The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, a mid-range music-focussed phone, was launched today in London. It is Nokia's first touch enabled S60 phone. It runs S60 5th Edition on Symbian OS 9.5, has a 3.2" nHD (360 x 640) touch screen, WLAN and 3G connectivity, a 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera, integrated A-GPS and accelerometer and proximity sensors. To underline its music potential, the 5800 has a standard 3.5mm audio jack, stereo speakers, ships with a 8GB microSD card and will be one of the first phones to support Comes with Music (Q1 2009). It will be available worldwide in Q4 for 279 Euros (£215) before taxes and subsidies. Read on for much more.
Read on in the full article.
It will be available worldwide in Q4 for 279 Euros (�215) before taxes and subsidies. Read on for much more.
I think the launch price is the detail that stands out most IMHO, it's amazingly cheap.
The pre-tax SIM-free price of the iPhone is approx 500 euros once you remove network operator subsidy, so in effect the 5800 is about half the price of the iPhone. Even on contract these price differences are visible because less expensive phones have lower up front costs (many are free!) and lower monthly fees.
As such I think Rafe is right to be cautious about direct comparisons as they're in a totally different price range, and so to some extent aimed at different markets. In some ways the 5800 perhaps should be seen more as an "iPhone lite" rather than an "iPhone killer", with Nokia's true iPhone competitors yet to come.
The first Nseries touchscreen devices will probably be much closer in price to the iPhone, and much more direct competitors.
Going the other way, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple brings out its own cheaper touchscreen phones ("iPhone Nanos" perhaps?) and these would be what the 5800 would be directly up against.
(Incidentally, is everyone able to post in this thread? Someone in the other news thread said they couldn't comment here, but I just checked the thread settings and it should be open for all comments. If you can't post here please let us know in the S60 5th Edition thread.)
I think the make or break is going to be text entry.
You have 3 choices (On Screen Keyboard, on screen number pad and handwriting recognition) but will any of them be good enough?
But all in all it looks like a good device at a good price that should appeal to touchscreen fans.
You have 3 choices (On Screen Keyboard, on screen number pad and handwriting recogition) but will any of them be good enough?
Definitely a biggie, it was one of the things the iPhone got some flack for from some reviewers, and texting may even be one of the things that has kept touchscreen phones in a niche so far. If most people continue to simply prefer buttons, that may be a glass ceiling on how far touchscreen phones will spread.
There's possibly no perfect solution because different people prefer different techniques, different people have different finger sizes, and also of course it's innately more difficult to type on a flat panel than real buttons.
Hello, anyone who has wanted to leave a comment please try again. Langdona seems to have solved the problem we had with this thread.
Quite larger but a much smaller neater package than the slab iPhone.
No word on tactile feed back (touch vibration) ?
Unregistered, yes there is tactile feedback.
Rafe notes in the article that it does have touch/vibration feedback but it's not localised to a particular screen area.
Oh this is sweeter than I expected... I'll be getting my hands on this soon!
Strangely, considering I have had no interest in this previously, I feel myself drawn to wanting one, bugger.
Ratkat, know what you mean.
I wrote an editorial for AAS a short while ago attacking the idea of buying devices on their launch day, but this really does tempt me into being an early adopter myself. The surprisingly low price makes it particularly tempting.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) my bank balance won't allow any new gadget purchases in the near future. 😊
by my understanding, s60 5th ed is basically like s60 3rd ed by with touch and other sensors enabled. If so, the os alone can compete with the iPhone's. the same form factor, but hands down better specs on the tube. Plus, the freedom to choose any gsm network and still get it for cheap.
3 points for nokia for having a very impressive, artistic, and in-your-face comeback.
By the time nsedies touch devices come out, and there is n-gage support, people will be like, "iPhone? What's that?"
I'm already anxious to replace this iPhone!
Note that it is using Symbian OS v9.4, not v9.5 as stated in the article.
With the plectrum and the touch screen, I can see a guitar application in my mind already. Maybe a S60 version of Guitar Hero ? It has the makings for a great touch-screen specific Ngage game. Does it not ?
