Nokia C503 review

Nokia C503

Nokia C5-03 review

This Nokia C5-03 has a very small screen comparing to US made touch screen cellpohone. May be I have used to look at the bigger screen from HTC, Samsung, LG, IPhone. OVI online game/apss selections are poor. I like the Offline Map, you can download offline and use it. Sound, Color is good.

Thru the years I found Nokia to make some of the best phones and this one is not an exception. I bought it because it is a 4 band (world) unlocked GSM, very light and small indeed, full touchscreen, responsive, quick and accurate typing, overall the phone works fast, has a bit slow GPS (when not assisted) with free maps and nice voice navigation, good WiFi, working radio, good loud speaker and call quality, decent email (old style) and normal camera, also the battery supposed to last longer. 

Overall, it does well what it supposed to do for the price of $180. There is one important thing, the US model has UMTS (3G bands) 900/1900/2100, so the 1900 works with AT&T, but no 850 AT&T or 1700 T-mobile. Strange, but the box label and some of the Amazon description are both wrong as they show 1700. I confirmed that with Nokia as well and the phone is working fast on AT&T 3G on 1900. The phone is made in Mexico, that's fine. It has the plastic look, but it is the simple clean design and the cute shape that makes it look neat too. I am not sure why there is no variety of colors on the US market like elsewhere, that is rather frustrating. The operating system is the typical Nokia, no news there.

A decent low end smart phone with good sound and an easy to use virtual keyboard that makes texting a breeze. The GPS has led me exactly where I wanted to go. Calendar entries and to-do lists show up right on the home screen. On the negative side: You kind of need a magnifying glass to read email and facebook. The touch screen is not always responsive and downloading of apps often stops midway through even when connected to wi-fi. Also, there are not that many apps available, but if that's important to you, you'd probably go with an android or iphone anyway. I bought this phone because it's unlocked so I don't have to pay through the nose for an expensive monthly plan that's much more than I need. Also, I can take it overseas and just buy a sim card for use there with local rates. Overall, I'm reasonably happy with this phone, since I didn't expect it to be top notch.

The good:

- Cute phone

- Nice call quality

- Great Wifi reception

- Pre-installed Nokia Maps

- Good speakers (sound is loud and clear than other high end smart phones)

- Camera 5MP (I made lot of videos with this and they came out to be of good quality)

- Microsoft Exchange

- Chat client (Yahoo/google/hotmail)

The Bad:

- The screen size of 3.2 inch (should have been 3.5 inch). This makes browsing hard.

- Resistive Touch screen- Response to touch is not as good as capacitive. You might have to press hard.

- Internal memory is very less (my phone always runs under 15MB) and hence cannot use microsoft exchange for office mails (If I use Exchange email, phone complains of low memory and close few open applications)

- Phone kept hanging and had to be restarted. 

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." (Robert Smith coment on cnet.co.uk)