Nokia 5800 XpresMusic Phone

Sunday, July 12, 2009

The Nokia 5800 XpresMusic Phone dubbed by some as the "iphone killer" is Nokia's almost all touch screen smart phone. Released on the first quarter of 2009, the phone boast both a hand full of features and some shortcommings. A High-end Phone for an above mid-end price is something that would surely entice any gadget lover.

Here is what you get from the box aside from the phone, the stylus, battery and memory isnt in the picture but it is included in the box. I liked the fact that the Nokia gave a lot of stuff included in the box, considering its price, which is not but nor was it that expensive for this type of phone.

You can see at left side are two slots one is for hot swapping of memory cards ( the phone includes an 8GB memory card, very nice....) and the other is for the SIM card, although unlike the memory card you can only insert it in this fashion if you want to pull it out, you need to remove the battery. The slot of the SIM card slot in my opinion isnt really necessary, why put it in that fashion if you cant use it that way? This is also the location of the speakers which is the best (quality wise) I have heard so far, its also pretty loud and despite its loudness sounds played are still clear.

Here is a view on top, almost all external connection are made here, which include, 35mm audio jack, charger slot, USB slot and power switch. I findit convinient that all these connections are placed here,it just made the phone look neat even you connect the USB cable and power jack in. Nokia also made good adding the 35mm Jack since it allows users to use their standard headset. You cant however, charge via USB, dunno why they didnt inlcude that feature, it would have been great to have that included.

The right side of the phone has the volume control, keypad lock and the camera button, these buttons are conviniently placed for easy access.

The back is where you find your 3.15 Mega Pixel Camera (why didnt Nokia used a 5MP camera?..) also you'll find your stylus which is again placed nicely.


The phone uses symbia S60 Operating System and runs beautifully except for a few instances of lags and slow responses, its very much acceptable. The phone works like any phone the only difference is that its obviously a touch screen device. Nokia also gave its users options on entering text either qwerty or alphanumeric and even a hand writing feature. It also has Wifi and bluetooth so you stay connected if there is an available network. The device also has an accelerometer which allows the screen to change based on how you hold the phone, this can breed softwares that can be very entertaining, Nokia made a sample of this with their racing game, where you need to steer the phone to steer the car, neat! GPS is also included and with its ultra wide screen, im sure you wont loose your way.

I liked the phone, it has a stirdy well developed design combined with Nokia's Symbian Operating System. I think Nokia could have made it better though, but I guess in order to compete with the market they just cut short a few of the features that they could have put in.