Nokia 5800 Review

The Nokia 5800 Xpress Music

The Nokia 5800 Xpress Music, is Nokia's first touchscreen phone. The 5800 is still worth a look at even though dual core smartphones have been released. The Nokia 5800 has a high-res 3.2 inch touchscreen, that packs in a very hefty 16 million colours. Other features that make the 5800 Xpress Music worth looking at are the:

• 3.2 Megapixel Carl Zeiss optics camera
• Video calling support
• Full desktop like web browser (with flash)
• Stereo speakers
• FREE Ovi Maps
• Wi-Fi
• 8GB memory card included

There's so many other reasons why the Nokia 5800 is still a great device to buy.

The Nokia 5800 is part of the Xpress-Music range Nokia offers. This means that certain 5800 users can download an unlimited number of music albums for a whole year. All the music that is downloaded can be kept forever! This is one of the reasons why people tend to buy the Nokia 5800.

The Nokia 5800's Menu

The Nokia 5800 runs on the Symbian OS v9.4, Series 60 rel. 5 O operating system. This is basically the same Symbian OS that you've seen in previous Nokia devices, the main difference being that it has been optimised for touch operation. The buttons are a lot bigger and applications can all be easily navigated through, using your finger or the stylus provided with the 5800. The 5800's operating system is slow and sometimes doesn't respond, this has been improved with newer firmwares, but is still a problem. 

The camera quality on the 5800 isn't great, actually we were surprised with the quality of it. To be honest, we've seen better quality on a 2 megapixel camera! We think that this is down to the firmware which was on the phone, not the actual camera hardware. Maybe it will be improved in future updates? The 3.2 megapixel camera is accompanied by a dual LED flash. The flash is very bright and can also be used as a torch. The Nokia 5800 has a decent video camera, it can record up to 640 x 480 pixels, at 30 frames per second, with stereo sound. The Nokia 5800 has a secondary, front facing camera which can be used to take images of your self, when in the camera application and can also be used for video calling.

Nokia Comes With Music

Lets talk about the Nokia 5800's music player. The is probably one of best sounding mobile phones. The position of the the speakers is on the side of the phone, so that if you place the device on a soft, cushiony surface such as a bed, you'll still be able to hear the music loud and clear. The controls for the music interface is very clear and easy to use and all the features that you'd expect are here:

• 8-band graphic equaliser
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• FM-radio

The 5800's touchscreen isn't that great. After using an iPhone, the resistive touchscreen seems like a let down. The 3.2 inch screen size of the 5800 is nice, as you can operate the device easily with one hand, but we'd rather prefer the 3.5 inch screen of the iPhone. It makes the phone stand out and a lot more easier to operate.

Nokia's Ovi Maps, FREE maps service is available on the Nokia 5800. This allows you to use your 5800 as a navigation system, all for FREE! (You still need to pay for the data usage). You can also download hundereds of 3rd-party apps from the Ovi store. The Ovi store is Nokia's version of the Apple, App Store or the Android Market Place. We don't think that the Ovi store is halfway on the level of the Apple App Store, but we think that it'll improve and grow over time.

Overall we think that the Nokia 5800 is a great device, that is still popular among the public in 2011. We think that many improvements can be made to the Nokia 5800, such as the operating system, it's slow and the menus are a little hard to navigate using your finger. This doesn't mean that the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music is a bad device, the hardware is great and the music player is superb. We still think that the Nokia 5800 is a worthwhile device to purchase, that's if your not bothered about big ('brick') phones, or the Symbian operating system.

Posted in: Phone Reviews,Reviews