Official Nokia 5800 XpressMusic discussion thread
- Thread starter bhushan2k
- Start date
As promised, I am doing a mini review of the Nokia 5800 after having used it for a week.
Package Contents:
The 5800 comes with equipped with all the standard accessories you get with a Nokia high end phone. Most notable is the 8 GB card. The disappointing aspects are the scratchguard & the carry case. Does Nokia really expect anyone to continue using the provided Scratchguard with design all over it? And the carry case is strong enough to protect the phone but falls short on aesthetics and is very inconvenient to remove the phone from the case.
Looks & Build Quality:
The build quality of the 5800 is reasonably strong. Lookwise it looks decent IMHO but then everyone can have their own opinions. Obviously it could have been a bit thinner, but its fine with me. The size of the phone is more or less same as a N82, in fact if you see it from the backside, you wouldn't be expecting that its a touchscreen phone on the front. Whether that's good or bad is an individual opinion. From the front all thoughts whether it looks good or bad simply goes away the minute you put the awesome screen on (especially after you put your own plain screenguard and put up a scenic wallpaper) With the screen on, believe me, you will just end up looking at the phone for hours together.
Music:
I am not an audiophile so I can't really distinguish between 2 phones having more or less similar audio quality. But the sound output, both through headphones & loudspeakers is loud enough and of high quality.
Video:
Video playback is amazing, comparable to that of the iPhone. The high resolution of the screen plus the large screen size makes video watching a pleasure.
Camera:
Thats the most disappointing aspect of the phone. Its good enough outdoors with good lighting, but indoors it gives very grainy pictures with a greenish tinge. Overall the camers is the most disappointing aspect of the 5800.
GPS:
Fast enough. It took me 4-5 minutes to get a lock the first time, and subsequently I am getting a GPS lock within a minute.
Battery life:
Inspite of the fact that the phone has a large high resolution screen, the battery life is amazingly high. Even in the first week when we normally experiment with a new phone and try out various features, the battery easily lasted for 48 hours. The included charger is a high capacity charger and charges the phone from zero to full in just about an hour.
Bundled applications:
Having seen the applications Nokia is bundling recently with phones like E71 & N79/N85, I expected the 5800 to come preloaded with applications. Unfortunately there are none
No Quickoffice, no PDF reader, no Barcode reader, no Dictionary, no Advanced Call Manager. Nokia seems to have reserved these only for its E & N Series phones. There is a link provided in the phone to download & install Quickoffice viewer for free but would have been much simpler to have all these software preloaded. Of course, being a Symbian phone you can search & install all the applications, but would have been better if they would have been preloaded.
Browsing:
Due to the large screen, browsing is undoubtedly a pleasure. But the inbuilt browser or even Opera Mini comes nowhere near the browsing experience on an iPhone. As regards Opera Mini, I guess since the program is not optimised for 5800, it does not fit the text correctly in the screen size as it does for other Nokia phones. Overall, I would prefer the iPhone for surfing the net but amongst other phones, I will definitely choose the 5800 and thats mainly due to the large screen size.
Touchscreen:
There was a huge outcry when it was announced that Nokia will use resistive touch technology for the 5800 as against the capacitative touch used by the iPhone. I have used an iPhone quite extensively so I am in a position to compare both touch technologies. Let me assure you that Nokia's touch system is excellent. Make no mistake about that. It does lack the multi touch option whereby you can expand or shrink a photo on the screen but that's it. Apart from the lack of multi touch, the touch UI works flawlessly. As in the iPhone you can swipe images in the Gallery and also swipe pages in the HTML browser but swiping does not work in the Menus. The only disappointing part of the UI is the confusion between single clicking & double clicking an item to open it. Initially I was too bugged with it but with time it has now become a reflex action. I still feel that this confusion should have been avoided and hopefully Nokia will provide an option to simplify it with future firmware upgrades.
Home Screen:
This is one of the most disappointing aspects of the phone. If you are used to the home screen of a Windows Mobile phone, or for that matter the newer Symbian phones, then the home screen is a joke. You can only have either 4 shortcuts (customisable) or 4 contacts' shortcuts, but not a combination of the both. Apart from this its just the calendar entries below. I am severely disappointed with the home screen. You will need to install Handy Shell software to change & customise it completely. But out of the box it's a sad home screen.
