Nokia 5130 XpressMusic

What do you need to do to make your competition's life tougher than ever? Not much, really – launch an adequately priced phone that will push the bottom line of its price-bracket down, so that everyone will have to readjust and play your game. Over at Nokia they have definitely done the homework and learned a couple of invaluable lessons from the past – with the financial crisis raging across the street and most manufacturers changing their primary focus to profit margins (except for Samsung), Nokia is about to trip them up. When Sony Ericsson and Motorola publicly announce their new market strategies, they should always be ready to deal with the consequences, which come along in the form of Nokia’s decently spec’d solutions with very affordable price tags scheduled for Q4 of 2008 and early 2009.

The Nokia 5130 gives a start to their new music-minded range and at the same time poses a serious challenge to all other phone makers aiming at this segment. The 5130’s main strength is its 90 Euro price tag coupled with a pretty big memory card found in the box. Offerings like this used to retail for 150 Euro and more; however, Nokia chimes in with a new set of rules that everyone else will have to play by, or leave. And there is no third option. Furthermore, the launch of the Nokia 5130 has already disturbed the plans of many marketing departments and broken many short-sighted forecasts, simply because the vast majority of its potential rivals slotted for early 2009 were positioned at 120-130 Euro price point. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going to follow. Also, there is no use to deny that the cheapest XpressMusic handset to date is the second nail in Walkman’s coffin – as you probably remember, the Nokia 5800 was the first one. While offering superior music quality and comparable functionality, Nokia-branded solutions cost much less, which results in a huge competitive advantage.
The Nokia 5130 is positioned as a phone for those who are in the market for a decent music playing solution with an affordable price tag. All in all, it’s the cheapest solution of its kind to date with no alternatives whatsoever.

The Nokia 5130 comes in a choice of two colors, much like most other XpressMusic-branded phones – red and blue; although in either case the front fascia is decked out in black glossy plastic. The navigation button, along with the strip running along the sides, is color-keyed to the casing’s trim. The battery cover is another place where these two color schemes differ – it’s either dark blue or carmine respectively. To be frank, we were surprised by how well the 5130 XpressMusic was built – the back cover didn’t feel loose at all, and the casing didn’t squeak in the hand.