Nokia is best at adding new features to its multimedia phones but when it comes to design, one can't expect much. Appearance has always been the weakest point of Nokia and the same is reflected in the Nokia 5610. Following the legacy of the previous Xpress Music devices, the 5610 'is quite similar to the 5300 in terms of tile sliding factor. But a few add-ons makes this phone stand apart from the previous ones. The upper panel of this slider has a 2.2-inch display screen followed by a two-way spring sliding music key which directs you to the music player on the first slide and FM radio on the second. Below the sliding key are the regular selection keys and the D-pad.

The D-pad is a multi-functional key as it helps in selection while accessing menu and turns into play-pause key when using the music player. Nokia has removed its trademark rubber-finish music keys that can be seen on the left side of the screen in all the other handsets of this series. The keypad is comfortable to use. The volume keys and a dedicated camera key are added on the right side of the panel, while the camera lens and the flash are on the top left of the back panel. All the ports for headset, USB cable, and charger are added on the top. The phone is available in two colours black-blue and black-red. We got hold of the one in blue and black but found the other one to be nicer looking.

For music lovers, this is the perfect music phone. You don't need to slide the upper panel to access music, Just slide the music key once to access the music player and using the D-pad play the track, And here is the hidden surprise we found the sound quality of this device to be the best amongst all the Nokia phones, including all the models from the NŽseries, It is definitely in direct competition with the Walkman series from Sony Ericsson, The equaliser that comes with five presets bass booster' classical, jazz, pop and rock allows you to highlight different sounds and instruments and you can also create your own preset.

No doubt, that the phone offers crystal clear sound but as claimed by the company, 22 hours of music playback, the phone's charge didn't last for so long, The battery used to discharge by the end of the day with couple of hours of calling and music access, We have been left wondering whether the company's claims were exaggerated or the phone's battery was defective, This is not all. The most shocking is the 20MB internal memory that allows you to save just three sound tracks, A 512MB microSD card is provided in the sales pack, The phone supports expandable memory up to 4GB, Although the 5610 scores above all the other Xpress Music series phones in terms of sound quality, the phone's operating system was a bit disappointing, The 5610 runs on Symbian Series 40 (3rd edition) whereas the 5700 runs on Symbian Series 60 (3rd edition).

For the first time Nokia is offering a 3,2-megapixel camera in Xpress Series category making it a complete multimedia experience, The 3,2megapixel camera has an auto-focus and 8x zoom but there is no mention of Carl Zeiss optics, Being one of the most expensive offering in the Xpress Music range, in our opinion, the phone needs to do more to justify the price tag of Rs 13,347, May be a few more features or the Symbian Series 60 operating system could have done so, The Nokia 5610 can face tough competition from Sony Ericsson's W 830i, which is priced at Rs 15,715, Motorola's RAZR 2 V8, priced at Rs 13,499, could be another option to consider as it offers a great sound quality, However, it has only a 2,0 megapixel camera.

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TECH SPECS:-
Size: 98.5 x 48.5 x 17 mm Weight: 111 grams Memory: 20MB, microSD Battery: Li-Ion 900 mAh Screen: 16 million colours
Talktime/Standby: up to 6 hoursl up to 319 hours Bluetooth/lnfrared: Yesl No
Phonebook Capacity: Shared
Speakerphone: Yes
Camera: 3.2 megapixel
Frequency: GSM 900/1800/1900
Others: music player, FM radio, video recorder, GPRS,EDGE.