Ye Giant Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Review

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, is Nokia’s latest entry in this Touch-screen mad world.

While this is not necessarily Nokia’s first Touchscreen device ever, it’s the first that runs on the newer version of S60 (aka S60 V5), which is optimised for touch.

We’ve had the 5800 for about a month now, and we’re pretty impressed by what it’s got going on. Read on for the review.

As we begin this review, we feel its worth mentioning that our format is a bit different this around. Because the 5800 was the first S60 touch device, it bought along with it, a number of firsts which we’ve posted about in separate articles. Hence, in some cases we’ll have to link back to an article, rather than explain it again here.

The device in this review was on Firmware version 20.0.012.

The 5800 XpressMusic is positioned as a mid-range device. But for it’s price, it offers quite a load of features, from its massive beautiful 3.2″ touchscreen to the inbuilt Wifi and GPS. The 3.2 Megapixel Carl Zeiss Lens sweetens that deal a bit.

Here are a couple of the features that the 5800 boasts :

• 3.2″ 16M-color TFT LCD 16:9 resistive touchscreen display at 360 x 640 pixels (Nokia calls this resolution WVGA)
• Symbian S60 5th edition
• ARM 11 369 MHz CPU, 128 MB of SDRAM memory
• 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and widescreen VGA video recording at 30fps
• Quad-band GSM with Dual-band 3G with HSDPA support
• Wi-Fiand GPS inbuilt
• microSD card expandable, includes 8GB in package
• TV out through standard 3.5mm Audio Jack
• FM, Bluetooth and USB v2.0
• Landscape on-screen virtual QWERTY keyboard
• Proximity sensor for screen auto turn-off andAccelerometer sensor for automatic UI rotation and motion-based gaming

Phew. That’s not bad is it ? And that’s just a few. You can read the full list of features on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Specs Page.

Moving on, the 5800 measures 111 mm x 51.7 mm x 15.1 mm at 109gms, which is pretty dang compact in my opinion.

What this means is, you’ve got a phone that feels great in your hands. Not too big, not too wide.

The build quality is pretty great. Sure, it doesnt feel as expensive as an Eseries device, but its pretty much Rock Solid in its plastic Monoblock form factor. No creaks or strange sounds whatsoever, and the screen seemed pretty scratch resistant inspite of our daily use.

Now, on with the pictures !

Front View :

The first thing that grabs your attention on the front of the 5800, is that huge massive 3.2″ resistive touchscreen. The screen is set at 16:9 format at 360 x 640 pixels which Nokia’s calling Widescreen VGA (or WVGA for short). It’s pretty bright and very crisp and clear. It would have been nice to see an OLED screen on this device, but the standard TFT LCD doest a great job. However, you might not want to take this thing out into direct sunlight, because things just just barely legible under that condition. You can see samples of the 5800 Screen in action, in our Screen Comparison Post with the N85.

When you’re done looking at the screen, you’ll probably notice the row of three hardware buttons at the bottom. In a very minimalistic and simple look, they’re just Green, White and Red Dashes. As you’d expect, the Green and Red are the Green call button and Red Call-End button respectively, which retain the same functions now, as in previous S60 iterations.

But the new thing here, is the White “dash” button. It’s the new look of the Menu button. While I’ve been used to seeing the S60 Menu button symbol for years, this one took some getting used to. Most people who were checking out our device, did not even know what this button did, and were looking for an on-screen menu icon to tap.

The row of buttons is great and all and have good feedback, but it does take away from the “Touch” experience a bit, because you’ll have to move your thumb(or finger of choice) from the touch screen to press these buttons occasionally, to do a certain task.

At the top of the device, you have the earpiece speaker, a proximity sensor (to turn off the screen when you’re putting the phone near your ear to make a call), the front-facing VGA call camera, and right next to the XpressMusic logo, you have a new “Media Bar” icon which brings up the Media Bar.

The Media Bar is a new ‘feature’ introduced in the 5800, that brings up a translucent bar having shortcuts to the Music Player, Images, Share online, Video and Web Browsing applications. We’ve written about this in detail in our S60 V5 Media post, so we wont go into detail again here.

