Time for the 'Tube'

The wait for the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic cellphone was long — and excruciating, for me at least. I had read all sorts of reviews about it before it was finally launched. After all, it was to be Nokia’s first-ever touch-screen cellphone.

Many people are not too fond of touch-screen cellphones, saying they prefer phones where they text and call using the old-reliable keypads. While the joys of using touch screen — and learning how to — are many, these are saved for those who dare to press the screen and are willing to make the many mistakes that come with first-time screen-tapping. As for me, give me the device and I will do my best to learn how to use it, touch screen, keypad, stylus or whatever there might be.

I got hold of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic “Tube” (as it is more commonly called) recently. And using it has been nothing but loads of fun. Imagine, all that Nokia cellphone users love in their reliable Nokia format — made touch screen. OK, so it’s an XpressMusic cellphone, which means that this phone has been made with the lovers of music in mind. But no matter, those lovers of touch-screen cellphones will surely get a kick out of this phone.

Let’s start

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic cellphone comes at a time when the touch-screen cellphone has started to gain more and more converts. The Finnish company just made touch screen a more popular option using its version of the S60 platform. The handset’s essential selling points are good functionality, miniature build, and touch screen.

I like the simple design with a large enough screen that makes tapping on it easy and quite fun. A candy bar, it mainly stands out for its symmetrical shape, scarce number of control elements, and a big screen.

The screen is 38 x 70 millimeters and has a prolonged shape. Using this shape enabled the creators of the 5800 to shrink the handset’s width. Some people believe that cellphones that are too wide are often uncomfortable to hold, so that problem has been addressed in the Nokia 5800. The touch-screen controls are optimized for finger operation (though I was told some units have a stylus pen, crafted right into the casing). Not being too fond of the stylus, I really enjoyed the quickness of the response of the 5800.

Well-protected is an understatement when it comes to the 5800. I guess the Finnish company is aware that its Asian consumers can be quite finicky when it comes to scratches and fingerprints on their cellphones. There is a relief framing which protrudes about 2 mm along the casing perimeter, protecting the screen from direct contact with all sorts of rough surface. There are two slots on the cellphone, which are protected with flaps — one for the memory card, the second for the SIM.

The speaker openings seem small and are covered with very thin plastic covers. It was not a surprise though that the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic played the tunes really loud and clear. This has come to be one of the strong points of the Nokia XpressMusic cellphones. The opposite edge is where the volume controls, camera button and the touch-screen block slider (large enough to feel and use without looking at it) are.

Great to see

Given the large screen, viewing a high-quality photo on this phone is an illustration much better than any words. The color palette is rich, the view angles perfect. The picture is smooth, without a trace of pixelization.

The light sensor automatically adjusts the screen brightness level. The distance sensor is a new feature for Nokia — and as expected, works wonderfully. When the handset is close to your head (while answering or making a call) the touch input is automatically blocked.

There is much that has to be said about the touch-screen keypad. For starters, if you want to send a text message you can double tab the screen on the text you got, and the keypad will pop out. And, here’s the joy for Nokia users — the keypad is not QWERTY; its just like the one that we love on our Nokia cellphone.

So, you type away, as you tap the touch screen, just like you would on any other Nokia cellphone. Kids, you can do this with your eyes closed, right?

Cool, real cool is the only way to describe this feature. Just like the texting we are so used to — with a twist.

The other features are just as hot.

The Nokia 5800 uses a long lasting BL-5J 1320 mAh battery, which owes also to the fine power consumption optimizations introduced back in Feature Pack 2. Beside my other touch-screen cellphone, the 5800 stayed charged longer — and that is another plus for this cellphone.

Let’s get techie

The Nokia 5800 is the first Nokia cellphone that has Wi-Fi outside the Nseries and Eseries. This functionality is accompanied by a WLAN Wizard that helps you configure a wireless connection in no time. Share the content stored on the phone online or open and play content with a remote source. Once the application has been configured, a menu item titled “Broadcast over home network” appears, allowing you to access shared files from remote sources.

The 5800 uses the same hardware as N85 and other similar models. The single CPU solution provides enough performance to run all sorts of applications.

The model runs on the latest version of the Symbian OS 9.4. The 5800 is equipped with 128 MB of RAM, of which 80 MB are left free for user applications. The onboard memory amounts to 128 MB, of which only 80 MB are left free for user applications. The device supports microSDHC cards up to 32 GB. An eight GB card is bundled with the product, enough for an average user.

