From the news release:

On the bank of Iceland’s world-famous Blue Lagoon, the Nokia 5500 Sport leaped into the world arena, displaying its sleek, sporty design with an athletic lifestyle appeal. The Nokia 5500 Sport features all the technology that every active-minded consumer needs, and is specially designed to withstand the daily rigours of work and work-out.

“The Nokia 5500 Sport combines the passion and spirit of sports with the latest in mobile communications. It’s an ideal companion for an active, urban lifestyle,” says Heikki Norta, Senior Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia. “There is a very sizeable audience of consumers who demand sport-inspired products, even if they are not professional athletes themselves. The Nokia 5500 Sport offers these consumers a mobile phone suited to their specific needs - during a jog in the park, a day at the beach and even that dress-to-impress first date.”

A Mode to Match Your Mood
A single button serves to activate three dedicated “modes” - a phone mode to stay in touch, the music mode to unwind or power-up, and the sports mode to help you break a sweat. The Nokia 5500 Sport also offers “text-to-speech” technology. Don’t take your eyes off the track or that magazine, just tap the Nokia 5500 Sport and the message is read out to you. In sports mode, the Nokia 5500 Sport reads the status of your workout, allowing you to stay focused on the task, or the exercise, at hand.

When music is on your mind, the Nokia 5500 Sport gives you a jump start. Supporting a multitude of different digital music formats and memory cards of up to 1GB (microSD), the Nokia 5500 Sport can hold approximately 750 songs. With your music collection in hand, every activity has its own soundtrack!

Switched into sports mode, the Nokia 5500 Sport helps you keep track of work or your work-out. The integrated pedometer feature serves to monitor distance walked or calories burnt -during a busy day in the city or that breathtaking cardio session. For extra durability, the Nokia 5500 Sport features an ergonomic stainless steel casing, complemented by a splash and dust resistant shell and rubber grips. The sleek Nokia 5500 Sport is engineered with materials used in the latest high performance running shoes which make it look good on and off the court.

The triband Nokia 5500 Sport (GSM 900/1800/1900) is scheduled to sprint into stores during the summer (3rd quarter) of 2006 and is expected to retail for around 300 EUR before taxes and subsidies.

Nokia 5500 Reviews

Mobile-Review reviews the Nokia 5500, and finds: “The model does not have any problems with network reception quality, the voice of interlocutor is clearly heard, as well as yours. The volume of 64-tone polyphonic ring tone is high in case you use mp3 files. In this case the quality of polyphonic ring tones is not so important. Vibrating alert’s power is below average, it cannot be felt all the time. … This is one of the best smartphones in Nokia’s and S60 history. …There’s only one disadvantage for this product – battery life.” Link.

Trusted Reviews has a review up of the Nokia 5500 Sport and writes, “However, for serious smartphone use the Nokia 5500 Sport falls short of expectations due to its small screen. At just 208 x 208 pixels and about 1.7in it is a bit squeezed for diary viewing. Also if you are a fan of mobile web browsing, pages are going to be seriously small. Setting the font size down to its smallest helped, but the tiny text is not easily readable. … The bottom line has to be that if you want to get fit and would like some tech to monitor progress, look elsewhere. The Nokia 5500 simply isn’t accurate enough to help you train seriously and this is why it has scored so low. On the other hand, it is a small and neat phone with S60 third edition smartphone capability, and so is very capable. It will appeal though to tradespeople such as painters and decorators, where a waterproof, dustproof handset will be just the ticket.” Link.

Lordpercy has a review up of the Nokia 5500 and writes, ” Finally Nokia have decided to market a phone towards users who want a good phone at a cheap price. Rather than release another smartphone, the decision to leave off the N at the start of the name is a good one. Previously the N series phones have put a few older users off these fully featured handsets, and whilst the 5500 isn’t complicated to use, by no means is this a basic phone. Definitely one to consider.” Link.

MobileBurn has a review of the Nokia 5500 Sport and concludes, “To be honest with you, I was not too impressed when I first started using the 5500. The funny design and the hard keypad did not give me a good impression. But as time went by, the device started to grow on me. It is inappropriate to compare this with mainstream smartphones for the reason that this is a de facto sports and music handset, that is what it’s built for, and it has already delivered what it promised in our tests if not more. … Apart from the slightly muffled sound over the earpiece and the difficult keypad, there is really not much I can fault with the 5500. The only comparable device in the market right now would be the Sony Ericsson W710, which cannot compete in terms of function. If you are looking for a sporty music handset right now, the Nokia 5500 is a capable device that I would highly recommend.” Link.