Three weeks ago, my girlfriend Resie showed to me a phone model that I can use as a substitute for my 3rd gen iPod because I wanted to buy a new mp3 player. My dad bought me that iPod 4 years ago and it’s battery life today decreased from 6-8 hours of play time to 3-4 hours. The phone she showed me is a Nokia cellphone being displayed on one of the cellphone retailers along Session. I really liked it because not only is it thin, it is also a Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, meaning it has dedicated buttons for mp3 playback. Another feature I liked on that phone is that it has a 2.0 megapixels for a camera, built-in radio and the best thing is that there are 2 colors of which I can choose from, blue and red. So we asked for the price and it costs PHP 4000! I immediately texted my dad to buy me that phone since it’s so cheap, it won’t hurt my dad’s pocket.

Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Colors
 

Later that week, my dad texted me that the price for that phone in Dagupan City costs PHP 9300! I was a bit surprised by the price since is more than the double here in Baguio City. I thought that the models being sold in Session Road are smuggled units or worst, stolen. My dad decided to buy the phone in Dagupan even if it is more expensive. We first went to CSI City Mall. We checked at Hello and Guanzon but the black version wasn’t available. My dad suggested that we should try at CSI Market Square and searched what store sells the black version. Luckily, the branch of Guanzon there has the black version in it’s inventory and bought it immediately!

I’ve been using the phone for about a week now. I am lucky enough to get the black version and I must say it’s super sleek! One gigabyte of memory is free preloaded with a the Sims DJ game, a sort of Guitar Hero type game. Maximum capacity for a mircoSD is 4 gigabytes. Another great thing about this model is that use can use a regular earphones to listen to your music. You don’t have to buy a specialized earphones unlike other Nokia phones.

For PC connectivity, it uses a USB cable and Bluetooth. Sorry guys, it’s not WIFI ready. Too bad. For USB, it doesn’t use any USB shape and size I have seen so loosing the cable is a very, very bad thing. Another issue about the USB is that it’s hard to plug the phone using the cable bundled with it. The USB port cover of the phone almost blocks the USB cable even if remove the cover from the port. Image capture, not really the best. I still like my old FujiFilm FinePix 2650. It’s a macera. It’s a combination of a camera and a mace.

 
Nokia 5310 XpressMusic with the box

Width Comparision: Nokia 8890, Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, Nokia 6610i, iPod 3rd Generation.

It also contain 2 discount coupons. One coupon is for a JBL on Call speaker that costs PHP 3800 and the other is for a Sennheiser HD205 Headset that costs PHP 2000. (Original price without coupon is PHP 4800 and PHP 2800 respectively). I am surprised that the manual contains a Pilipino version of the phone manual. For me, that reason enough that what the phone I got is an official release for the Philippine market by Nokia.

 
Filipino Manual

English Manual

Today, I asked one of the cellphone vendors along Upper Session road if they are selling Nokia 5310 XpressMusic. They are and they are selling it for PHP 4500 which is the same price in Maharlika three weeks ago and you can get a 1 gigabyte MicroSD for you phone for an additional of PHP 500.

I also checked Nokia’s websites, www.nokia-asia.com, www.nokia.com and www.nokia.com.ph. It turns out that in nokia-asia.com, the black version is not included on their product list but in nokia.com and nokia.com.ph, the black version is available. So probably, the one being sold along Session Road is not really meant for the Philippine market.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Information you would like, Lightened Minds . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.