add to the phone’s contact lists. But this is my opinion of just about all mobile phone cameras that aren’t specifically built to be good cameras, such as the N93i that has a quality optical zoom and auto focus. With many of the 2 megapixel equipped series 60 phones, there is a delay between taking the shot and the camera actually grabbing the image. The result is a lot of hit and miss—and as a consequence—blurry or out of place shots. But this is still par for the course with most phone cameras. The camera also seems to move colours slightly to the blue end of the spectrum. Perhaps in this day of rapid-reacting ten megapixel auto focus dedicated cameras, I am being unrealistically harsh towards the still humble phone camera--but that's also my point. Click 1 2 3 to see full size examples of the (highest resolution) setting shot taken by the camera, so that you can get a rough guide of its’ ability.

Video recording and playback with sound on/off is also supported, in QCIF format at 176x144 and 128x96 pixels at 15 frames per second. It looks about as good as it sounds. Like most S60 3^rd phones the 5500 has Real Video Player on board and handles H.263, MPEG-4 codecs.

Battery Life

The battery in the 5500 is a BL-5B of 860 mAh, and Nokia states that it is good for between 2-4 hours of talk and 150-240 hours of standby time. This is very compact smartphone with quite a small battery and a full smartphone operating system: and although there have been some users reporting that their 5500 battery lasted for days, if you are an average user of the phone’s features you will probably (like most compact smartphone owners) have to set it onto the charger every night. This is neither excellent nor bad—rather just what is to be expected with our current level of battery technology.

Games

Groovy Labyrinth

Also included with the phone is a 3D version of snakes, that is graphically very good and easy to direct with the five-way control.

Conclusion / Summary

Quickoffice displaying spreadsheet

This is of course the ideal youth and sports phone: Nokia couldn't have set a straighter arrow to the target. But in George Bernard Shaw's immortal words, "youth is wasted on the young", and so for those who might benefit from the phone's features, they shouldn't be dissuaded by marketing boffins. The 5500 Sport is so capable a device that indeed it addresses a much broader market space. For example, this could be an ideal second phone: the after work and weekend phone for someone who uses a larger, more featured phone during business hours. Web, email, and office apps are still accessible, without lugging about something of beastly proportions. It isn't too much of an assumption to estimate that non-business environments are going to be more representative of danger for a phone: whether they be more active, social, sporty, or just more likely to involve the dreaded fluidic phone killer known as beer. The 5500 is far better equipped than any current high-end unit for such situations.

The 5500 Sport running a Nokia N series theme

 - Michael Primero

(click image to return to colour discussion)

Nokia 5500 Sport Pros & Cons

Pros

Sturdy
compact
Quality music from the player/radio
Good headphones & corded remote
Good integration of functions
Trans Flash expandable memory
Good input/output including tapping control, mode button, text to speech
Good Looks for a ruggedised phone
Useful Sports Applications inc. pedometer

Cons

Light RF interference in bundled remote adapter to headset when calling, browsing and SMS’ing
Clunky audio popping in between song transport
Not UMTS / 3-3.5G
Bottom pop-port cover might loosen easily with much use (not yet established either way)
Those that are hyperopic (far-sighted) vision disorder, should perhaps look to a bigger screen

 Nokia 5500 Manufacturer's Technical Specifications

Key Features

• Instant Swap Key for quick one key switching between phone, music and sports mode
• Stainless steel body designed to withstand knocks, dust, and water splashes
• 3D sensor for tapping command to play music or voice feedback in sports tracking
• Text to speech* reads out SMS messages and provides voice feedback for sports tracking information
• Sports tracking monitors your exercise and displays training data, speed and distance, steps taken, and calories burned
• Excellent sound quality with Nokia Sports Headset

• EGSM 900 MHz GSM 1800/1900 MHz

• Volume: 77 cc
• Weight: 103 g
• Length: 107 mm
• Width: 45 mm
• Thickness (max): 18 mm

• 262,144 colours TFT 208 x 208 pixels display

• S60 user interface
• 4-way scroll key, 3 soft keys, send, end and character keys, application and C-key on front
• Side keys for power, push to talk and volume keys, Instant Swap key, edit key
• Easy to read menu in list or grid view
• Enhanced UI with phone, music and sports modes accessible via Instant Swap key
• Tapping command for play music or voice feedback in Sports mode
• Sports UI with Quick Start, Diary and Tests
• Active standby screen

• 2.0 megapixel camera with up to 4x digital zoom
• Camera modes: Still, video
• Options for night, brightness adjustment, image quality, and self-timer
• Image Formats Support: [JPEG, GIF, EXIF, WBMP, BMP, MBM, PNG]
• Video: Video recording and playback in QCIF format with sound
• Real video player
• Video content: H.263, MPEG-4

• Visual Radio: Listen to music and interact with your favourite radio stations
  • Find out what song is playing, who sings it, and other artist information
  • Enter contests and answer surveys, vote for your favourite songs
  • Download the songs you buy direct to your phone
• MP3 player for AMP, MP3, AAC, eAAC+, WMA formats
• FM stereo radio
• RealPlayer Media Player
  • Download and play multimedia files (video and music)
  • Stream media files from compatible media portals
  • Full-screen video playback on the phone to view downloaded, streamed, or recorded video clips in larger size
  • Played formats (decoding): .3gp and .mp4 file formats, MPEG-4 video, H.263 video and AMR audio, RealMedia (Real Video and Real Audio), MP3, and AAC eAAC+, AAC+, WMA

