Jan 23 2009, 05:36 PM, updated 17y ago
Introduction
Announced at Nokia's Remix event in London, at the beginning of
October 2008, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a mid-range, music focused
phone, running S60 5th Edition on Symbian OS 9.4, with a 3.2 megapixel
camera, integrated GPS, WiFi and HSDPA connectivity, and a 3.2 inch
touch screen. It's the last item on this feature list which draws
attention to what would otherwise be a fairly standard mid range phone.
For the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is one of Nokia's most widely talked
about (and leaked) phones of recent memory. There's no doubt that it is
going to garner attention, coming in the wake of the recent spate of
touch phones, including, of course, the Apple iPhone. While it's not
Nokia's first touch phone (Nokia 7700/7110) or its first recent touch
device (Nokia N810), it is the first S60 touch enabled phone and is a
significant landmark in Nokia's mobile device story. However, it is
worth noting from the start that it is not "Nokia's touch phone",
instead it is the first in a portfolio of touch enabled phones from
Nokia. This is an important distinction because, while the 5800 can
tell us much about Nokia's touch platform generally, it can only be
fairly assessed in the context of its own market positioning (music
focused, cost of 279 Euro before taxes and subsidies).
General Design and Hardware
The 5800, at 111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm, is a reasonably small
package. It is similar in size to the N78 (113 x 49 x 15.1 mm), but
slightly heavier at 109g versus 102g. Volume wise, the 5800 is bigger
at 83 cc compared to the N78 at 76.5 cc; it does feel bigger in the
hand, mainly due to the greater taper on its edges. While the 5800 is
significantly bigger than the typical mid-range phone and would do well
to be thinner, it compares favourably to other smartphones and does not
feel over sized.
Thanks to its relatively narrow width it is, proportionally, closer to
the traditional candy bar shape (long rectangle) than most touch screen
based phones (short rectangle). If you think of your typical candybar
smartphone, remove the keypad and lengthen the screen and you'll get
pretty close to the feel of the 5800. The key advantage of this shape
is that, for most people, it will be possible to use the device with
just one hand; even those with smaller fingers should be able to reach
all points on the screen.
The 3.2 megapixel camera focuses well and takes great pictures
in daylight -- indoors is likely a different story, as with most
cameraphones, but there's a rather powerful dual LED flash to help out
with that.
All of this -- in addition to things like GPS, WiFi and a side
-loading microSD slot (there's a free 8GB card included) -- are wrapped
up into an elongated, chubby package, hence the Tube moniker. We'd hate
to have something of its shape and thickness in a tight jeans front
pocket on a regular basis, but we must admit that it's very comfortable
to hold and use with a single hand, something that can't be said for
all touchscreen phones.
Software
It's S60, so if you were hoping for something else you'll be
sorely disappointed. Nokia's done "just enough" to turn the traditional
interface into a touchable one with version 5.0, sizing up icons,
adding finger-friendly buttons in lieu of traditional menu items and so
forth. What Nokia hasn't quite figured out is consistency, requiring
double taps in some places, single taps in others. Scrolling through
most lists requires dragging a scroll bar, pulling down as the list
flies up, but the browser has touch and drag scrolling. Nothing's too
frustrating or unreasonable, but this is no seamless experience.
What's new is a touch-sensitive button above the screen that
drops down the Media Bar for access to music, movies, photos, the
browser and sharing. Not life changing, but quite convenient. There's
also a new home screen with a "Fav Four" of sorts across the top and
little else. Tap that friend, and you can get a quick look at recent
calls, messages and even related RSS feeds. Pretty neat if you're a
loner, but there's no way to add more than four friends, or view
similar info for your regular contacts that don't make the cut.
Luckily, the traditional S60 home screen is also available.
For text input you have four options: handwriting, mini QWERTY
keyboard, full screen QWERTY and alphanumeric keypad. The first two are
stylus-based (that mini QWERTY is truly mini), while the other two are
only available in landscape and portrait modes, respectively. Like we
said in the hardware end of things, the resistive touch means using the
tips of your fingers instead of the pads, which we find a tad
frustrating, but the keyboard in landscape mode is truly gargantuan,
and after an hour or two of learning we're guessing you could rattle
off some pretty lengthly emails or Great American Novels. Luckily, if
you're a T9 fan there's nothing stopping you from keeping the phone in
portrait mode and rattling off text messages with the touchable
alphanumeric keypad, and the phone is frankly too narrow to work well
with QWERTY in portrait. The handwriting recognition looks good enough,
but we revert to a 2nd grade writing level whenever we pick up a pen,
so that stylus is staying firmly in its holster.
We're not convinced the touchable browser is a step up over existing
WebKit implementations on Nokia's other handsets, since the tap to zoom
function is slow and unreliable -- and no, you can't select text from
web pages to copy and paste. Panning around the page is also jittery,
perhaps a tad worse than the G1 -- nobody has managed to pull off
iPhone smooth yet in this department. We were using a slightly early
software build, so some of these problems might be fixed in the final
version, but it wasn't encouraging. Still, there's no denying the
advantages of viewing the web on a 640 x 360 LCD.
We tested out an accelerometer-based driving game, but it was
overly sensitive and no-fun-at-all -- though we're guessing that
wouldn't be a hard fix. The graphics looked pretty good, though. Movies
are potentially this phone's killer app, but you'll have to do the
conversion just right to get smooth playback at full resolution. We did
see some video shot with the phone (that Sea World shot in the gallery)
and it looked pretty good.
Conclusion
If you haven't picked it up by now, Nokia isn't going after the
power users here. The phone will be marketed under Nokia's "Live"
banner, and really concentrates on the most basic communications --
calling and texting -- with a whole bunch of multimedia piled on top.
Nokia's Comes With Music helps on that end of things, and the screen
certainly helps with video, but this is no iPhone when it comes to to
solid media integration or full-featured media player apps. On the
communication side, we're sad to see Nokia almost burying some of its
S60 advantages. Everything's still there, but Nokia didn't put the
gruntwork in necessary to really take advantage a next-gen interface as
it relates to keeping track of emails, social networking, IM and the
correspondences of more than four people. All that said, Nokia isn't
claiming that the 5800 is the be all end all, is releasing it with a
very aggressive price point (€279 unlocked), and promises more where
this came from.
Info quoted from www.Engadget.com while photos are courtesy of www.Sogi.com.tw
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Spec:
» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «
What's in the box
Official Retail Price: RM1499
(Original Distributor: Zitron, Avaxx, Sapura, i-Mobile)
Bargain and sourcing around, you might get a better price, approx RM13XX.
For screen protector:
"Got it for RM18 and its the "Skool" brand. The SP got pre-cut lubangs for the earpiece, light and proximity sensors and the 3 keys at the bottom front of the phone. Glossy type. So far so good."
Alternatively, you may want to take a look at Martin Fields Overlay Plus Screen Protectors for Nokia 5800
This post has been edited by Eiraku: Jan 23 2009, 06:10 PM
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