In the concluding part of his very detailed hands-on (p)review of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, based on almost a month of day-to-day running with Nokia's 'Tube', Rafe Blandford brings us a report on the rest of its applications and on third party software compatibility, plus, of course, he sums up the device. Why is it unique and just how well will it do worldwide?
Read on in the full article.
Once again, all S60 devices support full HTML email. Open the attachment in any HTML email and it will open a web page with all of the graphics loaded. It's not as direct as other email systems, but it's still there.
Great review Rafe and I must say, the S60 5th edition is appealing to me a lot.. But I am also very tempted to wait for a eseries or a nseries version. I think that will be much better than this one, even though the 5800 is pretty good too and I am of the opinion that this model is more of a test model by nokia..
Hi Rafe,
Thanks for the great review.
Overall, your review was great. However, I have some disagreements / issues with this last review.
1. I cannot tell from your conclusion if you personally actually liked the phone.
2. One thing that may be a concern for people is performance of videos. This phone is mid-tier and lacks HW graphic acceleration. Does that mean that videos may be "choppy"?
3. I disagree with what you are saying about positioning. I mean...actually you are right, but it misses a larger point. Significant profit margins and brand-development opportunity are in the "smartphone" upper-end market segment. And in this segment, many consumers believe that "smartphone" means a phone with touch-screen. Nokia is treating the 5800 as just another form-factor of its smart-phone product line (S60), whereas many consumers will be looking at this as Nokia's first smartphne (because its the first touch-screen phone). Hence, in the smart-phone market segment, the phone must be compared with Winmo devices, Android, and yes, the i.....
Hi Rafe
Great review. In my opinion, every s60 phone is like a blank canvas on which you can paint your own pictures by installing apps of your choice. I am all for waiting for N- and E-series touch devices, but I doubt they will be within the reach of most consumers (myself included). 5800 has all the basic ingredients - Mail for Exchange, motion sensor, wi fi, TV Out - that used to set N- and E- series apart from vanilla s60.
So Nokia will have to come up with something with significant HARDWARE enhancements above 5800 in order to make a plausible N- and E-series device.
As for HW acceleration - well, N96 has the same processor, RAM and chipset as 5800 (by the way, shame on Nokia on ridding its entire new lineup of dual processors and dedicated graphics). No one complained about video playback on that one, so it must be fine here too.
Update: Compatibility mode is not inf the final firmware. I have 'grayed out' this section of the review. As mentioned I've been working with a pre-release device. I hope to get the device flashed to final firmware and will report back then.
ogami_ito wrote:Hi Rafe,Thanks for the great review.
Overall, your review was great. However, I have some disagreements / issues with this last review.
1. I cannot tell from your conclusion if you personally actually liked the phone.
2. One thing that may be a concern for people is performance of videos. This phone is mid-tier and lacks HW graphic acceleration. Does that mean that videos may be "choppy"?
3. I disagree with what you are saying about positioning. I mean...actually you are right, but it misses a larger point. Significant profit margins and brand-development opportunity are in the "smartphone" upper-end market segment. And in this segment, many consumers believe that "smartphone" means a phone with touch-screen. Nokia is treating the 5800 as just another form-factor of its smart-phone product line (S60), whereas many consumers will be looking at this as Nokia's first smartphne (because its the first touch-screen phone). Hence, in the smart-phone market segment, the phone must be compared with Winmo devices, Android, and yes, the i.....
To address your points one by one.
1) Yes I personally like the phone, but I try to be as objective as possible. I also try to avoid coming to definitive conclusions with pre-release software.
2) I haven't really pushed the video yet, but if you optimise video for the device you shouldn't have any trouble. There's some preloaded content which looks great and BBC iPlayer works well too.... That said it wont necessarily match the higher spec stuff. We'll have more detailed look at this sort of multimedia performance in due course in more detail.
