Three Months with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

One of the reason I didn't change to 5800 is that I was confused by click and double-click in application navigator and in some applications, and unpredictable. Aren't you confused?

FWIW,

One thing that might help is, if you don't think of it as "double-click" at all, because it really isn't about double-clicking.

It is more of select/highlight object/element/item (button, menu, list item), and then take (default) action.

So it is just a "touchified" S60 where instead of using the directional key to scroll to select/highlight an item, and then press the center key for the (default) action, you select the "item" directly via touch (no scrolling) and then touch the "item" again for the action.

billjin wrote:One of the reason I didn't change to 5800 is that I was confused by click and double-click in application navigator and in some applications, and unpredictable. Aren't you confused?

Coming back to the point, can you guys post an article on how to re-calibrate nokia batteries ?? I think, I didnt charge my Nokia 5800 fully during the first charge and now the battery is getting horrible.

Moreover, I have posted my disappointments on nokia 5800
tecfre.com/nokia-5800-review-conclusion-and-things-lacking

Confusion over click and double click? About 30 seconds.

The findings in this article are my findings, all the fundamentally important stuff to a phone user are covered. The ergomics as a normal phone, the durability, the pocketability. It's performance as a normal phone, not to mention the excellent price.

The flaws are restricted to the more trivial functionality, and although it doesn't have the flouncy dressing of some other phones, the core stuff is solid and for me there isn't another phone.

I've been using a 5800 for about three months now too, and I have to agree with all of Tzer2's good points - I'm really happy with it overall.

But there are two additional negatives that I have to add to his list (both of which have been mentioned elsewhere).

First, the screen really isn't very good at all in direct sunlight (or even on a bright day outside) - a known problem with resistive touchscreens, but it does seem particularly bad on the 5800.

Second, I know it's not the N97, but the 5800 is a bit slow - and not just on 3D games. If you've got more than a couple of applications open, responsiveness to commands really does become sluggish, and typing with your finger really does become hit and miss. These are the times when I, at least, need to use the stylus.

Overall, though, a great little phone.

BOC

It's nice and informative review of nokia 5800 xpress music. The details are quite interesting and bounds to read full article. Nice work

Single and double click is not a major confusion in s60 v5. You may just have thought of iPhone's implementation, but double click has its purpose. The s60 allows you to highlight an item and do something with that through the Option button.

I agree with most of the highlights in the review. But though it's not satisfying with the lack of 3D accelerator, this is a more of a Music phone and a phone itself. Camera will be another consideration, so if I am after for a better camera, I would wait for N97, or maybe N86, though Xenon is absent.

I agree fully with the review,I am very satisfied with my 5800XM and expect many firmware updates to arrive that also allow further enhancements.

At the price and with the full box contents, the package as a whole is unbeatable.

A large number of my top S60 V3 apps works solid as well.

In day-to-day to use the phone and UI is very speedy,with heavier multitasking it tends to slow down,also note that the free RAM on startup (around 45mb) is a lots less than then S60 phones that have 128mb RAM.
I am assuming the less RAM is due to the OS & transition effects...

All in all,well done Nokia...:icon14:

Gray would have been cool 😊 Got my blue one(which was hard to find, because there was almost only red ones in stores) 2 weeks ago here in Finland. Maybe in the future I will manage to somehow change the color of stripe by painting it or taking the stripe off and putting own made stripe there 8).........

Of course the phone is value for money, but there's still a few things that bother me; The biggest one being the text entry, which I personally think is crap and counterproductive.

Why on earth does the UI have to open a whole new text entry box along with the keyboard? And why doesn't the keyboard appear by default when you enter things that require text input?
For instance, entering a new calendar entry requires you to open the calendar and select New Meeting. The cursor will then be blinking in the subject field of your new entry, but you have to "click" it to enter text, then "OK" the text for the subject to return to your calendar entry. Then select location, "click" once more to open text entry for location, "OK" that one, highlight and then select starting time, edit and "OK", and on, and on, and on...

Instead I'd like it more to function as other Touchscreen phones, where the keyboard appears (and occupies) the lower half of the screen, allowing you to switch through fields on the upper half without going back and forth between different screens.

At the moment the 5800 seem like an amputated N97, where the OS (S60v5) is built for the latter, and the text entry options seem like something they had to throw in due to the lack of physical text entry modes.

Why on earth does the UI have to open a whole new text entry box along with the keyboard?

Don't worry, it doesn't open a new entry box if you don't want it to. 😊

Instead I'd like it more to function as other Touchscreen phones, where the keyboard appears (and occupies) the lower half of the screen, allowing you to switch through fields on the upper half without going back and forth between different screens.

You can already do all of that on the 5800 by using the mini-QWERTY keyboard. It does EXACTLY what you're asking for. 😊

Mini-QWERTY just pops up a little keyboard in the bottom half of the screen which stays there until you tell it to go away, with your text appearing in the original text entry area. You can even move the mini-QWERTY keyboard around the screen if you need to select something near the bottom of the screen (such as the options menus). Mini-QWERTY works pretty much like a small second window floating on top of the first.

You can also change text entry fields completely freely while using mini-QWERTY, you don't have to close or open anything. On top of that, it automatically changes to numerical mode if you select a number field.

