Nokia X5-01

Available now
14th June 2010

An unusual phone with a confusing name, the Nokia X5-01 is an almost square smartphone with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, not to be confused with the other X5 model that Nokia are shipping to China.

It's not the first square device that we've seen from Nokia, last year's US-only Nokia 7705 Twist is a similar size and specification, but the X5-01 is a more conventional slider rather than a rotator. There are some other similar devices around, such as the Motorola Karma and FLIPOUT and the Microsoft KIN One, but until now this particular form factor has really been seen in the US only.

Measuring 74 x 66 x 17mm, the X5-01 is a lot wider than a normal mobile phone, a little taller than it is wide but essentially almost square. This arrangement allows for a 2.36" 320 x 240 pixel non-touch display mounted in landscape (wide) mode, which is a bit more useful for web browsing than the standard portrait (tall) orientation. The X5-01 is even wider than a dedicated messaging phone like the E5, allowing those QWERTY keys to be just a little bit larger and easier to use.

Primarily aimed at younger customers, the X5-01 supports most main media formats and has an FM radio and 3.5mm audio connector, plus a dedicated music key. The X5-01 has a "spin the phone" control to select a random music track, which is quite cool. The standard sales package contains a stereo wired headset and a 2GB memory card for storing files. The X5-01 also supports several different social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter. This is an S60 smartphone, so you can add new applications as you go along.

One thing to note is that the X5-01 doesn't come with GPS, which is a shame because otherwise this is a very highly specified smartphone. However it's also pretty good value for money and we suppose that you can't have everything if you want to keep the cost down.

On the back is a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, video recording is a reasonable 640 x 480 pixels at 15 frames per second, just about good enough for YouTube but certainly nothing special.

The Nokia X5-01 comes with WiFi and 3G data, plus support for HSDPA and HSUPA downloads and uploads. Talktime on 3G is up to 3.5 hours with a maximum of 16 days standby time, plus 24 hours of music playback. Of note is the 600 MHz ARM 11 processor inside the X5-01 which should make the S60 3rd Edition OS run very quickly.

Due to hit the market in Q3 2010, Nokia sat that the X5-01 should cost around €165 before tax and carrier subsidy, which is a little less expensive than the E5 and quite a lot more than the bargain C3. Indonesia is reported to be the first market, other countries will come later.

The main selling proposition here has to be looks though, and the Nokia X5-01 is definitely a love-it-or-hate-it handset. Despite the squareness at the front, there's an interesting curve on the back and the supplied colours of pink, azure, graphite, yellow green and purple should certainly get the X5-01 noticed.