3) I know exactly what you mean. I think this is the difference between business strategy (which is what I was referring too) and marketing strategy. Normally these are reasonably aligned, but with touch devices there's a lot of media attention which means its not as close as it might be. And yes you're right there will be comparisons (and to an extent I was trying to make a point). Given other touch devices from Nokia re not far away this point will be moot. Important for gagdet lovers now, but the vast majority of people will see several touch Nokia devices next year not one that is first. At least IMHO!
I am still wondering: the calendar in S60 3rd doesn't have any kind of search function. If you have a lot of appointments, and you are not sure when the meeting with Mrs. XYZ will take place, there is no way to find out except looking day by day in the calendar app.
I find that strange... that's nothing specific to 5800, but to S60 calendar in general...
@Ben: Every S60 device for years has had a global search utility, usually on the device's home screen. I'm 90% certain that the 5800 includes this as well, but will double check when my production firmware 5800 arrives back here on Tuesday....
I'm aghast that they still don't seem to have made any effort with the built-in apps. Still no html email, and I'll bet recurring appointments in the calendar still can't do "third Saturday in the month" or similar. Just how difficult can this be? I could do it with my Psion TEN years ago fer chrissake😡!
One important thing to remember is that not everyone wants an iPhone. I would guess that there are literally millions of people that do not want an iPhone that have been waiting for this phone.
great review,
2 questions to rafe if you don't mind.
does it work with the nokia bluetooth keyboard the su-8w? i have my n95 wired into my sunviser screen in my car and its so cool using it with the keyboard so i kinda hope it does so i can keep the set up i have.
and does the 5800 have the video editor application?
oh btw did anyone spot this phone it batman dark night!!!?
Hi Rafe,
Is there a QuickOffice? what about StopWatch and Timer?
hi rafe. great review. there is one very important and very specific question i would have to ask and it would be great (for everyone i'm sure) if you could check and clear up this issue for all of us. for me the 5800 is a great first step for nokia into the touch screen world and is posed to capture not only the entertainment market, but also the PDA-PIM market (as long as the right PIM apps are developed) but right now i'm more focused on the more immediate issue, the entertainment side of it. i use an n82 and as what you may call a heavy media user (video and music) and sees the 5800 as the next platform for my video consumption. but since the 5800 has the same specs as the n82 (correct me if i'm wrong on this), does this mean it will experience the same characteristics as the n82 when handling video? i currently use coreplayer for watching movies and shows on my phone and so far its worked out fine because it plays all the formats i have thrown at it so far (PSP, AVI, DIVX, XVID, MKV, MPG, etc.) without transcoding (and i know many people hate this =) ) but one thing i have noticed about this is that when the video resolution is about 720x480 (720p or DVD resulotion, right?) the playback sometimes starts to be choppy for some videos. My request is can you test coreplayer (or any player that plays native videos without need for conversion) can play videos smoothly on the 5800 because in my opinion, if there is such a player, would make the 5800 the best mobile video player out there. my concern is the similarity in specs of the memory and the processor between the 5800 and my n82. if the n82 stutters while having to render only a qvga screen, would it mean it would be a disaster for the 5800 (hope not!) to try to do the same thing but try to render video on a close to VGA screen? anyway, hope you can test and let everyone know. i don't like the iphone because you have to do everything thru itunes, and i'm more of a drag and drop guy. Thanks in advance and more power to you =)
For the most part, I live off of the stock applications that come from the phone and I don't use it very much with other applications, except 4.
SMS Export from S60.com, YBrowser, cCAM, and Screenshot are a must for me.
I work in retail and conduct most of my business through SMS or email. At the end of the day, I need to turn in all SMS and emails to be filed away on the computer. Email is simple, but I use SMS Export for all my texts.
Does anyone know for sure, or can you Rafe, do me the favor of checking if these four applications are working perfectly on the 5800?
If they are, I'm getting one the same day i get my answer.
hi, i just picked one up locally and so far i really like it. i was very surprised when it could not open my excel spreadsheets that every other nseries device could. any idea why this s60 device cannot open excel sheets? also, any ideas for freeware that would allow me to view excel? i even tried to install the quickoffice 5 upgrade that i purchased for my e71 to see what would happen and it would not even install
Hi Rafe,
Best review I have found on the entire web...and I have searched long and hard! I use the calendar WAY TO MUCH. I set reminders for everything, personal and work.