Messaging:
I will try to answer the reservations that many people have regarding using a touchscreen phone for heavy texting. Initially, the first 3-4 days, whenever I had to compose a SMS, I felt as if I had to do a big complicated task. First getting to the messaging screen, then choosing contacts & then typing text, and doing all this without a physical keypad. I was beginning to get second thoughts about using a touchscreen phone with no physical keypad. But now one week down the line, I am happy to say that I have become very comfortable to the extent that I am enjoying it. Selecting a contact from the contact list does take a little more time than on a phone with a physical keypad, but thats about it. Nokia has provided so many options for messaging input, you will definitely love one of them if not all. There is a full QWERTY keypad which works in landscape mode which is just too good for typing long messages. There is a mini QWERTY which works in portrait mode which looks very small, but I have surprisingly started getting addicted to it much more than I had imagined and can type without making many errors. There is also a alphanumeric keypad like a normal non touchscreen phone just in case you remember the old days of physical keypads. And to round it up you also have handwriting recognition with a stylus. Nokia has covered all possible methods of inputting text on a touchscreen phone and within a week you will definitely forget your old physical keys.
Dialling:
I am including Dialling separately because its a touchscreen device and I know many people are apprehensive of the usability of touchscreen for dialling, the same way they are apprehensive about texting. As I said above, selecting a contact does take more time on a touchscreen than on a phone with a physical keypad. But after a week of using the phone you would have most of your regular contacts on speed dialling and the remaining on your recent calls list. So you will end up actually choosing a contact manually only 10% of the times. So it's quite ok that ways. And yes, compared to selecting a contact on an iPhone, its much more easy on the 5800 because as soon as you start typing a name, it will start showing you only such alphabets on the screen which exist in your contact list. For example if you have only 3 names starting from "R" in your address book, say Ravi, Rohan & Reema, then the minute you type R, it will ask u to choose from a,o & e only instead of showing all the 26 alphabets. Quite nice, I must say.
Conclusion: If you want a touchscreen phone with a large screen but are willing to compromise on the camera quality indoors & in dim light then the Nokia 5800 is the best phone you can get in 20k !!
I have hopefully covered 80% aspects of the 5800. Do ask me any questions & if necessary I will keep updating this review with the answers.
Package Contents:
The 5800 comes with equipped with all the standard accessories you get with a Nokia high end phone. Most notable is the 8 GB card. The disappointing aspects are the scratchguard & the carry case. Does Nokia really expect anyone to continue using the provided Scratchguard with design all over it? And the carry case is strong enough to protect the phone but falls short on aesthetics and is very inconvenient to remove the phone from the case.
Looks & Build Quality:
The build quality of the 5800 is reasonably strong. Lookwise it looks decent IMHO but then everyone can have their own opinions. Obviously it could have been a bit thinner, but its fine with me. The size of the phone is more or less same as a N82, in fact if you see it from the backside, you wouldn't be expecting that its a touchscreen phone on the front. Whether that's good or bad is an individual opinion. From the front all thoughts whether it looks good or bad simply goes away the minute you put the awesome screen on (especially after you put your own plain screenguard and put up a scenic wallpaper) With the screen on, believe me, you will just end up looking at the phone for hours together.
Music:
I am not an audiophile so I can't really distinguish between 2 phones having more or less similar audio quality. But the sound output, both through headphones & loudspeakers is loud enough and of high quality.
Video:
Video playback is amazing, comparable to that of the iPhone. The high resolution of the screen plus the large screen size makes video watching a pleasure.
Camera:
Thats the most disappointing aspect of the phone. Its good enough outdoors with good lighting, but indoors it gives very grainy pictures with a greenish tinge. Overall the camers is the most disappointing aspect of the 5800.
GPS:
Fast enough. It took me 4-5 minutes to get a lock the first time, and subsequently I am getting a GPS lock within a minute.
Battery life:
Inspite of the fact that the phone has a large high resolution screen, the battery life is amazingly high. Even in the first week when we normally experiment with a new phone and try out various features, the battery easily lasted for 48 hours. The included charger is a high capacity charger and charges the phone from zero to full in just about an hour.
