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5 Responses to “Nokia Nuron 5230 Phone, Frost White”

• 

  Joy of cooking says:

  May 7, 2010 at 4:08 pm

  edited on April 27, 2010. Replacement Nuron purchased from different vendor.

  Died on the third day. Not purchased from Amazon, instead, directly from T-Mob, April 2010. T-Mob does not allow drop off of defective product at TMO company stores. No return label included. Was told to ship back on my own dime. TMob would not issue a UPS call tag or replace until they received defective phone back, a two week wait with no phone.

  Number of continuous years on T-Mobile: eleven years. Contact was completed long ago. I contacted TMob because my old phone died. The TMob rep in customer retention suggested Nuron and touted it as the only phone that “qualified for $10/month unlimited web on the 3G high speed data service”. There was to be no contract extension or changes to my grandfathered service plan, nor limits on web usage as long as I paid the full retail price for Nuron ($180). The Nuron was promised to arrive with the 3G service already activated. Unfortunately, when the phone arrived, there was no internet access.

  Spent five frustrating days on the phone with TMob “tech support” before TMO concluded: i) my phone was defective, and later on, ii) that I “had been”mis-informed by T-Mob regarding “the existence of any web plan for $10/mo”. Furthermore, I would have to “upgrade” to a new plan AND sign a new two year contract to get my new phone to work with net/data.

  Occasionally you get a lemon whether it is the hardware or the representative. You expect the vendor to make things right. The last thing you want is an endless time sucking experience. Bizarre “tech support” ideas included: “Oh, the white screen is normal, it just needs to charge it overnight”!!! Strong arming a loyal customer to buy a new service plan and sign a contract after 11 years when that is not what was ordered is unconscionable. At one point, when the issue was believed to be “just a defective phone”, I even offered to buy a replacement (again for full price) just to expedite the order. Apparently that is against TMOb policy.

  In the event that you have an old rate plan grandfathered in, beware of these tactics. Even if you buy your Nuron un-locked, from another source, you still may not be allowed to add the $10/mo Web 2 Go”. To see if it is possible, log in to your TMob account on line and go to “add features”. If the $10 web ad on is NOT listed as a service option, then you probably won”t be able to add $10 unlimited web to your existing plan.

  Other considerations:
  
  – Nuron has an old style barrel power port with a hair thin center pin. These ports are prone to failure when the center pin gets loose. This prevents you from charging the phone and was the reason that I was replacing my old Nokia in the first place.

  - The re-boot procedures described on the web require that you can at least get the touch screen to boot in to the numeric pad. Nuron has no hard reset button, a major flaw for a touch screen device. Many times you will be able to re-boot by simply removing the battery, but if that fails…

  First day:
  
  Pros:
  
  First impressions were positive. Good voice quality, decent finish, many features not found in a 3G phone at this price point. The built in GPS did work w/o the web connection, but only briefly. Right away I began loosing GPS sat signal and getting errors.
  
  + multi-event alarm and other features are attractive.
  
  + handwriting recognition is a bonus
  
  + 4GB CL 6 micro SD included, but hard to remove, requires a fast CL 6 card according to many.

  Cons:
  
  – No hard re-set button! If the virtual number pad won’t load, then you can’t enter the re-boot code.
  
  – Very weak, obsolete barrel power jack with hair thin center pin.
  
  – Lacks grip points, hard to hold
  
  – Clunky, clumsy operating interface. Hard to close apps or tell what is open.
  
  – Requires a stylus for me to use.
  
  – Tedious to set personal preferences and to navigate to essential apps Could not find built in calendar.
  
  – Worthless operating manual.
  
  – Screen completely useless when viewing out of doors even on cloudy day.

  Second day:
  
  – GPS no longer acquiring sat signals!!! No navigation (nothing to do with cell signal).

  Third day:
  
  – TMO still had not activated internet access. Made the dreaded call to TMO tech support again. Hit or miss, a few of the csr’s are very good, but most… don’t ask.
  