Question is, when a reminder pops up/goes off, can I snooze it for a specific amount of time, or is it stuck with the 10 minutes only snooze?
Thanks!
Hi Rafe,
I liked your review very much and am almost certainly going to buy this phone but could you please clarify a doubt that i have. How does the graphic capabilities of 5800 compare to the iphone? In games for example, is the absence of accelerated graphics apparent?
Thank you
I've had the 5800 for about 30 hours now and have tried installing some S60 v3 apps to it just to see what takes, and I thought I'd answer some of the questions other readers have been asking in the comments. Here's what I've found so far:
Works
HARDWARE: Wireless Keyboard SU-8W works after I installed Wireless Keyboard application for Nokia Series 60 3.1 edition (the one released Aug 2008 for the N82)
Installs But Doesn't Run
Both the timer apps illustrate a problem I've seen on several Java apps I've installed -- the virtual dpad that appears on-screen has failed to work properly on every single Java app I've tried. It never seems to be mapped correctly to the functions. I'm assuming this will differ on a case-by-case basis.
Won't Install At All
And yes, there's basic video editing:
Finally, yes the alarm snooze timer can be set from 1 to 60 minutes, although I'm not sure if you can set individual snooze instances on the fly -- what I'm referring to is a master setting I found under the Alarm app.
Finally, nobody asked but I want to tell you all that the handwriting recognition actually works pretty well. I was blase about having a stylus, but it's sort of fun to "write" out my text messages instead of tapping them. Not really that much faster, though, but pretty accurate. Bonus: I can set up shortcuts using the handwriting recognition, so for example when I draw a little diagonal rectangle now, my full email address pops into the field. Nice!
Phone looks great. My question is, does it come with locking for particular applications? For instance, I'd like to keep my recent calls locked and my messages locked, but other areas unlocked. Is this possible with the phone?
What sold me is the fact that it is s60. What I specifically have always loved about Nokia (7650, 6680, N81, now 5800), is the abundance of apps to make up for anything that s60 may be missing. Frustrating thing now is waiting for apps. BTW I installed the Epocware tool set but they do not display well (e.g. double vision at the top of the screen for the shell - I love shareware). MY carrier in Spain offered me the Iphone free or the 5800 for 100 euros. I have an 80GB Ipod (I hate the Itunes dictatorship) so I much preferred spending 100 euros to stay with Nokia.
Anyone able to say if MobiPocket and Flying Money Manager work?
if i drop it will it break?
A very informative review. The 5800 is a great phone but the N97 is just around the corner and that's the only thing stopping me from getting this beauty. But I just wonder if an even better version will come out a few months later?
Scurzuzu wrote:I've had the 5800 for about 30 hours now and have tried installing some S60 v3 apps to it just to see what takes, and I thought I'd answer some of the questions other readers have been asking in the comments. Here's what I've found so far:HARDWARE: Wireless Keyboard SU-8W works after I installed Wireless Keyboard application for Nokia Series 60 3.1 edition (the one released Aug 2008 for the N82)
...
I found the BT app for the N96 worked better and was more stable at initial connection.
Superb review.
Question: How do I download apps to the phone? I'd like a step by step process pls. I'm not very technologically savvy.
Unregistered
if i drop it will it break?
what a dumb-ass question...
you'll know the answer to it by answering this:
If I kill you, will you die?
dumb ass.
Unregistered wrote:if i drop it will it break?
what a dumb-ass question...
you'll know the answer to it by answering this:
If I kill you, will you die?
dumb ass.
great (p)review i have few questions if anyone can answer them
1. Is the speaker problem which came in intitial sets still there?
2. Anyone installed Garmin XP Mobile on this set? does it works?
3. I don't like the keypad of my N-79 and i love the keypad of my 2630 because of the big keys, do you think i would be able to get used to T9 of 5800?