Nokia 5140 - Push-To-Talk Phone

Discontinued
12th November 2003

The Nokia 5140 is a tri-band GSM camera phone aimed at those who like sports, exercise and outdoor activities, and it has several new features that have not been seen in a Nokia handset before.

To start with, the Nokia 5140 is dust, bump and splash resistant, has an integrated FM radio, 640x480 pixel camera, and a built-in torch. These features are in several other Nokia handsets, but the 5140 also comes with a built-in digital compass, outdoor thermometer, Fitness Coach application, noise meter, a stopwatch and interval timer plus an optional Active Headset.

But the really novel feature of the Nokia 5140 is that it is the first GSM phone announced so far to feature Push-To-Talk (PTT), which is a low-cost way of carrying out one-to-one or conference calls. PTT sends voice data over the phone's built-in IP network via GPRS or EDGE data connectivity. Push-to-talk is controlled by a single button, either on the handset or Active Headset, and this turns the Nokia 5140 into something equivalent to a walkie talkie. Nokia say that PTT will be standard in all their handsets by 2005.

The 5140's digital camera is a 640x480 VGA resolution device, and it can record video clips as well as still photos. There's also an image editor, gallery and of course the 5140 supports MMS multimedia messaging.

Unlike some other recent Nokias, the 5140 looks interesting but unremarkable, measuring 107 x 47 x 24 mm and weighing 101 grams. The display is 128x128 pixels in 4096 colours. which is not great compared to some recent phones. Battery life is 2-5 hours depending on network with a standby time of 6-12 days, although this is network dependent.

Web browsing on the 5140 is done with the built-in XHTML browser over GPRS, EDGE or HSCSD data networks. There's a built-in Java-based email client. This is pretty standard stuff and not very exciting, but of course the 5140's strengths lie elsewhere.

To cap it all, the Nokia 5140 has Java application support, voice dial, polyphonic ringtones, custom wallpapers and optional Xpress-on covers to change the colour of the phone.

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