One Note I feel is worth mentioning is, our 5800 Unit came with a certain Earpiece Problem which meant you couldnt hear the person on the other line properly/at all. This was subsequently fixed, and all 5800s Manufactured after Febuary should not have this problem.

Back View :

The Back of the Nokia 5800 continues its Minimalistic look with just the 3.2 Megapixel Camera making an appearance. We’ll go into more detail on the camera, later in the review.

The Stylus (which you’ll probably never use unless you’re really into handwriting) is hidden in a corner and snaps in and out of place very well. There’s no “loose fitting” feeling when the stylus is stored in the device.

Top View :

The top of the device has the Power Button (left), Standard Nokia Charging Port, 3.5 mm Standard Audio Jack and the Micro-USB port(right) which is covered with a rubber-flap to prevent dust from entering in.

Unfortunately, the 5800 does not charge through it’s microUSB port, which is a bit of a letdown but not a huge deal.

Bottom View :

There’s nothing here other than the phone Microphone, which is just a tiny little hole. There’s also a little indentation where you can remove the back panel.

Left View :

The left side of the device contains it’s MicroSD port and Sim Card port, both having a plastic flap cover to keep any dust from entering it.

The two stereo loudspeakers of the 5800 are also here but hard to spot. They’re ridiculously loud for their size though. Almost close to N96 sound levels.

On the extreme right side, there’s an attachment for a lanyard cable, if you would like to use one (there are two in the retail box).

Right View :

On the right side, the 5800 is similar to many of the newer Nseries devices, having its dedicated Camera button, and Zoom in/out keys.

It’s keypad lock slider-switch key is also here, which is brilliantly placed in my opinion.

I say it’s brilliantly placed, because (if you’re right handed) it’s in the perfect place for your thumb reach over to use, and has just the right amount of give to it.

The Battery :

The 5800 uses the BL-5J battery, which is 1320 mAh. Under our tests, it would easily last a day, but can definitely go much longer depending on your usage.

With about an hour of calling, 30mins of Music, about 20minutes of Wifi and GPRS, and another 20 minutes of GPS usage, the 5800 still came back home with 2 battery bars to spare, with the screen on full brightness and haptic feedback set to level 3 (max).

The Box :

The Usual XpressMusic retail Box, with the usual colors thrown around. This is the APAC version just fyi.

Included in the Retail Package :

The 5800′s retail ships with a LOT of extras. You have the usual Charger, MicroUSB cable and TV-out cable. But you also get a carrying case, a lanyard cable, a desktop stand(which can also be used as a lanyard cable), a pair of headphones and the headset remote attachment.

You also get an extra stylus incase you lose the one you have, a mini-DVD with Nokia PC Suite and some extras, and a whole bunch of brochures in addition to the Manual.

You can check out our Nokia 5800 unboxing video, for a more detailed look at the retail package contents.

The Camera :

The 5800′s camera is okay. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s results are pretty decent in most conditions. Low lighting is definitely its weakest situation though.

Images are taken at 3.2 Megapixels, while Video is recorded at wVGA resolution.

You can check out our Nokia 5800 Camera Interface and Samples post, for a more detailed look at this section, as there’s no need to go into detail on that topic again here.

The S60 V5 UI, Menu and Home Screen:

S60 V5 is a brand new version of S60 for touch enabled devices. The previous version of S60 is known as S60V3. V5 basically improves on V3 (there is no V4) in a few places and makes everything do-able on a Touch Interface.

There are a LOT of new things, and improvements in S60 V5. And there’s still the usual bells and whistles like Multitasking and such. You can check them out in our Introducing S60 V5 Series, because really, there are too many to list out here in one post.

Internet Browsing :

You cant have a device today, in this age, without expecting some sort of Internet capabilities out of it. Luckily, the 5800 does this pretty well. There’s Flash support built-in, so you can play YouTube Videos, or Flash games right on the browser, as you would on your PC.

We’ve discussed Web Browsing in our S60 V5 Media Post, which you can check for more details on this section.