The 5800 accelerometer automatically rotates the interface depending on the position of the cellphone. The scrollbars are fairly large so the cellphone is easily handled with one hand. The virtual buttons and icons are large, so no need for that stylus. The platform maintains enough continuity from the earlier revisions, introducing only evolutionary changes. The menus and settings are all the same with most S60 gadgets that bear hardware keyboards.

And just like other Nokia cellphones, all the applications are easy to control with fingers. The icons, fonts and scroll bar are big enough. The touchpad button above the screen serves to bring about a quick panel in almost any application. The panel lists a few quick access options. You can instantly skip to the music player, gallery, OVI, Nokia video center or Web browser. The list has no customization options; you can’t rearrange or change the items. One tap makes the panel appear, another tap shuts it down.

There are three alternate view modes available for standby, ranging from a totally deserted screen with the sole exception of a search bar to a fully informative one. Besides the bare screen mode, you can engage the latest view mode that emerged with the latest generation of S60 smartphones. The maximum number of icons was lowered to four, giving enough screen space to make them big enough for easy finger operation. Calendar events, music player and FM stats can be listed in an area below the icons.

Let the music play on

But what is music without the videos, right? The Video Center application has a beta version of YouTube. A Wi-Fi connection ensures maximum comfort while using the services, but you can alternatively engage GPRS or EDGE. Every small detail is carried out with great attention: if a playing video was interrupted, then the player will prompt to continue watching the clip from the point where you’ve stopped or alternatively it will start playing it from the very beginning.

Share Online is a standard tool for uploading multimedia content. You can easily post photos and videos through OVI-based services like Flickr or Vox. The integrated browser is built around the Konqueror platform. Nokia Web Browser covers all basic needs a mobile Web surfer might experience, supporting standards like HTML 4.01, JavaScript 1.5, CASS 1 and 2, RSS. 

The following graphics formats are supported by the device: GIF, JPEG, BMP, WBMP and PNG. The playable audio formats include MIDI, WAV, MP3, ACC, EACC+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB and Real Audio.

Now the music player. The player settings include six pre-installed equalizer presets. You can also create any number of user presets. The base presets are Default, Bass Booster, Classical, Jazz, Pop and Rock. The eight-band equalizer has become a standard feature of all S60-based devices. Playing with equalizer sliders greatly affects the sounding, so it’s always worth trying to tune the thing to your liking. Track sorting can be done by artist name, album title, genre and so one. Playback options include looped and random playback. The Album Arts feature is supported, that is, you get the album cover picture shown all the time while the tracks from this album are played.

Apart from having really good sound quality, the Nokia 5800 is also more user-friendly when it comes to connectors. The audio connector is located on the top edge of the casing, so you have no problem listening to the music with the handset in your pocket. A set of volume controls is found on the bundled adaptor; you can plug the headset into the phone either directly in the 3.5-mm audio out or using this adaptor thingie. Unfortunately, there are no dedicated player control buttons, which we are missing much. To switch tracks, you have to unblock the keypad and go all the way through the menus to reach the needed menu.

There are two kinds of radios on Nokia 5800 — Visual Radio and Internet Radio. Visual radio supports graphic features like Album Arts while Internet radio is a Web service allowing comprehending a radio signal broadcast over the Web. That makes a good point given the rapid spread of quality Wi-Fi access points and 3G mobile networks.

The phone has a Nokia Music Store support, which lends access to more than a million tracks by various performers. In the playback menu, a “Go to the music store” option is added, which bounces you to www.music.nokia.com. The Music Store offers a lot of options: a full-fledged track database search, access to ratings and statistics, a planned download list, and phone-to-PC synchronization with the help of Windows Media Player.

Cool to touch is what I call this cellphone. I love it that the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic lets me get a good grip on it and responds to my touch.

Of course, the best discovery with this candybar cellphone is that although it may seem that Nokia designed it exclusively for its online music service, it’s not quite true. This cellphone targets all other touch-screen offerings around, including Windows Mobile.

The best part is that Nokia has dropped the price of the 5800 Tube. But more than just price, it seems that Nokia has introduced a new cellphone that will be the first gadget to beat, and the one that everyone will want to own this year.

Don’t judge the Nokia 5800 as “feminine” or “teenager-ish,” until you get a good look at it. Nokia 5800’s positioning shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out — it’s simply the most feature-rich and affordable touch-screen device with a focus on music. I have showed the 5800 to a few male friends and they tell me they wouldn’t mind owning one.

For me, the cellphone competition just got nudged one step higher.

Can’t wait to see (and hold) what comes next.