Lining up for the Tube

A few days after I got the e-mail, I got a text message which informed me that that Nokia 5800 XpressMusic cellphone is now available and that if I brought the cellphone with the text message my reservation would be OK. The next day, I got a call from Nokia informing about the Jan. 10 event.

And here is what happened when I got to the Nokia Store at Bonifacio High Street.

I was told that a few thousands signed up for the pre-ordered cellphone. But it was even more exciting to find out that there was one person who lined up for his cellphone at 9:30 p.m. the night before. By the time I got there at 10 a.m. the line was longer than long. The guards at Bonifacio High Street had their hands full, making sure that the traffic continued to flow smoothly in spite of the long lines.

From what I saw there were music and mobile phone lovers alike at the Nokia Store.

Age? Young and not so young, they were there. There were very few times when I enjoyed being in line, the one at the Nokia Store was one that I had fun being a part of.

“I’m buying the phone for my 21-year-old son, Hyge, who will be graduating this semester from IBM. I personally use a Nokia N82 and my son wanted something similar, “ said Habib Nawab, who was first in line at the Nokia Store.

The next in line who was also waiting since the night before was Shahin Hessami Zadeh who ordered two units for himself and his wife, both music lovers. He currently has a Nokia 5320 XpressMusic and will add the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic to his collection of music devices. “I’ll be loading my new phone with trance music!” he said. 

For Rom Saplaco, who was third in line, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic was a well-deserved upgrade from his jurassic Nokia 3650. “I almost lost this phone seven times in the past seven years!” said Rom. “I liked the features, specs, and hardware of the 5800 XpressMusic and when I saw the pre-order form online I immediately signed up,” he said.   

Nokia Philippines’ big boss was more than happy with what he saw.

“We are very pleased with the turnout today,” said William Hamilton-Whyte, general manager of Nokia Philippines. “We hope those who bought this touch-screen device enjoy the experience of listening to their favorite music, watching videos, playing motion-sensitive games, checking e-mail, browsing the Internet and updating Facebook,” he said.

The first 58 buyers received a Sennheiser HD-205 headset and VIP passes for two to the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic HedKandi Playlist Party on Jan. 23 at A.Venue Hall in Makati City.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has a retail price of P19,900 and is available at all Nokia Stores nationwide.

* * *

As for me, well, the joys of this touch-screen cellphone continue to amaze me and keep me glued to the unit.

In the store, I got hold of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic “Tube” (as it more commonly called). 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, lovers of touch-screen cellphones will surely get a kick out of this phone.

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, which 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 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 surfaces. There are two slots on the cellphone that are protected with flaps — one for the memory card, the other 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.

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 — the keypad will pop out. And, here’s the joy for Nokia users — the keypad is not QWERTY; it’s 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.

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 with the 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 128MB of RAM, of which 80MB are left free for user applications. The device supports microSDHC cards of up to 32GB. An 8GB card is bundled with the product, enough for an average user.

And just like all 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. 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.

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 is 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.

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 on. 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.

I must say that with what I experienced last Saturday, I am convinced that the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is not just for girls or music-lovers — its for anyone who wants a cellphone that keeps them connected in the best way possible. 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.