The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Review

By Rico, 2:02 am Sat Jan 10 2009 - Reviews - 19 Opinions

Touch-Screen Impressions

Less than a week of usage was long enough to make a final decision on this phone. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is the Finnish company’s first touch-interface product, and a large part of the mobile’s future appeal will depend on how well buyers receive the relative lack of physical buttons on a Nokia phone. A few hours of tapping the 5800’s screen sufficiently indicates whether Nokia’s touch-screen experience is attractive to a user.

For its part, the manufacturer has kept things pretty similar, so long-time Nokia users will be familiar with navigating through the main menu, contacts, messages, call log, calendar, clock, etc. It’s even possible to text the old way, through a touch-sensitive alphanumeric keypad that takes up the space where a normal keypad would’ve been. The difference here is that, instead of satisfying button clicks, the 5800 relies on changing the color of its virtual keys and emitting slight vibrations to tell the user that they’ve successfully pressed something.

But, there’s always that sense of lacking—felt with other devices like the LG Secret, HTC Touch Diamond, and (of course) the iPhone 3G—involved with touch-interfaces. Then again, this is a very subjective impression based on feel. Users who place a premium on responsiveness, who want to react near instantaneously when they press something, will probably never abandon real-life buttons. More forgiving users, on the other hand, are willing to bear some slight delays, if the phone offers something they like. Maybe creative implementations of touch-interfaces may change this, but for now, this is where things stand.

High-End Functionality, Mid-Range Price

As a phone though, it’s clear that the key attraction of the 5800 will be its relative affordability, despite the presence of high-end features like HSDPA, WiFi, TV-Out, and the ability to work practically anywhere in the civilized world (quad-band GSM). The 3.5mm jack (which accepts standard earphones), large 3.2″ display, and generous battery life (1320mAh) definitely help. Storage is practically not an issue for new 5800 owners, since an 8GB microSD comes with the phone. In other words, the 5800 would’ve been considered a high-end phone, if it weren’t for its borderline-mid-range price of P19,990.

The touch-sensitive screen shines as it becomes obvious that it provides ample space for watching movies without squinting, tapping out text through the virtual QWERTY keyboard without pressing the wrong letters accidentally, and touch-sensitive sliders that allow users to drag their finger to control the volume or quickly browse through a song or video. The 5800 even allows users to drag their finger and select text just like they would on a computer—to copy or cut for pasting somewhere else—partly because there’s enough space to do so.

Song and Video Browsing Problems

That’s why it’s too bad that Nokia has mostly failed to address a long-running problem with its multimedia software. Apple’s iPhone and iPods have made portable music and video very accessible to Juan dela Cruz because they make it really easy to browse through a large collection of songs and movies, even if said catalog runs in the thousands.

Nokia phones make it possible to filter out media by their author, album, genre, etc., but the 5800 continues the Nokia tradition of forcing users to press an insane amount of times just to find the song, video, or picture they want. The touch-sensitive scroll bar fixes this problem somewhat, since dragging it quickly moves through a list, but the experience just wasn’t responsiveness enough—it would still take a while for items to pop-out for pressing.

Versatile as Heck

The phone makes up for this by being much more versatile than Apple’s offerings, at least in terms of what the features allow. Need to quickly transfer songs? Copy or move them via Bluetooth. Want to show a video to everyone? Use the bundled TV-out cable to plug the phone into a TV or projector. Want to quickly change what’s stored on your phone? Just take out the microSD and replace it with a new one. Not to mention, the 5800’s speakers are easily the loudest ever heard blaring away on a cellphone.
A note about the camera though. Those looking for the great photography functionality of the Nokia N96, N95, and N82 will be disappointed. The 3.2 megapixel of the 5800 snaps great photos under bright sunlight or in a well-lit room, but try snapping photos in dim or dark conditions, and you’ll end up with grainy pictures, despite the flash.

In short, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic promises great value for its price, thanks to its generous offering of features and functionality. It’s just too bad Nokia missed out on an opportunity here, failing to totally maximize their touch-interface and make things a whole lot easier for the user. That being said, once again, you can’t go wrong with its P19,990 price tag.

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