  – TMO service hallmarks: misleading and contradictory information, inconsistency, delays. “I’ve never heard of any $10 internet plan” Still later: “You can use use free internet at TMO hotspots” (uhmm NO you can’t!!! there is no wifi on this device, besides, that is not what I ordered.

  Hours later: “This is a smart phone and we require you to have the $30 data plan or you can’t use Nuron at all”. (actually untrue, the $10 data service MAY be available on your existing plan. As above, log on to you account online to see if the option is there.) Nuron- depends on your contract,check your account on-line to see if you can add the $10 unlimited internet plan).
  
  >>> “We’re sorry that you were misled”. To emphasize, I never asked for this phone, it was suggested to me by TMob who sold it to me for full price then refused to activate the web plan that it promised.

  Fourth day: More features fail:
  
  – I called back the next morning and was told bring it in “for a re-set”. Got to a store but tech could not find a reset button.

  Purchased second Nuron from private vendor
  
  -Finally I purchased another Nuron after a T-Mob rep promised that the data plan had finally been activated. BUT…When I logged on to My T-Mobile from a DSL desktop I learned that I did NOT have unlimited web for $10 as promised but only 50-MB per month for $10 + $1.99/MB for “overages”.

  -Second phone is not locating position on GPS. Web access is very limited and essentially worthless to me. 3G signal is strong in my urban location. Phone still switches to slower Edge connection. If tethering can be accomplished I may keep the phone, otherwise it is not worth the hassle. Second phone cost was half the price of TMO and still no contract. May be a deal at that price if I can get it to work.

  Summary:
  
  In theory Nuron is a feature packed, value conscious, entry level smart phone. However you may want to prepare your brain for the TMO experience. Some users report success getting the $10/unlimited 3G web added to existing accounts, others do not. Clearly the intent is to knock you off a grandfathered plan and in to a new contract at a higher cost. While Nuron has many features at a good price point, be sure to check on line before you buy to verify that the $10 3G data plan can be added to your existing account. There seems to be little reason to buy Nuron if you can not get the $10 3G data plan to go with it.
  Rating: 1 / 5
• 

  Y.S. Jessie says:

  May 7, 2010 at 6:37 pm

  Purchased this phone last week when my Behold fell and broke. Have been with T-Mobile since 1998 and have never had problems with upgrades, but this one was not quite ready for the public. I have had it 4 days and am sending it back. First off, all the downloads that I purchased, even the recent ones, could not transfer and after 3 hours on the phone with T-Mobile technicians, they were stumped as to why. After resetting the phone no less than 3 times and reconfiguring it to plain ringtones for my mother and sisters, it still would only ring with the T-mobile default. And as one customer review said, outside in the light, say good-bye to trying to read or see anything on the screen.

  The very first day that I used it outside of the house, the battery (which is slated to last up to 4 hours) died within 1 hour and I had not spoken to anyone nor sent any text messages on it. I have yet to have a smartphone in my possession and have only dealt with T-Mobile all these years, but this phone is certainly not worth the .01 if it is not going to perform in the manner that it should. And lastly, the screen disappears for no reason and will not stay illuminated for longer than 10 seconds and I have to power it back on each time. And when I do that, it vacillates through so many screens before it finds one it wants to stay on. While the Behold had a 5.0 megapixel camera and this only has 2, the pictures were not bad, although they were all taken outside and not in. But because you cannot see the screen outside, it is very hard to take a picture when the sun is out because you cannot see the screen.
  
