E90 user looking at 5800 - i have some questions

ceanth wrote:Hi all,

My tmobile contract is about to end and im thinking of changing from my E90.

Some things i dont like about the E90 - poor email application, slow default browser (resolved by opera mini but no flash support)

Some things i like about the E90 - lovely screen, great keyboard, excellent camera (for my needs), use of active standy screen.

Ceanath, if you're looking for an E90 replacement I suspect that you might be best off waiting for the N97. It's everything the 5800 is but has a bigger screen, better camera, faster processor, widget-driven standby screen and a physical QWERTY keyboard.

The N97 will be about the same price as an E90 so you should be able to get it at the same monthly fee if you're getting it on contract. I'm not sure when it's coming out, but it should be some time in the first half of 2009.

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/8590_Nokia_N97-Nseries_with_QWERTY_.php

The S60 5th Edition browser is much better, it's faster and the high res screen is always better for web pages. There's also a simplified browser menu and you can zoom in on parts of pages by tapping them twice with your finger, which is very useful for selecting small links.

The browser is STILL missing an option to manually create a new window though.

WHY NOKIA, WHY !?!

Up till now I have always had Sony Ericsson touch screen phones from the P800 up to the P1 and W960

But I have to say I really like the 5800, I find the full screen Qwerty keyboard brilliant as is the handwriting recognition. I use Opera Mini for browsing as I can sync all my bookmarks. Its one of the best touch screens I have ever used I recommend it whole heartedly.

I'm loving mine also. It's a damn good phone, and I simply cannot beleive the price it is. It's crazy.

Imo it will be the best selling phone this (financial) year.

I suggest you use a demo model somehwere, see if you like the touchscreen.

Some things you should probably keep in mind before purchasing a 5800:

- As said above the 5800 does not have a physical QWERTY keyboard and even though the touch screen equivalent is good it certainly lacks the feel you get from using a physical QWERTY keyboard, despite the number of different input methods you get on the 5800.

- The browsing experience of the new OS is a tremendous step up from its predecessors. Unfortunatley the phone seems to be not powerful enough to display some of flash video streaming clients. Upon watching certain video streams I often experience troubles like slow downs. I don't know if its the processor, the RAM or the OS or a mixture of these components, but I do hope that maybe a few firmware updates will fix some of these issues. Maybe the N97 will have capable enough hardware and a more polished OS to display all the streams flawlessly.

- If you felt that the camera of your E90 statisfied your needs you won't be disappointed with the camera of the 5800.

- The screen is big, bright and shiny 😃, although not as big as the E90s.

- Active standby is kind of an afterthought if you ask me. I turned it off because the two options you get are kind of useless in my mind.
The first (and default) option is to display up to a total of four different contacts on the screen, which is (how can i put this delicatly) not much! I mean who has only four important contacts? It reminded me of those data plans where you could call four friends for free and had to pay for everyone else tripple...
The second option is similar to the active standby you get on any other new Nokia device. You are presented with a number of shortcuts. Upon touching one of them it launches the application almost instantly. The downside is that again it's only four of them.
I kind of which the 5800 had the standby screen the N97 will have.

My advice to you is similar than the ones you already got. Wait for the N97 as it will not only blow your mind touch-wise, but also have everything you came to love in your E90 and more.

Huschke wrote:I mean who has only four important contacts?

Actually I find it very useful! 😊 Most of my texts do go to the same four people, so having them on the front page saves a lot of time. I send stuff to other people too, but other contacts are pretty easy to get to (just click on the contacts icon at the bottom of the standby screen) so it's not that hard to find less-used names too.

But you're absolutely right, they should allow you to add more than four individual contacts icons if you want to, there's plenty of space on the front page for them. I think they could fit 16 on there in a 4 x 4 grid without reducing the size of the icons, though they'd have to slightly reformat the menu that appears for each contact. Maybe the icon could move to the top while you're viewing its menu, then go back to its usual place on the grid?

Putting contacts on the front page is exactly right for me, I don't use the calendar that much but I do make lots of texts and calls, so (for me!) contacts is a much greater priority than listing appointments etc. Of course other people will have other priorities for their phone, they can use the other standby screen, and I suspect the N97 will present even more options for standby.

Tzer2 wrote:But you're absolutely right, they should allow you to add more than four individual contacts icons if you want to, there's plenty of space on the front page for them. I think they could fit 16 on there in a 4 x 4 grid without reducing the size of the icons, though they'd have to slightly reformat the menu that appears for each contact. Maybe the icon could move to the top while you're viewing its menu, then go back to its usual place on the grid?