I think this is an important issue which merits a thread to catch the attention of potential buyers, in the topic title itself.
With thousands of posts in hundreds of pages in the now v3 of Nokia 5800 specific threads,
some people might miss this important defect of Nokia XM5800.

I have been (and still is) seriously considering buying Nokia 5800, after years of not upgrading.
Since I came to know of Nokia 5800, I have given iPhone, Blackberry and LG Renoir a pass.

With AP set selling at RM1500 -1650 one week ago, it came as a pleasant surprise that the original sets can be had for as low as RM1335 from various LYN dealers in past one week.

I am not familiar with handphones market, but rarely if ever do retail price of original sets go lower than AP sets,
and this must have caught many AP sets dealers by surprise!

Though the launch date is a few days from now, some posters in the 5800 thread are saying that the RRP of original Nokia 5800 is RM1499. Why Nokia themselves give us such a good deal? With its functionality, style, and hype, a price of RM1700 - 1800 should still remain competitive against other touch screen phones!

Now there is one very plausible reason. Looking at the following poll about half users experienced erratic earphone volume problem within days of usage! And those that fortunately have not (yet) might get it later on!



Reading through Nokia 5800 threads, this problem is attributed to manufacture defect whereby the earphones does not have good contact with the circuit board.
Though it is claimed to be easily repaired, the questions that keep bugging me as a potential serious (but not so easily swayed by excitement/'poison' ;-) ) are:



Some argue that earphone volume is not big deal, but isn't a phone primary function voice call?
For me, it must be a tool first, a gadget distant second, and a toy never.

Don't get be wrong. I am not campagning against XM 5800. RM1350 is still a fairly good price for all its good features,
even if one use it as a PDA-cum-Bluetooth earpiece phone. But psycologically, when the problem hits you,
when it fails your expectation, RM1350 will suddenly seem pricey. You will start asking: no wonder Nokia prices XM 5800 orig so low.

So, for those who have not bought but consider buying it, be a smart discerning calm consumer, and better start asking now rather than later:



(As an aside, apparently those Finland sets are okay, but those made in China sets are defective. That is why many users in forums of Chinese users found out the issues first.)

Just did a bit of searching, apparently this volume issue is widely recognised at Symbian-Freak forum, affecting users from various regions around the world, Russia, UEA, US, Europe etc etc.
I guess XM 5800 has not been officially launched in any of these regions.
They probably get parallel import sets too.
But from this link, http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/discus...ssage.id=121283
this problem is widespread and affect orignial sets sold in Spain etc. (have not got the time to read through all messages).

Therefore, I doubt the original sets are free of such defect. One poster at the above thread said:


i think nokia should make a formal announcement about this factory fault

I think the prudent thing to do is to wait and watch. See if the orig sets after the launch date or a later batch are free of such rampant manufacture defect. Such a pity that I have waited for 4 years. Well, on the flip side I can wait another 4 weeks :-)