Nokia comes out with even cheaper Ovi phone in the 5230
Published: 25 August, 2009
The price of connecting to Nokia Ovi and its Music Store is coming down, down, down, and the latest addition to the Nokia touch phone portfolio, the Nokia 5230, is offering music, photos and videos, and social networks all for €149 (£130). Previous devices of this type have been up at around £170, such as the Nokia 5530 announced in June (but not yet delivered), a big step down from the top end of this range, the 5800.
The 5530 was a cut down, 2G version of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and it joined the 5800, 5730 and the 5630 ultra-slim XpressMusic phones. The absolute bottom end of the range has been the 5030, a cheap FM radio phone for emerging markets, and this looks just one step up from that. However, the new 5230 is definitely a 3G phone and we think it is perhaps the cheapest 3G XpressMusic device yet.
With the Nokia 5230, consumers can get music from the Nokia Music Store or apps, games, videos and other services from the Ovi Store, directly from their phones. It also has A-GPS navigation, Ovi Maps with aerial images and 3D landmarks for over 200 cities and driving navigation.
"Competitively priced at €149, we believe the Nokia 5230 is an unbeatable offer for many new customers who aspire a device that stars in music, mingles with social networks from Facebook to MySpace, navigates you to where it happens, when it happens, and comes in an array of dazzling colours, " said Jo Harlow, Vice President, Nokia.
Ovi Store connectivity is built in from the home screen and Nokia now says that there are 75 Nokia devices which can now do this, sold across 180 countries.
The 5230 music player has 33 hours of playback and in some markets will come with a "Comes With Music" offering where you get free music built into the price of the phone, but this will up the price to €259 (£226) before subsidies and taxes, a whopping €110 (£96) more for free music for a year. The headphones socket is the standard 3.5mm connector and the 5230 comes with a Media Bar (an idea borrowed from Sony Ericsson) for fast access to music, photos, YouTube or Ovi Share.
The phone will also have the Nokia Contacts bar which is a home screen rotation of your top 20 contacts with thumbnail pics for fast dialling which also gives automatic shortcuts to their emails, phone calls, photos or other social media updates. The Nokia 5230 will ship in the fourth quarter.
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