Bundled applications:
Having seen the applications Nokia is bundling recently with phones like E71 & N79/N85, I expected the 5800 to come preloaded with applications. Unfortunately there are none
No Quickoffice, no PDF reader, no Barcode reader, no Dictionary, no Advanced Call Manager. Nokia seems to have reserved these only for its E & N Series phones. There is a link provided in the phone to download & install Quickoffice viewer for free but would have been much simpler to have all these software preloaded. Of course, being a Symbian phone you can search & install all the applications, but would have been better if they would have been preloaded.Browsing:
Due to the large screen, browsing is undoubtedly a pleasure. But the inbuilt browser or even Opera Mini comes nowhere near the browsing experience on an iPhone. As regards Opera Mini, I guess since the program is not optimised for 5800, it does not fit the text correctly in the screen size as it does for other Nokia phones. Overall, I would prefer the iPhone for surfing the net but amongst other phones, I will definitely choose the 5800 and thats mainly due to the large screen size.
Touchscreen:
There was a huge outcry when it was announced that Nokia will use resistive touch technology for the 5800 as against the capacitative touch used by the iPhone. I have used an iPhone quite extensively so I am in a position to compare both touch technologies. Let me assure you that Nokia's touch system is excellent. Make no mistake about that. It does lack the multi touch option whereby you can expand or shrink a photo on the screen but that's it. Apart from the lack of multi touch, the touch UI works flawlessly. As in the iPhone you can swipe images in the Gallery and also swipe pages in the HTML browser but swiping does not work in the Menus. The only disappointing part of the UI is the confusion between single clicking & double clicking an item to open it. Initially I was too bugged with it but with time it has now become a reflex action. I still feel that this confusion should have been avoided and hopefully Nokia will provide an option to simplify it with future firmware upgrades.
Home Screen:
This is one of the most disappointing aspects of the phone. If you are used to the home screen of a Windows Mobile phone, or for that matter the newer Symbian phones, then the home screen is a joke. You can only have either 4 shortcuts (customisable) or 4 contacts' shortcuts, but not a combination of the both. Apart from this its just the calendar entries below. I am severely disappointed with the home screen. You will need to install Handy Shell software to change & customise it completely. But out of the box it's a sad home screen.
Messaging:
I will try to answer the reservations that many people have regarding using a touchscreen phone for heavy texting. Initially, the first 3-4 days, whenever I had to compose a SMS, I felt as if I had to do a big complicated task. First getting to the messaging screen, then choosing contacts & then typing text, and doing all this without a physical keypad. I was beginning to get second thoughts about using a touchscreen phone with no physical keypad. But now one week down the line, I am happy to say that I have become very comfortable to the extent that I am enjoying it. Selecting a contact from the contact list does take a little more time than on a phone with a physical keypad, but thats about it. Nokia has provided so many options for messaging input, you will definitely love one of them if not all. There is a full QWERTY keypad which works in landscape mode which is just too good for typing long messages. There is a mini QWERTY which works in portrait mode which looks very small, but I have surprisingly started getting addicted to it much more than I had imagined and can type without making many errors. There is also a alphanumeric keypad like a normal non touchscreen phone just in case you remember the old days of physical keypads. And to round it up you also have handwriting recognition with a stylus. Nokia has covered all possible methods of inputting text on a touchscreen phone and within a week you will definitely forget your old physical keys.
Dialling:
I am including Dialling separately because its a touchscreen device and I know many people are apprehensive of the usability of touchscreen for dialling, the same way they are apprehensive about texting. As I said above, selecting a contact does take more time on a touchscreen than on a phone with a physical keypad. But after a week of using the phone you would have most of your regular contacts on speed dialling and the remaining on your recent calls list. So you will end up actually choosing a contact manually only 10% of the times. So it's quite ok that ways. And yes, compared to selecting a contact on an iPhone, its much more easy on the 5800 because as soon as you start typing a name, it will start showing you only such alphabets on the screen which exist in your contact list. For example if you have only 3 names starting from "R" in your address book, say Ravi, Rohan & Reema, then the minute you type R, it will ask u to choose from a,o & e only instead of showing all the 26 alphabets. Quite nice, I must say.
Conclusion: If you want a touchscreen phone with a large screen but are willing to compromise on the camera quality indoors & in dim light then the Nokia 5800 is the best phone you can get in 20k !!
I have hopefully covered 80% aspects of the 5800. Do ask me any questions & if necessary I will keep updating this review with the answers.