• 10 MB built-in memory with 64 MB* MicroSD card
• Expandable memory type: MicroSD card up to 1 GB

• Message reader application – text to speech* mean you can hear your SMS messages read to you
• Multimedia messaging: MMS for creating, receiving, editing, and sending videos and pictures with AMR voice clips
• Email: Supports SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4 protocols. Support for attachments (view .pdf files)
• Presence-enhanced contacts: Check the status of your friends before you call them
• Xpress Audio messaging: Record your own voice message and send to compatible devices

• Snakes, Groovy Labyrinth

• Java™ MIDP 2.0

• MP3 ring tones
• Supported file formats: MP3, AMR, True Tones, AAC, eAAC+, 64-chord/voice polyphonic MIDI ringing tones

• Pop-Port™ interface to USB
• USB 2.0 full speed with mass storage profile
• Bluetooth v2.0+EDR
• Infrared (IR)
• Remote over-the-air (OTA) synchronisation with SyncML
• Local synchronisation with PC using PC Suite

• xHTML browsing over TCP/IP
• Nokia Minimap with Page Overview technology allowing zooming, text search, visual history, with shortcuts keys
• Full OMA Digital Rights Management for content protection - including forward lock for content protection, combined delivery, separate delivery and superdistribution
• OMA Digital DRM 1.0 - including forward lock for content protection, combined delivery, separate delivery and superdistribution
• WAP 2.0, xHTML browsing over TCP/IP
• WAP/OMA and W3C standards support: WAP 2.0, XHTML, XHTML MP, HTML 4.01, CSS, ECMAScript and JavaScript
• Full Web compatibility with support for popular markup languages, scripting languages, and style sheets
• Support for forms, tables, frames, and image maps
• Support for mobile extensions such as cHTML and i-modeHTML
• File upload over HTTP using standard HTML forms
• Page layout and in-page navigation optimised for content type
• Search and find capabilities
• Adaptive history list
• Save Page for off-line viewing and archiving
• Integration with telephony (dial via a link on the page), contacts (save phone # or email address), and image galleries (view/save images)
• Bookmarks database
• Web Feeds (RSS)
• Content download including background downloading with pause and resume
• Content streaming support (3GPP video and supported audio formats)

• EDGE* (EGPRS): Class 10
• GPRS: Class 10

• Support for multiple phone and email details per contact
• Support thumbnail pictures and groups
• Speed dialing
• Logs: Keeps lists of your dialed, received, and missed calls
• Automatic redial
• Automatic answer (works with compatible headset or car kit only)
• Call waiting, call hold, call divert, call timer
• Closed User Group
• Fixed Dialing Number, allows calls only to predefined numbers
• Any key answer
• Conference call (up to 5 participants)

• Push to talk over cellular network via dedicated key
• Real-time one-to-one and one to-many voice communication service. Just select the person or group to talk to, and press the Push to talk key (PTT key) to communicate
• Send invites through SMS and IrDA
• Connect to multiple groups simultaneously
• Create groups on the phone menu; invite others to join by SMS
• Direct access - Push to talk speech is connected without the recipient(s) answering, and is typically heard through the phone's built-in loudspeaker
• Privacy and control - you can configure your own service settings for convenient use

• Java™ and Symbian applications available from Nokia Software Market
• Over-the-air (OTA) downloading: graphics, games, ringing tones, themes, wallpapers, operator logos, business cards, settings
• Video streaming services
• Exclusive UI themes

• Enhanced Voice dialing
• Voice commands
• Voice recorder
• Integrated handsfree speaker
• SIND (Speaker Independent Number Dialing)
• Text to Speech* (Message reader, voice feedback in sport
  tracking)**

• Calculator
• Phonebook
• Calendar
• Notepad
• World clock
• Converter
• File manager
• Remote synchronisation
• Active idle
• Messaging
• Browsing
• Platform security:
  • Device integrity (no tampering of binaries and device settings)
  • End-user privacy (protected access to contacts, calendar, messages)
  • Controlling the access to sensitive operations or APIs, such as protecting network connections)

• Sports tracking - Quick start tracking program, Sports Diary and Tests
• Quick start - Stopwatch, steps calculator, speed and distance, calories burned for walking and running
• Tapping command or timed voice feedback of tracking data - enables hearing real time tracking information without watching display
• Diary - Exercise records and planning. Fitness coach program
• Fitness Tests - Coopers test, Biking test
• Internal antenna
• Personal shortcuts
• Customisable profiles
• Flashlight
• Changeable colour themes, user defined themes
• Offline mode
• Macromedia Flash Lite 1.1 Viewer & Browser Plug-in

• Nokia 5500 Sport phone
• Nokia Battery BL-5B 860 mAh Li-Ion
• Nokia Compact Charger AC-3
• Nokia Sport Stereo Headset HS-29
• Nokia 64 MB* MicroSD card
• CD-ROM containing PC Suite, Nokia Sport Manager Software
• User Guide
• CA-53 Connectivity Cable
• CP-135 Wrist strap
• CR-64 Carrying Holder and Clip