Messaging and Text Input :

The 5800 comes with a variety of Text Input methods. From a Fullscreen QWERTY keyboard, to T9 alphanumeric keypad, to Handwriting, it’s all in here. Not to mention, Text Copy-Paste is a standard feature on S60.

You can read our Typing and Text Input on the Nokia 5800 Post to know more about this section.

Contacts and Calender :

The contacts application is basically the same on the 5800, as in S60 V3 devices (which is a good thing). It’s just optimised for a touch interface. Scrolling through a large list of contacts can be a bit tedious though. Hopefully that will be improved in an upcoming firmware.

There is, however, a sligthly tighter integration with Contacts and Web feeds(such as Twitter, Facebook, etc) thanks to the Contacts Bar theme on the Active Standby Screen.

When it comes to the Calender Application, I was really happy to see the Eseries Calender App in use here :

You can read more about this section in our post about Contacts and Calender on the 5800.

The Gallery :

The S60 V5 arranges your media according to sound clips (.wav), Music(.mp3s and other audio formats), Images (.jpg and other formats), Video(.mp4,.3gp, etc) and Others(flash files, pdfs, etc).

You can read about this section in more detail in our post about Media on the 5800.

Again, scrolling though your images in the Gallery, can be tedious if you’re using that tiny scrollbar.

GPS and Connectivity :

GPS works pretty well on the 5800. Lock on times took a bit longer than the Nseries and Eseries devices I’m used to though. But once locked on, losing signal is a rare occasion, unless you’re passing though a tunnel or something.

When it comes to connectivity, the 5800 doesnt disappoint. It’s got Wifi, Bluetooth, Usb, the whole deal.

You can read more about this section in our post about GPS and Connectivity on the 5800.

Music :

Nokia’s marketing the 5800 in the XpressMusic mid-range segment. Because of the “XpressMusic” series tagline, you know this device is all about the music.

The 5800 has an improved-for-touch Music Player which does the job pretty well, if not better than the ol’S60 v3 Music app. Our device also came with a lot of extra content on device, which mostly consisted of a LOT of music, so you can begin listening as soon as you get the device. Not bad.

There’s an 8GB microSD included in the package, so you wont have to worry about running out of space, that fast. And as I said before, the 5800′s loudspeakers are LOUD. So if you want to use this thing as your own personal BoomBox, you can go right ahead. Audio formats supported include MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA. M3U playlists are also detected.

You can read more about this section in our Music on the 5800 Post.

Apart from the Above :

The 5800 brings with it, a lot of new additions in terms of software, due to it’s S60 V5 OS. We’d advice you take a look at our Introducing S60 V5 series to get a better feel of the device, because really there’s not much else we can say outside of that.

We werent so hot on how you need to use the stylus to remove the Sim Card, but really how many times does the average user remove their sim cards from their phones, right ?

Conclusion :
Rating:

The 5800 is one heck of a phone. It might not take the best pictures, but apart from that, it does everything else pretty well.

The only things we would have liked to see (apart from a better camera), is MicroUSB charging and a capacitive touchscreen instead of the resistive one they use. The Capacitive touch devices I’ve used require less “force” to be applied to recognise your input. I’m not saying you have to pound on the 5800 to get it to work, just that it would be nice if the touch screen could be more sensitive. Although, it is a well known fact Resistive Touchscreen work better in cold or tropical conditions than capacitive. So I’ve heard.

Also, there arnt THAT many applications out for the 5800 yet. But it’s library is slowly growing and it’ll soon join the multitude of applications out for previous iterations of S60, i’m sure.

Apart from that, N-Gage Gaming support would have been nice, but the 5800 does not support it. There are a bunch of games that are available on S60 V5 though, that use the 5800′s touchscreen and motion sensor and are hence, pretty enjoyable to play.

The phone feels great in your hand, is a pleasure to watch videos on and has pretty decent battery life. The S60 V5 OS is pretty fast (It’s no E71 though) and the touchscreen works pretty well. The build quality isnt shabby either.

If you’re looking for a Touch device that can do it all, with a rich retail package, at an affordable price the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic comes highly recommended by us.