Nokia 5800 XpressMusic – Review
Hello, Phone Arena has the pleasure to present to you the video review of the first touch screen Symbian S64 by Nokia, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.
It belongs to the manufacturers XpressMusic Series and to submit and inform which means that it is targeted at wider range of customers although having a wide touch screen with high resolution and offering computer in Wi-Fi GPS in support for HSDPA.
In addition, it comes with an affordable price and maybe that’s the reason for the great interest in it. As you can see it’s smaller than the iPhone and it’s also wired. It’s been totally made of plastic that is shiny on the sides which gives the impression of something cheap and fragile.
We don’t like feeling very much and have expected to higher better quality. Above the 3.2-inch touch screen are the white sensor, the VGA camera for video conversations and the multi-media sensor key.
The functionality of which we’ll show you in a while, the most important from the three physical keys is the middle one and goes without it you won’t be able to get to the main menu.
The other two are respectively the decent and —. On the left are the two stereo speakers and the microSD and SIM card slots. The latter can be inserted really easily, but when you need to take it out you’ll have to remove the battery lid and the battery itself then you’ll need the stylus in order to push it out.
Now, let’s take a look at the opposite side, it houses the camera shutter, the slider used for locking and unlocking the display which features the strong vibration as you slide it and the music features button.
On the top you’ll find the microUSB port, the 3.5 millimeter jack, the charger port and the power button. Okay. Now let’s go back to the display which supports 16 million of colors and has a resolution of 260x640 pixels with 16 to nine format.
It utilizes the risks of technology which allows for using the tiny type of object. We need it sometime in order to get used to it since instead of touch we’ll hit the press on the top. We’re partially satisfied with image quality because the contrast and the brightness are superb, but only in artificial light conditions.
Unfortunately, you’ll see almost nothing when it gets exposed to the sunlight. The fullness equipped with the latest version of the Symbian operating system with the 5th Edition of the S60 Interface. However, there aren’t many significant differences from the previous versions. It just been optimized for the touch screen use.
If you confused to Nokia Smart phone before you’re sure to get used to it very fast which actually why applies also to those of you that will encounter it for the first time. The home screen has gone through some slight changes. On its upper part are the indicators for the battery life and signal strength, the clock and the date.
As you press the clock you’ll get to a screen with a larger clock and options for the new alarm at least for the current ones and the world clock. And if you press the date here is a drop down menu which gives you access to the calendar and the phone profiles.
Before there is an icon which lets you put up to four contacts directly on the home screen. When you choose some of them, a menu appears with options for dialing, messaging, settings and the history lock.
These features go to contacts bar and this is one of the three available with the home screen thing. The other variants are basic which practically turns the team off, the shortcuts bar which allows for shortcut to four applications of your choice.
There is also a bar for quick access to the search application, information on the song that you’re listening too the music there and the nearest event from the calendar or the to do notes.
The icons in the main menu are arranged in the grid and there’s size is big enough in order to be easily pressed with fingers. You can also arrange the icons in a vertical list but then you have to press the desired icon twice similarly to the Blackberry Storm.
Actually, this applies to all sub-menus which visualized as a vertical list. You make your choice by pressing once and then once more to confirm it. We have to admit that this way the mistakes that we did were considerably fewer, but also I have to tell you that this option can’t be turned off. You can dial a number with the dial pad which is watch keys that should be handy even for people with thicker fingers.
There are a few changes made to the phonebook, the contact can be chosen by double typing, scrolling to the list this is done either by the scroll bar or by flipping your finger. You can also search for a contact which is done fast and easy. At least with the first letter of the contact appear and when you choose one only the letters that you need remain. It is the four notes which you are after.
You can view the calendar by month, week, day or all to the notes but the first two notes show you the nearest four events for the selected day similarly to the E71 and day 66. In addition, if you have a standard calculator in the file manager which are well known from the previous versions of the operating system.
Text input can be done in a few ways which are typical for the most touch screen phones. You can use handwriting correct admission, mini QWERTY is a full QWERTY that can be moved around the screen freely and the full QWERTY which has a landscape view.
The last variant is the numeric keypad. These ways of texting allow you to write SMS, MMS and the email messages. We log that into four note mythically configured accounts for Gmail, Yahoo entire the popular services.
The internet browser is well known from previous Nokia Smart phones and it was supposed that we are indeed the people in the world that have always wallet what it would it be to use it with fingers.
Even the complex pages render flawlessly that navigating to them is smooth and easy which is also due to the high resolution of the screen. You can zoom in and out from the options menu or by double tapping as in Safari and Opera Mobile 9.5.
In addition there is an option for fun view which is named overview. We absolutely have to check how YouTube videos play on the 3.2-inch display. It’s definitely worth it only that the option for playing an HD is missing even in the full version of the site.
The 5800 has a built-in GPS which works perfectly as in previous GPS equipped models of the manufacturer. Here, you also find the preloaded navigation program which is Nokia maps tool touch. Its name suggests that it has been optimized for you as well as the touch screen, but it doesn’t touch anything from you.
The 3.2 megapixel camera is with auto focus and the double lid flash. It’s interface is new with lots of icons at the menu with the more choose functions, still it much as good as the one of the Samsung Omnia.
The quality of the outdoor pictures is really poor with the natural colors and noise and those that were taken indoors are tragic. At least the videos are really good with the maximum resolution of 640 x 352 pixels until the 30 frames per second.
We also wanted to show you the gallery but as you can see the phone crashes when it tries to open the file. Let’s hope that this issue will be fixed with the future software updates. A little earlier we promised to show you what the purpose of the sensor keys.
By pressing it, a set of icons appear giving you quick access to the music player, the gallery, the online share link service, the video center and the internet browser. The music player is familiar to this from previous XpressMusic formats and offers the same filtering options for the songs.
The interface is similar to the one of the end series but it’s not as pretty as the one of the iPhone. In addition to the play I’ll repeat stereo widening options there’s also an equalizer which can be set to meet your likings.
The sound from the wide speakers is really high quality. Everything is heard loud clear. The headphones from the packager are also up to grade but in case you don’t like them you can always change them with autos because the 5800 features a 3.5 millimeter jack.
Watching video clips from the high resolution white screen is definitely worthy experience. When you play videos with the maximum support of resolution with the 640x360 pixels and high Bitrate, you won’t experience any frames keeping and wagging.
Unfortunately, the maximum resolution of the H264 videos is QVGA in the end we believe that the first touch screen Symbian S60 Nokia phone will find its place in the market and will earn a lot of fans.
It features some nice multi media and internet capabilities at a decent price. However, it does have some drawbacks which include slow performance from compared to other Symbian S60 forms, the software issues and crashes. These issues may be fixed with the upcoming software update but until then you have to put up with them. In case you really want that phone.
Thanks for watching. Please visit PhoneArena.com for a full text review with many pictures and the 360 degrees view.
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