Nokia 5228 launches in Germany, GPS-less 5230 variant

Published by Rafe Blandford at 21:22 UTC, June 9th 2010

The Nokia 5228, a variant of the Nokia 5230 was launched in Germany yesterday, reports Symbian World. The 5228 has the same styling and design as the Nokia 5230 and broadly similar specifications. However it lacks the 5230's 3G cellular radio and integrated GPS. It ships with a range of Ovi services including Ovi Store and Nokia Music Store. The Nokia 5228 will be available in July 2010 at a price of €139 including taxes.

The device runs S60 5th Edition on Symbian and key features include a 3.2" screen, homescreen Contacts Bar and Media Bar, 2.0 megapixel camera, quad-band GSM radio, 70MB of internal memory, microSD card slot, 3.5mm audio jack and integration with Nokia's Ovi services (Ovi Store, Nokia Music Store, Ovi Contacts, Ovi Share). A number of social network shortcuts and client applications are pre-loaded on the device.

The 5230 has dimensions of 111 x 51.7 x 14.5mm (78cc) and weighs 113g. It powered by a BL-5J (1320 mAh) battery (33 hours of music playback, 7 hours of talk time, 4 hours video playback). It will be available in black or white (front colours) with red, pink, blue, yellow, silver and dark silver back covers. It ships with an AC-8 high efficiency charger, WH-102 stereo headset, user guide and a plectrum (note no microSD card).

Nokia 5228 (images from Symbian World).

Nokia 5230 variants

There are currently a number of 5230 style devices on the market in different parts of the world:

• Nokia 5230 - the original device, which was announced in August last year.
    
• Nokia 5235 - a Comes with Music version of the Nokia 5230.
    
• Nokia 5233 - a variant for the Asian market, it lacks the 5230's 3G cellular radio and GPS.
  
  
• Nokia 5230 Nuron - a variant for T-Mobile USA, which was announced in March this year, it has 3G bands suited to T-Mobile  network. (1700/2100 Mhz).
   
• Nokia 5228 - a variant for Europe (Germany), it lacks the 5230's 3G cellular radio and GPS.
    

Pricing

The 5228's €139 price point includes taxes, excluding taxes (VAT at 19%) the price is approximately €117. This is €33 cheaper than the launch price of the Nokia 5230 (€150). It is currently Nokia's cheapest Symbian powered device in terms of official pricing. 

The Nokia 5230 can currently be found on PAYG (pre-pay) deals in the UK for around £80 (€96), although an addition £10 credit / top-up is usually compulsory. It is likely that the pricing for the 5228 will drop below this level in due course.

From left to right (in proportional size): Nokia 5800, Nokia 5530 and Nokia 5230/5228

News Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unregistered Great. Cut the two most useful features of the phone, then release it again. Am I the only one who fails to see the point in this phone?

Nope, you're not.

The 5230 is already ridiculously cheap, at least in the UK. I'm of the mind that it makes more sense to just slightly cut the costs of the one model, rather than effectively increase costs by having extra production lines producing a mind-numbingly stupid array of minor variations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unregistered Even more stupid if you think about that the 5230 already is a rippoff of the 5800XM... I hoped Nokia were serial about releasing less phones...

The 5800 and 5230 are at very different price points though. Typically price for just the phone are £120 (£70-80 payg) and £200 (£170 payg). So the 5230 is typically half the price of the 5800. For not a lot of difference in hardware.

These other variants have a difference of a few quid here and there, but have the possibility of increased production costs due to retooling - all for a potentially very small market share.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unregistered Great. Cut the two most useful features of the phone, then release it again. Am I the only one who fails to see the point in this phone?

You guys need to look outside of your countries. I mean it is great that the 5230 is already cheap to you but really to some people the $30 USD difference is a lot and to pay for things they never use like 3G and GPS (in some places 3G is not even affordable or even any internet access). It's good to have choices. There is at least a $100 USD difference from the 5800 and the 5230 from where I live.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neero You guys need to look outside of your countries. I mean it is great that the 5230 is already cheap to you but really to some people the $30 USD difference is a lot and to pay for things they never use like 3G and GPS (in some places 3G is not even affordable or even any internet access). It's good to have choices. There is at least a $100 USD difference from the 5800 and the 5230 from where I live.

The headline says "in Germany", but that could either mean it's for this particular market, or just that the event was held there.

If this is planned for Germany, I can't imagine it will sell well. The non-3G feature phones from Samsung and LG look a lot sexier than this device. And people who buy their phone based on specs will opt for the 5230.

If it was just announced in Germany and is sold worldwide, you might be right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neero You guys need to look outside of your countries. I mean it is great that the 5230 is already cheap to you but really to some people the $30 USD difference is a lot and to pay for things they never use like 3G and GPS (in some places 3G is not even affordable or even any internet access). It's good to have choices. There is at least a $100 USD difference from the 5800 and the 5230 from where I live.

But they're apparently touting it as a device for Ovi music and app services.

In which case its useless - how much patience will you need to download a 4 meg file over 2G (or edge, assuming its available)? Let alone attempting to fill a 1gig memory card - imagine trying to fill a 4 or 8gig card at GPRS speeds!

Yes, it is good to see a truly capable smartphone platform available at such ridiculously low prices, but the feature stripping is maybe going a little too far? I could understand the removal of GPS, but the component price difference between 2G and 3G chipsets must be minimal - virtually pennies on the quantities that Nokia buy.

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