Nokia 5500 Sport

After appeasing the musically inclined with their Nseries Music Edition and Xpress Music phones, Nokia seeks out greener pastures. Equipping business users with the Eseries range and bringing out the director in you with high-end camera phones like the N93 and N73, Nokia now wants you to go out there and get back into shape, if you aren’t already. That’s the new Nokia 5500 Sport for you.

Design
One look at the phone and you’ll see the curvy and/or well-toned figure of the phone which speaks of its intentions. The phone feels strong, with its casing made mostly of rubber and stainless steel parts. It has no moving parts such as individual keys or a fiddly joystick, other than the battery cover which is held in place by a simple screw.

The keys do need a bit of strength to click though, and the joystick also isn’t the most easy and comfortable to use. The call and end keys are not red and green colored, and they’re hidden away in this outset ridges that lie below the two soft keys. It took me a few seconds to find those keys the first time. Even after that, the thinness of keys makes them very, very difficult to use.

The phone also has an Instant Swap key on the side to switch between the different modes that the phone runs in – phone, sports or music. Depending on the mode you’re in, the theme color changes. When in sports mode, the background is reddish and even the joystick area glows red. There’s also the pencil/ABC and the PTT keys on the side.

The phone is supposed to be dust and splash resistant, but while that can be held true about the gapless-keypad, the lower part of the phone which has the Pop port isn’t covered too well, so I have my doubts. I didn’t dip the phone in water to try it out, sorry!

The display is small – 208x208 pixels – but the phone doesn’t run the Series 40 UI. Instead, the 5500 has the new Series 60 3rd Edition UI. The display is pretty small, but the whole phone is quite compact so it goes with it.