Nokia 5140i

Available now
27th April 2005

At first glance the Nokia 5140i looks exactly like the Nokia 5140, a handset released towards the end of 2003. On paper the 5140 wasn't a great phone, but we've rather warmed to it's design and ruggedness, and the 5140i is a significant improvement, but it still doesn't look that good on paper.

What do we mean by this exactly? Well, the Nokia 5140i has a 128x128 pixel display in 65,000 colours (up from 4096 colours on the 5140), a stereo FM radio, push-to-talk, a VGA resolution camera and MP3 and MIDI ringtones (the MP3 ringtones are new to the 5140i). Overall, there have been improvements in the email client, bundled applications, interface and graphics and messaging capabilities, but these are pretty minor. If you are really interested, Nokia have a comparison list here.

The Nokia 5140i has some pretensions of being a sporting phone, and as a result comes with a variety of applications including a fitness coach and the ability to interface with certain varieties of fitness equipment. There are also some clever developments to do with near field technologies and RFID tags.

Frankly though, we don't understand any of these clever technical features because what we really like about the 5140 and 5140i is the fact that they'll survive a bit of rough treatment and the odd splash or two.. so if you get caught in the rain or drop the think on the floor, then the Nokia 5140i has a much better chance of survival than a standard mobile. It's easy to use too, and the Nokia 5140i looks quite smart too, despite it's slight chunkiness.

On top of the technical improvements, the Nokia 5140i is being built to higher environmental standards than its predecessor. This isn't an expensive handset either - pitched at just €200/£140 before subsidy, the Nokia 5140i is easily affordable for both contract and prepay customers.

Despite the fairly basic specifications, we rather like the Nokia 5140i. Even if you're not interested in sporting activities, this is a good value handset that should survive real life and do everything that most people will ever need.

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