  Rating: 1 / 5
• 

  Allison E. Boruff says:

  May 7, 2010 at 8:27 pm

  I have had many cell phones and through just about every cell phone provider. I have had phones with Cingular which the monthly service was way to costly and never what was expceted as was the case with verizon, and sprint. I also have had many prepaid phones through trac-phone which service is not the greatest and is the most expenisve priced pre-paid phone I ever had, I tried virgin mobile, boost mobile, cricket and even Net 10. Though Net 10 and Cricket seemed to be the best priced per month they did not have a good selection of phones to choose from, they all seemed to never really stay charged and all seemed to get really poor service reception even in major cities. This phone is my third t-mobile phone I started with a t-mobile pre-paid phone which really had the best call quality, I never had any problem with droped calls, poor reception or the phone keeping a charge. The only issue I had was that the cost can really add up as the pre-paid re-fill cards t-mobile offers do not come with a lot of minuets on them. I decided that the best solution to this was to get a t-mobile flex pay phone free on a two-year contract after which would go to month to month. I liked the idea and I got the nokia express music 5310 I had that phone for a year. My husband and I shared this phone and he being an auto body tech carrying the phone in his pocket caused a crack in the screen which started out small then grew. I had no insurance on this phone and you can’t just replace the screen so I had to replace the whole phone as well as the 5310 express music phone I had been discontinued by a newer model the express music 5130 and the 5800. I called t-mobile and asked was there a way I could get a replacement phone on a monthly payment plan. I was told I could depending on the plan I had and my credit class. My plan the Even More Plus Plan and my credit class allowed me a line of credit of up to 200.00. The t-mobile sales rep explained as t-mobile customer care did that the 200.00 would be broken down into 10 month payments of 10.00 a month. So I bought this phone the Nokia Neuron and put 100.00 down which decreased my monthly payments to 4.00 a month. I like this phone because it is basically a smartphone and is campatiable with my unlimited text plan I pay 10.00 for and my unlimited web plan I also pay 10.00 a month for. Naviagtion GPS service on this phone is free. The phone takes really great pictures, is easy to naviagte, and is a 3G phone. It comes with headphones for the built in radio, stores tons of music and photos as well as videos. This phone has a qwerty keyboard as well making texting very easy keypad for letters is practially the same size as that on a computer keyboard. Colors on this phone are vivid and bright has ovi store which offers free downloadable games, videos, music, themes, ect. I love t-mobile because their plans are flexable and at reasonable prices. They have a lot of cool phones to choose from as well but most of all I love t-mobile service because I am never surprised when it comes to the cost of my bill. My bill each month is always the same price with no hidden charges and fees. I would highly recommend t-mobile flex pay either on a two year contract or month to month with no service contract. My phone plan was swicthed to a month to month no contract when I decided to upgrade to a diferent plan. My bill each month for Unlimited Talk+Text+Web is 55.00 and never any higher. I would recommend if you are looking for a touch screen phone that you don’t have to pay 30.00 extra for because the phone has a different internet service provider different from the one t-mobile uses, and an extra 10.00 for texting on such as phones like the G1, the Behold, and the Cliq. Then my recommendations are to go with this phone, the Samsung Highlight or the Tap. If you just want a phone to use for texting and don’t need internet access than I recommend the Gravity,or the Comeback which also have qwerty keyboards and still have the options of internet if you so choose later on.
  Rating: 5 / 5
• 

  John says:

  May 7, 2010 at 10:05 pm

  When my G1 died, I was curious about this phone, so I bought one. It was only $ 170, spread out over several months (just added to my T-Mobile bill), so I only had to pay about $ 25 to walk out of the store with it. $ 170 is considerably less than ANY other smartphone out there that I know of (the Google Nexus is $ 700 !!).

  I have had it for about a week. I might amend this review, but here are my overall impressions:

  NEGATIVE: overall intuitiveness and user friendliness is considerably less than on a Google phone. Navigation is not intuitive at times. The “resistive” screen is a bit different than the “capacitative” ones on the I-Phone and Google phones. It is more pressure-based. Some might like that. I am neutral on it. It is not a big downside. The phone takes about 20 seconds to boot (compare this with an I-phone or Google phone). I just got a call and there were two buttons lighting up: “Answer”, and “Unlock”. I hit both one after the other, but nothing happened (!). Still don’t fully know how to answer a call !!! Messaging is also under a fog of unknowning. Cannot do a wireless software update from the phone (!). Everything on the screen seems smaller than it has to be. I like the icons, but text seems too small at times. Too much redundancy built into navigation and use, along the lines of “do you really want to press this ? Confirm Yes”.

