Nokia 5300 Lilac Review - Display & Audio

The 5300 also features a power save mode that dims the display after a period of inactivity, leaving only the time and date displayed in black at a very low brightness setting.  Optional animations can also be set to run when the phone is slid open and shut.

I tested the tri-band GSM 5300 on T-Mobile's network in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Voice quality through the internal earpiece was generally excellent.  I almost always captured a strong signal, and voices were almost always clear and loud on both ends of the conversation. The speakerphone worked well, though voice dialing is not supported by the 5300..  While I don't expect much from music playback through a cellphone's built-in speaker, the Nokia's speaker had plenty of volume for impromptu group listening sessions.

A stereo headset is included with the 5300, as is a 2.5 to 3.5mm stereo adapter.  The headset is of standard "included earphones" quality, which is to say that if you listen to a lot of music you're not going to want to use it for very long.  I used the 3.5mm adapter to connect my Ultimate Ears earphones to the 5300, and also to connect it to my car stereo system.  The UE earphones are ... well, they're pretty awesome ... and they uncovered a fair amount of background hiss coming from the phone during music playback.  Generally speaking, however, the hiss was only noticeable between songs or during very quiet passages.  And I didn't really notice the hiss at all when the phone was playing music back over the car stereo.

I should also mention that any phone marketed as a "music phone" should really have a 3.5mm headphone jack built-in.  The 5300's adapter works, but it's both cumbersome and easy to lose.  Nokia's N76 has a 3.5mm jack, so it's not like they don't know how to build one into a handset. That being said, I'd rate the 5300's audio quality for music playback somewhere just below that of an iPod or a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone: It's really very good, but not quite on par with the best in the business.  Nokia's built-in graphic equalizer is great for tailoring the sound to your own tastes, and it features several factory presets and two more that you can customize to your own liking.   Bluetooth audio devices are also supported, including stereo over Bluetooth.  I had no trouble pairing a Bluetooth earpiece with the phone, and voice quality with the earpiece was good.  Stereo music over Bluetooth also sounded quite good.