Nokia's recent headline-grabbing shift to Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform might have come as a shock to hard-core fans of the Finnish manufacturer. But, after spending a few days with the clunky and disappointing C5-03, it's obvious that change can't come soon enough.
The C5-03 is available for £190 direct from Nokia's Web store. Contract prices hover around the £15-per-month mark.
Symbian siblings
Although it shares a similar name, the C5-03 is vastly different to last year's likeable C5 in terms of physical appearance. The alphanumeric keypad has been ditched in favour of a 3.2-inch touchscreen, and the casing is noticeably more compact. Unfortunately, the C5-03's glossy plastic case makes it feel rather cheap and nasty. The slippery battery cover offers little in the way of grip either.
Physical controls are limited to the usual call and end-call buttons, and a menu key sits between them. On the side, there's a volume rocker and lock button, but no dedicated camera key. The lack of physical input options draws attention to the phone's pleasingly large screen.
Touchscreen blues
The 3.2-inch, 360x640-pixel touchscreen uses resistive technology rather than capacitive. It's the cheaper option from a manufacturing perspective, but it requires you to exert slight pressure. Phones like the iPhone 4 and Google Nexus S use the more expensive capacitive type, and, as a result, offer a more accurate and responsive user experience.
A resistive touchscreen just doesn't cut it these days, even at the mid-to-low end of the market. Any argument that the C5-03's touchscreen is acceptable because it's a fairly affordable phone simply doesn't hold water -- we've seen several sub-£100 smart phones with capacitive displays recently, such as the Orange San Francisco.
Ready for the scrapheap
The C5-03's dismal touchscreen has a partner in crime: Nokia's aging Symbian Series 60 operating system. Nokia's recent decision to adopt the Windows Phone 7 operating system has effectively put the final nail in the once-proud S60's coffin. After wrestling with this outdated and infuriating software, you'll be unlikely to shed a tear at the memorial service.
While S60 had its place on the original C5 -- it was equipped with a four-way direction pad for navigation -- it really shows its limitations on a touchscreen device, especially when it's an unresponsive and sluggish touchscreen.
Typing is plagued by lag, and the constant stream of pop-up dialogue windows slows down even the most basic functionality. To top it all off, S60 feels like a relic from the past when it comes to customisation. Budget Android phones will quite happily allow users to tailor their experience, but S60 is painfully limited. Modern smart phones should at least allow you to have more than one home screen, for starters.
Having said that, there are brief glimmers of light amid the stormy clouds of discontent. Ovi Maps is bundled as standard and, once you go through the usual convoluted process of downloading the latest system files, it offers free sat-nav functionality, with turn-by-turn directions. The C5-03's underpowered CPU means the sat-nav is a rather lumbering affair, however. We wouldn't rely on it for last-minute, seat-of-your-pants route planning.
Mystery of the missing multi-touch
The C5-03 offers impressive connectivity, with 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth all present. Sadly, the Web browsing experience is akin to removing your own eyeballs with a rusty tin-opener. Multi-touch gestures are completely out of the question, due to the pesky resistive screen, so don't expect to make any graceful pinch-to-zoom commands. The browser doesn't even have the good manners to reformat pages to suit the screen's size, so viewing your favourite site quickly becomes a tiresome exercise.
In terms of image capture, the C5-03 represents two steps forwards and one step back when compared to the original C5. The megapixel count has risen from 3.2 to 5, but the LED flash has been removed, making low-light shots difficult. We'd have preferred the phone to retain the same set-up as its predecessor, because the extra pixels don't add a great deal to the images produced.
Conclusion
With the war of the budget smart phones set to intensify in 2011, we can't see where Nokia's anaemic C5-03 fits in. There are much cheaper phones available that comprehensively outclass the C5-03, and Symbian is effectively dead. Our fingers are firmly crossed that it's one of the last such handsets we'll see from the Finnish firm. Vote with your wallet and plump for the reasonably priced ZTE Racer instead, or wait for the next generation of budget devices, such as the promising LG Optimus Me P350.
Edited by Charles Kloet
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User reviews8
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raviarya 29 February 2012
Good: EVERYTHING
Bad: NOTHING
Comment: I,D LIKE this smart phone
Robert Smith 12 December 2011
Good: Nothing whatsoever
Bad: Reliability, battery life, made of plastic, call quality, operating system, lack of memory, very slow.
Comment: I have had more problems with this phone than the sum total combined of all other phones that I have owned for the past 15 years. I only wish that I could give it a 0 star rating.
This is the email that I had to send to Vodafone about this phone.
I recently received an upgrade (!) to a Nokia C5-03. I can only assume that I am being used to test this phone before Nokia decide not to make any more of them, in fact based on this phone Nokia should stop making any more mobile phones.
This phone is completely and utterly unfit for purpose.
Here is a list of the problems that I am aware of and I don't even use most of the features on the phone and don't even use the phone that much because it is so awful to use (when it does actually work).
Firstly, when I was advised to take this phone I was told that the camera had a flash, it does not have a flash.
I am constantly being reminded that the memory is low on the phone even after deleting all of the emails on the phone. This takes forever because the feature does not work properly, emails simply do not delete or just reappear after they have been deleted. It beeps repetitively saying that the emails cannot be deleted without giving a reason or it just stops deleting them and gets stuck. I have nothing else stored in the phone memory, therefore the internal phone memory is not large enough to accomodate the factory installed software / updates.
The alarm clock will not switch off when the alarm is ringing, the only way to get rid of it is to use sleep and then to go into alarms and turn off the alarm.
Periodically the phone screen just randomly turns white and also the orientation just changes even when the phone is not moved.
The touch screen is as reactive as a lump of steel, even when using a stylus which is pretty much essential. More often than not even if you manage to press the right icon and the phone reacts it will not actually do the required command. I miss phonecalls often just because the stupid thing will not react.
The top of the screen is already faded.
On top of the actual faults with the phone it is stunningly user unfriendly and Nokia REALLY need to do something about their multitudes of accounts / log ins / websites. If I want to manage my phone I want one website and one log in.
Ideally instructions should not be needed with a new phone but this phone is so useless it really should come with instructions (and an apology) because the online help seems to be woefully inadequate.
cfc2000 19 August 2011
Good: Slim size
Bad: Everything the CNET review says and more.
Comment: This came with a vodafone package as obviously they were trying to get rid of them. It promises a lot but does not deliver. The review is generous if anything. The software is diabolical. The file manager is useless, so that when you get the "phone memory is full" popup box there is no way to delete any files, which are hidden anyway. You could pay to download the y-browser, which would reveal them, but by that time you can't download anything, because the phone memory (a paltry 90 mb or so) is full. You can't even format the phone and start again, because...the phone memory is full and the cpu needs some space on the c drive to operate. What a totally useless phone. I could flash it but as it's under guarantee I am sending it back in the hope that I can get something better, or at least not quite so bad. BTW there are 1000s and 1000s of users on forums looking for solutions to this but Nokia doesn't seem to have one. No wonder Nokia is in trouble. Do not buy this phone - don't even accept one as a gift. Oh, and the equally useless OVI PC suite doesn't exactly help. Makes Motorola Phone Tools look like a slick piece of software.
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