My trusty old Nokia 3100 was showing signs of age after five years of good service, and when my repair man told me that it would have to be "reballed", I knew it was time to go in for a new phone. I was on a tight budget, but had always wanted a music phone, so I did some research on the net and when I learned from some forums that the Nokia 5130c-2 could support 16 gb cards, the choice was clear. The phone now has a large part of my music on the 16 gb card. Ease of use and voice quality are Nokia’s strong points, and this phone is no exception. My phone is GPRS enabled, so I update the software whenever a new update is available. After one particular update, I noticed that the phone tended to stay on sometimes. The light would not go off and the phone got heated after staying on for sometime. It would have to be switched off manually, and then it was back to normal.
Luckily, a later update seems to have solved this problem. The sound quality is good and the equalizer settings allow you to change the sounds to a limited extent. Headphones provide good sound, and I’ve noticed that Sennheiser and Panasonic headphones provide much better sound than the bundled ones. The 2 megapixel camera takes good pictures, but you need sunlight for really good quality. Absence of a flash doesn’t allow night photography. The video shooting is horrible and jerky.
Voice recording is barely tolerable. Another problem (I would say it’s the biggest problem with this phone) is the near total invisibility of the display in bright sunlight. Finally, finding the song of your choice is a big headache. I know Nokia didn’t mean this phone to be used with over 2000 songs on the card, but one would think that a music phone would have better search capabilities.
Anyway, in spite of all these niggles, I’m satisfied with the phone and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. I’d suggest GPRS users download and install the latest compatible Opera browser for browsing the net.