While a lot of the world has committed fully to the smartphone lifestyle, Nokia is still plugging away with feature phones. The latest offering from HMD Global, which manages the Nokia brand, is the Nokia 5710 XpressAudio, a feature phone that includes a built-in set of true wireless earbuds.
U.K. shoppers can grab the Nokia 5710 XA right now for £74. It's not available in the U.S., and there's no release date given at this time.
This is not the first Nokia phone built with music lovers in mind. The Nokia 5310 also included a built-in MP3 player and FM radio — sorry, no Spotify. But Nokia has never committed to the bit quite as fully as this. The earbuds are designed to fit in the Nokia 5710 XA, which has a built-in case on its back for storing and charging the earbuds.
Nokia 5710 XA: Is it worth buying?
Included earbuds seems like genuinely a cool feature. As someone who has to constantly carry around his own earbuds, I would genuinely love to have a built-in case in my phone that keeps them stored and charging. Also, the fact that Nokia was able to put together a phone with true wireless earbuds and keep it below £100 is pretty remarkable given that plenty of the best wireless earbuds can cost as much as the Nokia 5710 XA does.
And unfortunately, that's also the biggest concern with the device. At £74, I cannot imagine that the sound quality is anything to write — well, text — home about. Additionally, the earbuds only promised 4 hours of music playback or 2.4 hours of talk time per charge. That is fine for those who just use the earbuds during a bus ride or while out on a run, but for those like me who listen to music for hours at a time, they probably will not be enough to get the job done.
Finally, there is the elephant in the room — no streaming apps. As a feature phone, there is no way to listen to Spotify or Apple Music. Podcast apps are also out of the question. You either are committing to the built-in FM or you will need to load the phone up with MP3 files of your favorite music. That said, if you are seriously considering a feature phone, you may already be OK with that trade-off.
Nokia 5710 XA: Nokia releases additional feature phones
Nokia also announced two other feature phones along with the Nokia 5710 XA. The Nokia 820 4G looks like the candy bar phones that made Nokia famous while including modern features such as dual-SIM 4G network support.
Meanwhile, the Nokia 2660 Flip is a flip phone boasting a 1.8-inch QVGA display on the outside and a 2.8-inch QVGA display on the inside. Not exactly on par with the the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and its 6.7-inch interior screen, but for a flip phone, you could do a lot worse.
While we don't really focus on feature phones at Tom’s Guide, we do have plenty of smartphone coverage. If it's flip phones you desire, consider the latest rumors on the Galaxy Z Flip 4 due out next month. We also have the latest rumors on the iPhone 14 and the rumored Samsung Galaxy S23.