There is a small extra text box within the mini-QWERTY keyboard, but in effect you can totally ignore it and just use the main screen for selecting text and fields.

The mini-QWERTY keyboard's keys are pretty small and most people would require a stylus to use them of course, but that's why there are the full-screen QWERTY and full-screen keypad as finger-friendly alternatives.

Incidentally, the handwriting input mode also works just like mini-QWERTY but uses a different input method (gestures instead of clicks).

Here's an image from the text entry tutorial to show what I mean:

One of the reason I didn't change to 5800 is that I was confused by click and double-click in application navigator and in some applications, and unpredictable. Aren't you confused?

The very first day I had the phone I was a bit thrown, but as others have said it's really no different to single and double clicks on desktop PC interfaces.

If you click once on an icon in Windows it just selects it, whereas if you click once on a button in Windows it activates it. That might be confusing if you've never used a PC operating system before, but it soon makes sense after you've used it for a short while.

The reasons for this mixture are exactly the same on both S60 and PC interfaces, because they're both focus-driven, they want to give you the option of selecting an object without activating it.

For example on the 5800 if you want to select a photo and then delete it from the Gallery without having to open it first, you can just click on it once and then click on the delete icon. It saves a LOT of time overall to have the interface give you this option.

I do take your point though that the first time you use it, it does seem weird to see this kind of focus interface on a touchscreen phone. An alternative non-focus method of letting people select something without activation might be what Nokia have on their internet tablets, where a single click activates something but holding down your finger/stylus brings up an options menu for the object without activating it. That works fairly well on the tablets, and I'd be happy to see that used on S60 too.

i'm also using the 5800 everyday for the last 3 months and i'm very satisfied. i only have one problem and that is that i have some dirt under the display. one time i have even had a small hair under the screen which i had to get removed at a nokia repairshop. did anybody else experience this problem? and if so what's the reason for this? thanx

I don't know, but the new firmware v21, which has come to couple of different product codes, later to all, has made my phone more AWESOME! Check out the firmware update when it's available to you.

Paul

@stillwaters
Could be to do with the problem with the case ... www.tinyurl.ie/694

Great article.

However, anyone who subscribes to the Chris Moyles podcast clearly has some deep seated issues.

I mean, come on!
😉

Yes! Predictive text input for all the other text entry options (with an option to switch it off or on) would be very highly appreciated! Nokia, please listen to us!

Recently upgraded firmware to the latest version, and noticed a massive improvement with the camera quality.. think I went from v11 to v20. Anyone else notice this?

as far as i remember (perhaps some phones had it before?) the first phone witch had Lock-switch was SE S700. and after that SE P990.

My noticeable improvement to camera image quality came after I fiddled with white balance.

Great article, excellent compilation. Keep up the good work.

One feature I'd need on this phone would be scroll buttons. Touch screen and all is fine, but when I am reading a long piece of text, I'd prefer the option of pressing a button which is not on the screen to scroll down or up. In the 5800, this would be a perfect second job for the volume buttons. Does anyone know how to make the volume buttons on the side double up as scroll buttons?

So the Finnish Nokia fanboy blogger finds the 5800 to be surprisingly good. Who wouldda thunk it?

i had the last version of firmware, from the beginning i�ve troubles with my wireless, does any person has the same problem, i take out all securitys from my router, one is thomson the other one is linksys, and, zero, no navigation

I have this phone for over 2 months now, and in general im happy. BUT :

1) GPS lock is very slow compared to my blue tooth device. can take a few minutes.

2) Camera takes realy bad pics, even worse in low light. worse then my e70 which was preaty bad

3) if i get a call while using some apps the phone goes bonkers. the screen blanks and when i unlock it, it flickers and blanks again.

4) had a few crashes and lockups.

5) Text entry when using the full screen keyboard, is a pain, click on the text field, get the text window (one with lines like a pad) click again to open keyboard, type text click grean check to go back to text pad window click ok again to go back to original window. Why oh why do i need the text pad window ????

6) tiny scroll bar on screens

oh i have the 20 firmware if you are wondering.

still it dose all i need and want, and is better at it then any other phone i had. Hope nokia will imporve the touch interface in the next generations

Good review. And it's nice to see some of Tzer2's friends at the top of the story.

I always wondered what they looked like.

Unregistered wrote:So the Finnish Nokia fanboy blogger finds the 5800 to be surprisingly good. Who wouldda thunk it?

I find it to be very good too but I wasn't surprised.

paker wrote:as far as i remember (perhaps some phones had it before?) the first phone witch had Lock-switch was SE S700. and after that SE P990.

FYI, Sony CMD-J5 had hardware key-lock switch long before Sony Ericsson S700.

Just to say that fullscreen web isn't bad thing at all, I want the white arrow in fullscreen to be removed also. Combine with virtual key and 5800 buttons, green button for options, red for back and camera for OK. Amazing 😊

the click-switch at the side is driving me nuts! I always have the phone on the stand inside my car and when I need to make a call I always have to pick the phone up to unlock it because the stand is blocking the switch...

One of the reason I didn't change to 5800 is that I was confused by click and double-click in application navigator and in some applications, and unpredictable. Aren't you confused?