Nokia’s latest addition to their XpressMusic line brings with it a touchscreen interface and a bevy of features and multimedia goodies.
HO-HUM...another touchscreen phone. And a Nokia one at that. And it even looks like an iPhone.
We just wonder if everyone is just trying to create the next iPhone-killer. But then again, let’s not be biased. Nokia has tried to turn the 5800 into a multimedia powerhouse and has succeeded to some degree. Let’s have a closer look.
Check out that body
The body of the 5800 is constructed entirely of plastic. It isn’t as strong or sturdy as compared to a stainless steel bodied device such as the Nokia E71 but it feels solid enough. Holding it gives you a certain degree of comfort. Its shape is also comfortable enough for single thumb operation and I didn’t find myself having to stretch my thumb to reach most of the screen.
What a large screen you have..
The 5800 has a 3.2in screen in a 16:9 ratio which lets you play videos at 360p HD resolution. Suffice to say, the colours are clear and vibrant.
The screen is a resistive touchscreen which means it’s pressure-based. A capacitive touchscreen (such as that found on the iPhone) on the other hand, only works with skin contact and therefore only your fingertips alone can be detected by the screen.
The screen on the 5800 allows you to use your fingertips, nails or stylus. This opens up the possibility for different styles of input such as using handwriting recognition. Although not as responsive as a capacitive touchscreen, I found it to be good enough. You just have to put a little bit more force into your taps.
The only problem about the screen is the poor legibility under bright sunlight. It became extremely gray with the contrast becoming very poor. Unless you are outdoors most of the time, you wouldn’t find this a problem.
Touch-enabled OS
Being Nokia’s first Symbian S60 touch-enabled phone, the Finns have updated their current Symbian OS to 5th Edition. The user interface (UI) has been modified to be more touch-friendly.
The options in the menus and applications are generally placed logically and you can easily find what you’re looking for.
The only weird part of the UI is having to “double-tap” an item to execute a command — the first tap selects the item and the second executes it. The only logic for this is that when an item is selected, you have more options by tapping on the “Options” button. This behaviour is mostly found in lists. However, icons require just a single tap to execute.
The quirkiness of the UI needing double or single taps does need some getting used to initially, but you do get the hang of it after a while. Hopefully, the “double-tap” issue gets addressed by Nokia in the future.
The 5800 also allows for haptic (vibration) feedback whenever the screen is tapped. The strength of the feedback can be controlled and even turned off if you like to conserve a bit of battery power.
As with so many other touchscreen phones, the UI also has “theme effects” to make it look more interesting. The effects are simple wipes, zoom outs and slides when switching between different screens and are randomised.
They’re not as polished as the iPhone’s effects nor as fancy as those of the HTC Touch Diamond’s TouchFlo 3D.
Turning the effects on does make the 5800 slower. The default setting is to have them turned off and I did not find them appealing enough for the extra lag in response keep it on.
Media centre
The 5800 comes with 81MB of internal memory but it has an MicroSD card slot that accepts MicroSD and MicroSDHC cards of up to 16GB. The package includes an 8GB MicroSD card that should be enough to get you started.
Now, with that much space you could stuff in all your songs, videos and photos.
To reinforce just how media-centred the 5800 is, there is a touch-sensitive area above the touchscreen that is not part of the screen itself called the Media button. Pressing it drops a tab with icons that give you quick access to Music, Photo Gallery, Share Media, Video Centre and Web.
The 5800 has an audio chip to specifically handle your music and it also comes with stereo speakers that can go really loud. I mean really loud! In terms of built-in handphone speakers, these could very well be the loudest ones on the market today.
The only shortfall is because of the physical size of the speakers, they are way too small to generate full bass and at volumes above 50%, distortion starts to creep in.
There is a 3.5mm audio jack at the top of the phone, so you can plug in your headphones directly or through the supplied handsfree set that also functions as a remote control.
As usual, the default earphones of most audio devices in the market are tinny sounding so I tested the sound on a pair of Sennheiser MX500 earphones. The audio came out clear and without distortion this time and the bass was strong which is good for you bassheads out there.
I like my music without so much bass, so I made my own equaliser settings. The good thing is you can make your own equaliser settings without being constrained to a few defaults. There’s also a Bass Booster and Stereo Expander setting to give your music that extra “oomph” if you like those effects.
Not so picture perfect
The camera is a bit of a letdown though. Even though the specifications are noteworthy, the image processing itself was poor. Images usually turned out off-colour and noisy. Pictures taken in bright sunlight fare better and I recommend you play with the settings to get the best of indoor shots.