And this isnt even the flagship ! What the hell are they gonna put into the flagship touchscreen ?? (apart from a 5/8 mp cam and ngage/ovi support)🙄
I've always hated touch screen phones, but if I use a bluetooth keyboard this could be just what I've been looking for and at just the right price too. Of all S60 phones I thought this would be the one I'm least likely to upgrade to, yet now it's top of my list. Does it have TV-out capabilities?
Unregistered wrote:I've always hated touch screen phones, but if I use a bluetooth keyboard this could be just what I've been looking for and at just the right price too. Of all S60 phones I thought this would be the one I'm least likely to upgrade to, yet now it's top of my list. Does it have TV-out capabilities?
Yes, it does, TV out cable is included in the retail box ^.^
I'm very dependent on touchscreens because since Psion days I tend to scribble a lot, from small drawings to fishbone type stuff... so this is great news... finally a S60 device i can actually use.
Awesome!!! And the build quality looks so good as compared to the nseries phones...
Arcade wrote:With the plectrum and the touch screen, I can see a guitar application in my mind already. Maybe a S60 version of Guitar Hero ? It has the makings for a great touch-screen specific Ngage game. Does it not ?And this isnt even the flagship ! What the hell are they gonna put into the flagship touchscreen ?? (apart from a 5/8 mp cam and ngage/ovi support)🙄
theres already a guitar game on it i saw video on pocket gamer of a racing game using motion sensor control and a gameloft guitar game using the plectrum
Has anyone any idea how good or bad is the backward compatibility with existing 3rd edition software? Are they binary compatible or do they require recompiling on new SDK? How about user interfaces..? How will the old 3rd designed UIs scale to the new screen size and touch interface?
Anyone know what the screen is like?, is it a 'soft' screen like most stylus based phones or is it a 'hard' glass? screen like the iPhone.
@Karlo_N80ie,
As an iPhone owner, I have to agree with you. I am really liking what I see with this phone. I have had the N800, and the N810 so I am familar with the way the screen works so I can cope. The iPhones screen tech is superb but I am also sure Nokia will come out with something similar. I think Nokia scored an impressive coup with an outstanding feature list in a TS phone. No matter how the Appleistas want to slice, it the 5800 is competition. They also forget that there are possibly tens of thousand if not more, that do not want an iPhone, but were waiting for Nokia to deliver. I am sure the N and E series phones that will be arriving (hopefully) will be another winning alternative. After ridding my entire iTunes lib of DRM, and only purchasing via Amazon, I am looking forward to giving my iPhone to my daughter.
Odd, everything I saw beforehand led me to think it would have internal memory (8gb/16gb) instead/as well as a card slot.
Damn didn't notice the video out cable. So, does anyone know the available RAM yet?
Ratkat wrote:Anyone know what the screen is like?, is it a 'soft' screen like most stylus based phones or is it a 'hard' glass? screen like the iPhone.
The screen is most like a soft one because its touchscreen is of the resistive type (similar to UIQ devices). You need to appy pressure for input. The iPhone touchscreen is based on capacitive technology which works to finger electricity. That's why iPhone touchsreen is more subtle and precise.
It also does not support multitouch as this is patented by Apple already.
My first thought when I saw this was how nice the larger screen would be when using Viewranger (Ordinance Survey maps with GPS). However it led me to worry about the UI, I guess the third party software developers will be hard at work converting their back catalogue to work with the touch screen technology.
Will there be a problem that many programs that we now use just won't work with the UI?
Unregistered wrote:The screen is most like a soft one because its touchscreen is of the resistive type (similar to UIQ devices). You need to appy pressure for input. The iPhone touchscreen is based on capacitive technology which works to finger electricity. That's why iPhone touchsreen is more subtle and precise.It also does not support multitouch as this is patented by Apple already.
Did Apple patent the technology, IPR, and "concept" or just the hardware side of things? It would be a shame to let Apple own all of that. They will never license it either.
Unregistered wrote:It also does not support multitouch as this is patented by Apple already.
I remember reading somewhere that Nokia is working on multitouch possibilities too. Not sure when that will come out though...
Is multitouch a hardware based feature?
If its only software based then we can expect a third party app to enable it on s60v5 very soon. 😊