Since I wrote of Nokia C5, the leading shot of non-touch smartphones crop, some of the readers enquired me about the cheapest options about touch phones as well. The answer wasn’t that simple, but as their concern was price, so I suggested them of Nokia 5233 and Nokia 5235 and specially with a price tag of Rs. 6300/-, Nokia 5233 is sure a great deal for one kind of market.

Today I got my hands on Nokia 5233 finally via one of my colleague and I took the same chance to bring my first impressions about the device for readers.

Why should one buy Nokia 5233?

We are not talking about the geeks here, who could argue on the specs sheet for hours. We are talking about the guys, who are much mean, when it comes to shed a few bucks from their pockets. I have seen people, who will buy some Chinese model in 5K saying it got all and will come behind you that yaar!! its not opening the sites very well or how to transfer all my contacts on this phone… bla bla.. Com’on .. who suggested you to go for a non-nokia? Even if its priced at 5k, do you really wanted to throw some phone in one year coz there will be no care center for that kind of phone?

People get a life.. Nokia is listening of you people too. Not just for sake of price, but for sake of engaging people in a better experience because only that can bring them in for the bigger things in next.

Have you lustfully taken a look on other people’s Nokia 5800 because of their bigger touch screens and the style with which their slide their fingers on that shiny thing? So what if you didn’t wished to spend Rs. 13, 000/-, you can get the same feel with Nokia 5233. This is a device made for people to have their hands on touch phones world in cheapest way without loosing an inch of the quality standards that Nokia maintains.

1. ARM 434 MHz processor (Irony or proud! it has the same processor as ‘’lagship’ N97 had).
2. 128 MB of RAM is more than enough for the target users in this price range.
3. 70 MB user storage is not much but kind of super, if you remember 50 mb of C5 or E52
4. A 3.2” resistive touch screen with a very good nice touch feedback.

5. Proximity sensor, Accelerometer sensor and Handwriting recognition, while target users might not even know about worth of these features.

6. Not only comes with Ovi Music service, but has 33 hours music playback with Li-Ion 1320 mAh (BL-5J).

7. A stylus for precise touch input though you can do all kind of things with fingers as well.

Definitely, you can complaint a single line, when someone bring this much in just Rs. 6300/-.Though still I wish people a little more with Rs. 7500/- and buy Nokia 5235 with 3G and A-GPS added, but if you are too picky about the price, then sure Nokia 5233 fits the bill as I have seen with some people around me.

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Some of my first impressions after taking it in my hands

If you have taken Nokia 5800 in your hands for some times, then it almost has the same feel like that one. Though you might start complaining only if you dig a little deeper, but that would be purely based on inner features, not the exterior, which is sure full plastic, but still its better than many I had seen. At least opening back battery cover didn’t scared me here.

Well! as you can see, it wont be a great screen when come under sunlight, neither the build has features that could keep the dust particles away.

Though it doesn’t support the hot swap SIM feature, but sure you can insert the SIM without even opening the battery cover and same with Memory card that is hot swappable. Though disappointments are, you can not take the SIM out without opening battery cover and the package doesn’t include the MicroSD card.

But who cares, if you are looking for a cheap solution only, then in 1K you could get an 8GB card, while it supports up to 16GB and who takes out and in SIM daily, that could be managed for sure.

If you look more close in the first pics, then you could spot the mono speaker as well near my thumb. Well to say.. it wasn’t too loud, but not too low either. You can sure hear the calls on loudspeakers in normal scenarios, but don’t ask for the same in trains like noise.

Well! I wont say that plastic buttons are all pretty, but still I would have loved more, if there was an always open miniUSB slot than the one covered with plastic on the top side.

What you love about Nokia is the fact, they still are the leaders when it comes to raise the level of common man. Here I am talking about the 3.5mm jack and 2mm charger that’s real democracy than some company running behind money only.

I have got my hands on many of the devices, where the manufacturer decides that a dedicated camera key is kind of waste, like I seen in Nokia C5, but if you ask a user then nothing matches the feel of having a dedicated camera key on the side. Though the device doesn’t has a autofocus, so not like some half press to focus, but still you get a camera like feel.

With the volume rocker, you also got the lock button in the middle, quite handy and brings back the memories that how people were used to locking their phones by pressing Menu Key and * rather than waiting for the screen to get auto locked after a certain period.

It got just 2MP camera full focus camera with focus range from 60 cm to infinity. It is very very ordinary and bigger disappointment is absence of even a single LED flash. I understand that it was a design decision to keep the cost at its lowest, but still it was better if they would not have compromised on this.

Probably for same reason that camera wasn’t the biggest attraction here, Nokia skipped the camera cover too.

As I mentioned, due to a little easy slot there, it was not that hard to open the battery cover like others, where I always get scared that if opening battery cover may break it.

Yup!! it got the stylus too though after using the phone for a while, I found that after sometime, you wont even need that. Having a resistive screen than a capacitive one, has some of profits too.

Green, red and white; typical Nokia buttons, though reminds me of the Indian National flag as well in a way. Green one works as Call button, red as call End button and white one as Menu button. All these lights also serves as notification lights too in case of some incoming call or incoming message.

Yes! there is no secondary camera, but that’s for a reason. It got no 3G support, so obviously no video calls, though you could spot the proximity sensors easily.

Its the best thing Nokia does with such range of device, they don’t miss out the signal strength and battery, whatever low price might be. You are getting a 1320 mAh battery here and as no 3G, no A-GPS on board, nothing will stop this device from completing a day in normal usages.

In the same pics, you can also spot the mechanism to push the SIM out of it. The slider always go handy for that thing at least. And yes.. finally we see some metal here, the plates around the camera.

If still some doubts, then sticker on back cover explains the basics.

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So, while I will strongly recommend, a slightly higher priced Nokia 5235 over this, but sure if you gift this phone to your little sister or someone who is not much into tech, they sure gonna love it and you will be ensured that they wont bug you back that this is not working and that is not. Rs. 6300/- … what else you wish for?