Last edited:
IronManForever
IronMan; Ready to Roll...
Nice review nikeel
krazzy
Techtree Reviewer
Same here. It's decent but nothing particularly spectacular about it.Saw it today. Didn't like it as much as I expected to.
Coool
I'm Back!:D
dreamcatcher
Rockin g33k
Tried it today.The material is pretty cheap and the UI is SLOW. It took more than 5 secs for the phone to return to normal after closing the messaging option. Messaging is pretty good here. the qwerty keyboard was a bit small to my liking but the alphanumeric keyboard was decent. The screen was pretty sharp. But overall, this phone reminded me of the 3230s and the 6600s. I hope the bugs get bailed out in a firmware release soon.
@ Pat, IronManForever, Coool : Thanks !!
5 secs ???? It takes less than 1 second for the phone to return to normal after closing messaging
5 secs ???? It takes less than 1 second for the phone to return to normal after closing messaging
Last edited:
Last edited:
krazzy
Techtree Reviewer
After spending about a day with our review sample, these are my first impressions of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.
The phone looks very smart but is a bit on the thicker side. The weight of the phone is thankfully low but that's because it's all plastic and hence lacks the robustness and quality feel of metal. The display looks totally awesome. As for the UI, those familiar with S60 can find their way around easily but the single tap-double tap thingy is annoying. The resistive touchscreen isn't as good to use as a capacitive one and there is no flick scrolling like in the iPhone OS. Interface speed is good though.
The sound quality is great, both in headphones and loudspeaker. The camera is decent and acceptable for a music phone but not a highlight of the phone. The on-screen keypad is good and there are various versions of it. The browser is quite good but is a bit slow and not as nice as the Safari in iPhone.
That's all for now. You can read the full review on Techtree soon (although I won't be writing that).
The phone looks very smart but is a bit on the thicker side. The weight of the phone is thankfully low but that's because it's all plastic and hence lacks the robustness and quality feel of metal. The display looks totally awesome. As for the UI, those familiar with S60 can find their way around easily but the single tap-double tap thingy is annoying. The resistive touchscreen isn't as good to use as a capacitive one and there is no flick scrolling like in the iPhone OS. Interface speed is good though.
The sound quality is great, both in headphones and loudspeaker. The camera is decent and acceptable for a music phone but not a highlight of the phone. The on-screen keypad is good and there are various versions of it. The browser is quite good but is a bit slow and not as nice as the Safari in iPhone.
That's all for now. You can read the full review on Techtree soon (although I won't be writing that).
I am only keeping my fingers crossed that I don't face the earpiece problem that many people around the world & "samudragupta" on these forums have reported.
You will need to take it to the Nokia care center. Its apparently some hardware problem thats been cropping up on quite a few handsets worldwide and can be easily rectified by Nokia care. Google for "Nokia 5800 earpiece problems" for the solution which needs to be done. Don't attempt it yourselves though
You will need to take it to the Nokia care center. Its apparently some hardware problem thats been cropping up on quite a few handsets worldwide and can be easily rectified by Nokia care. Google for "Nokia 5800 earpiece problems" for the solution which needs to be done. Don't attempt it yourselves though
Last edited:
damngoodman999
damnbadman666
i got the SENHEISSER head phone alone which comes with 5800XM , i bought it for 500/- frm local dealer - the head phone is really good
I am using with N82 its great though
I am using with N82 its great though
krazzy
Techtree Reviewer
Huh?
If you buy it from a NPD for its MRP of Rs.21800 then u get Sennheiser LX90 headphones free.
Pathik
Google Bot
krazzy
Techtree Reviewer
Abey tu kyu nai likh raha?
--- Off Topic---
Cause there are two mobile reviewers at Techtree
. And we share our work. I have three devices now and the other one (Frazier Barreto) is free. So he got the 5800. Nevertheless I still got to play around with it and at the end of the day that's what matters to me. Trust me, the writing part (and the photography) are the most boring part of reviewing. --- Off Topic---
Oh. That's nice. Didn't know that.
Last edited:
afaik NPD charges bet 20-20.5k for the 5800XM + Sennheiser LX90.
offtopic :
is a 2month old Omnia 8GB for 20.5k shipped a gud deal?worth getting it?
fone comes with bill & all original accessories.