  POSITIVE: Overall fit and feel. This feels like a solid European product. It does not feel flimsy. I like the overall size and weight. Just big enough to feel solid, but not too heavy that it feels bulky in my jeans pocket. BATTERY LIFE !!! This to me is a MAJOR reason to own this phone. I like to go out to bars and just surf for hours while I drink a couple beers. I get about 4+ hours of solid surfing out of this phone. It is about 40% more battery life than in my G1 Google phone, as far as I can tell. To me, that is reason alone to own this phone. Nokia is known for long battery life. Compare to Apple + Google !! I suspect that many people will disregard that, but to me it is huge. I like the fact the Nokia makes both the hardware and software. I have had issues with HTC before (the Google phones). The pre-installed mapping function is solid and really also a Nokia strength. I have to say that whereas the OVI Market is really lacking compared with what Apple or Google have, there are some gems. I downloaded the “Sports Tracker”, and again, it works like a solid piece of European work. I can use it while I listen to Music. I was never able to do that on my Google G1 phone. My G1 GSP sports tracker would crash as soon as I mulit-tasked. Again, Nokia provides solid quality. Battery recharging is blazingly fast compared to Google (I would plug my G1 phone in at night and in the morning, it sometimes had “80% battery”. 7+ hours to get to 80 % from the wall charger ???!!! Music is user-friendly and works well. Sound is for me very good.

  Overall, I give it 4 stars. I am sure I will work out the issues I have with it. Battery life and blazing fast recharging do it for me. I pay $ 10 less for the web2go Internet connection at T-Mobile than I did with Google, and get almost the same Internet experience. At half the price of an I-phone or other smartphones, this phone does it !!
  Rating: 4 / 5
• 

  J. Martin says:

  May 7, 2010 at 10:50 pm

  After buying and checking out the Nokia Nuron 5230, I feel it was a worthy purchase. One must judge the Nuron by it’s own merits and it’s not to be compared with an advanced, “android” cell phone like the iPhone or the HTC HD phone.

  The Nuron is more in the category of “quick messaging phone” like the Samsung Impression (AT&T) or the Samsung Highlight (TMobile). But the Nuron is much better than other basic touch screen phones: The Nuron is a great buy due to the FREE preloaded GPS maps capability that other quick messaging phones do NOT have (at least at the time that I wrote this review). One must buy the GPS app on those other quick messaging phones for an extra fee but it is free on the Nuron and again, pre-loaded! Another positive is that you can download lots of apps from Nokia’s app store called, Ovi. With many of the other quick messaging phones, you just have a few pre-loaded ones to choose from usually. Also, the Nuron’s display has very brilliant, crisp colors and the call quality is very good. Still another BIG plus: TMobile offers a wonderful CHEAP data plan at only $10 per month of unlimited web browsing for the Nuron, & a very low-cost messaging plan option: 300 min’s @ $4.99 month!

  There are only a few negatives: As others have stated there is a lag between the two visual display modes (either vertical or horizontal). A second negative is that one must single tap on some icons but double tap on others – they should all be opened the same way! A third is the lack of a “capacitative” touch screen that would make it easy to get into an app by a quick touch of ones finger. Instead, one must FIRMLY hit the icon with either one’s finger nail or with the “pick” that Nokia provides with the phone. Another slight annoyance is that the encasement is slippery to hold; but getting a rubber gel skin and placing it over the Nuron case will alleviate that problem.

  Other than that, the Nuron is everything I was looking for in a reasonably priced touch screen/app friendly/web browsing/& messaging cell phone! I love it!
  Rating: 5 / 5