Mobile phones with those who are involved in fitness pursuits as their main target appear from time to time and the 5500 Sport is the latest to do so.
As a handset it is quite good. Well proportioned, small and light, it runs Symbian S60 and therefore is a fully fledged smartphone. It has an FM radio and good battery life. I have no complaints.
Its main problem is -unfortunately - that it is a poor device for sports people.
Its main problem in this respect is the pedometer. Pedometers are only approximate when it comes to measuring distance travelled, and this one doesn't even let you callibrate your own stride length. It guesses stride length based on your height which can onlly ever offer an average.
In any case, unless you run on a track or treadmill your stride length will vary during a run. I run cross country most of the time, and my stride length varies enormously depending on the terrain. While I am merely average in terms of performance, I do want to know how far my runs have been and the Nokia 5500 Sport can't deliver accurate enough informaton. The further you run, of course, the more out of kilter it will be. If you are cycling, another activity for which the Nokia 5500 says it is useful, the pedometer tells you nothing about distance travelled.
My tactic would be to buy a GPS antenna for the Nokia 5500 for a more accurate measure of distance covered, but if I were going to do that, I'd avoid the handset alltogether and buy separate kit which can measure my heart rate give me auto lap timers, estimated time of finishing a run and so on.
The bottom line is that anyone serious about training might find this handset lets them down. This is a pity, and Nokia has definately missed the mark.
Find out more, including about how you can control the phone just by tapping it, by reading my review at CNET.co.uk, here.
As a handset it is quite good. Well proportioned, small and light, it runs Symbian S60 and therefore is a fully fledged smartphone. It has an FM radio and good battery life. I have no complaints.
Its main problem is -unfortunately - that it is a poor device for sports people.
Its main problem in this respect is the pedometer. Pedometers are only approximate when it comes to measuring distance travelled, and this one doesn't even let you callibrate your own stride length. It guesses stride length based on your height which can onlly ever offer an average.
In any case, unless you run on a track or treadmill your stride length will vary during a run. I run cross country most of the time, and my stride length varies enormously depending on the terrain. While I am merely average in terms of performance, I do want to know how far my runs have been and the Nokia 5500 Sport can't deliver accurate enough informaton. The further you run, of course, the more out of kilter it will be. If you are cycling, another activity for which the Nokia 5500 says it is useful, the pedometer tells you nothing about distance travelled.
My tactic would be to buy a GPS antenna for the Nokia 5500 for a more accurate measure of distance covered, but if I were going to do that, I'd avoid the handset alltogether and buy separate kit which can measure my heart rate give me auto lap timers, estimated time of finishing a run and so on.
The bottom line is that anyone serious about training might find this handset lets them down. This is a pity, and Nokia has definately missed the mark.
Find out more, including about how you can control the phone just by tapping it, by reading my review at CNET.co.uk, here.