Video is a different story. Shooting at 30fps, the videos themselves look clear on the screen. You can even turn on the dual LEDs for extra lighting. There is also a bundled TV-out cable that connects to the 3.5mm audio jack so that you can watch your videos on your TV. Since the 5800 can only play MP4, WMV and 3GP files, it would have been sweeter if it could playback AVI files as well.
Wait… it’s a phone right?
Yes, the 5800 is a phone underneath all the bells and whistles. The voice clarity for calls is crystal clear. However, there have been reports that there is a manufacturing hiccup on nearly half the 5800s sold in the market where the earpiece speaker connectors are a tiny bit loose.
This slight defect causes the sound to fluctuate between being too loud or too silent to the point of being inaudible. Fortunately, you can get this problem fixed at Nokia Service Centres as it’s quite a simple operation.
For those of you who are worried that contact with your face and the touchscreen during calls causes unwanted commands to be executed, you will be pleased to know there is a proximity sensor that deactivates the screen whenever there is something close to it.
SMSes can be typed via a virtual alphanumeric keypad, mini Qwerty keyboard, virtual full Qwerty keyboard and handwriting. You can use the supplied guitar pick or the normal stylus for the mini Qwerty keyboard or handwriting. The mini Qwerty keyboard is just too mini for comfortable finger input so it necessitates the use of a stylus. Handwriting recognition is quite good and most of the strokes were easily recognised.
The alphanumeric keypad is good for single-handed typing and the full Qwerty keyboard lets you type faster with two hands.
Other extras
GPS and Nokia Maps 2.0 work very well together to pinpoint your location. A lock on your phone position can be achieved within a minute or less. You will need to upgrade the Maps application to have it give you route plotting and voice guidance.
There is also a radio function but that only works when you connect the headset to it. Reception is not the best and only improves when you are on a higher floor of a building.
The Calendar and Notes applications can help you set reminders and plan your day. You can also download QuickOffice and Acrobat Reader to read Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files.
Thanks to the WiFi and 3G capabilities, surfing speeds were comfortable and fast. The web browser rendered pages quickly and correctly.
Flash elements can even play in the browser itself. The only problem I found was that some video sites have Flash players that do not work quite well on the phone. But aside from that, reading text on the sites is quite comfortable thanks to the high resolution screen. You can zoom in on text, and pan the view as well.
Wrapping up
Since this is Nokia’s first Symbian S60 5th Edition smartphone on the market, there aren’t many applications that are available for it at the moment.
Third Edition applications can still work on the 5800 but they may act unpredictably as they’re not optimised for the touch interface. Give it a few more months and we should see more 5th Edition apps that make more use of the touch interface.
Another attractive factor of the 5800 is that it is bundled with Nokia’s Comes with Music Service which lets you download 1,000 songs for free. Now that’s music to a music lover’s ears.
Using the GPS for 20 minutes, an hour of web surfing via WiFi, an hour plus of music playback and general calls and messaging on a daily basis should get three days on a single battery charge which is pretty good. The phone doesn’t charge via USB though.
All in all, the features you get in this package for this price almost lets you forgive the little bugs on the phone. The 5800 is recommended for those looking for a music phone with a bit more power and features.
For those looking for a more business-oriented smartphone, the 5800 probably won’t be enough for your needs but a few extra applications could solve that problem.
Pros: Affordable; nice screen; excellent music playback; loud speakers; loads of features for a mid-range phone; good battery life.
Cons: Poor camera picture quality; user interface needs some extra work; poor screen legibility outdoors.
5800 XPRESSMUSIC
(Nokia)
3G music phone
Camera: 3.2-megapixels; autofocus; dual LED flash
Display: 3.2in TFT touchscreen (360 x 640pixels)
Operating System: Symbian 9.4, S60 5th Edition
Messaging: SMS, MMS, e-mail
Connectivity: GSM850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 900/2100, Bluetooth, USB, WiFi
Expansion slot: MicroSD / MicroSDHC up to 16GB
Phone memory: 81MB internal memory, 8GB MicroSD supplied
Battery type: 1320mAh lithium-ion (BL-5J)
Standby/talk time: 406 hours/8 hours 45 mins
Other features: Music player, Radio, GPS (A-GPS)
Weight: 109g
Dimensions (w x d x h): 111 x 51.7 x 15.5mm
Price: RM1,499
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