Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Review

It is a bit unusual, that Nokia has decided that their first cell phone with operating system S60 5. generation will be a cell phone from XpressMusic series, which is not an elite series featuring the most expensive cell phones. Though it is true that Nokia 5800-XpressMusic is one of the most Prestige multimedia cell phones. It is not so versatile as some other cell phones, as it is specialized for music, which can be seen in various ways. I believe the specialization was not such a bad idea, especially because the phone is mainly designed for younger people, who are willing to test some new features.

Nokia 5800-XpressMusic is one of the first cell phones, which support "Comes with music" feature, a realization of Nokia's vision of offering the best music experience to their customers. Feature "Comes with music" is offering one year of unlimited access to the complete "Nokia Music Store".

Nowadays when people talk about music cell phones, they usually talk about a "perfect" music cell phone, which delivers an astonishing music experience - more memory, lauder music, more powerful speakers, easier synchronization. But that is not all, a "perfect" music phone must also be quite good as a normal cell phone, featuring direct access to important features, relatively good camera and user friendly interface. Nokia 5800-XpressMusic, which nearly impersonates all of the mentioned characteristics offers users an amazing music experience.

As this amazing phone has a touch screen, it features a brand new way of using a Nokia cell phone. Nokia 5800-XpressMusic features a special Media Bar - a very useful menu, which offers direct access to music and entertainment, including favorite songs, movies and photos. Media Bar also enables direct access to internet and web sharing content. This phone supports Flash animations, thus enabling its users to browse through the whole internet. With program Flash Lite one can also watch videos in special formats (H.264 and FLV), which are common on YouTube, MySpace, CNN. Besides all that this phone also comes with complete music equipment, including graphic regulator, support of all major digital music formats and 8GB of memory, where one can store up to 6.000 songs. The integrated "surround stereo" speakers produce the highest quality sound (even when it is really laud) currently available among cell phones.

To really offer the best music experience, Nokia 5800-XpressMusic ensures easy access, browsing and purchasing music from Nokia Music Store. Nokia Music PC is the new edition of the PC synchronization software, which allows drag-and-drop way of handling with music files and the ability to edit any music collection. All these features ensures that using this phone is a breeze.

The innovative Contacts Bar enables users to select their favorite contacts. And with a single touch one can browse through history of sms, mms, emails, photos and blog updates.

A large (3,2 inc) touch screen display, which features one of the highest resolutions (640x320 pixel, nHD resolution) available for cell phones, can be used for watching photos, videos and web content in stunning and crystal clear colors (up to 16 million colors). The display's aspect ration 16:9 is ideal for watching both movies and VGA videos.

Nokia 5800-XpressMusic has a 3.2 MP camera with Carl Zeiss lenses, captured photos and videos can be shared with just a single touch on internet communities like Share on Ovi, Flickr or Facebook. Multimedia files can be also shared via bluetooth, MMS or internet. The camera is quite good for a 3,2MP camera, as it has 3x digital zoom, autofocus and dual LED flash.

User interface appears very similar to other Nokia user interfaces. The main difference is that due to higher resolution it seems smoother and more attractive. Browsing through menus is much faster (due to the new way of data input (touch screen)) than it would be with typical navigation button. Though the phone reacts slightly slower compared to some S60 Nokia cell phones, as it sometimes hesitates before completing certain tasks. When the phone is tilted the display automatically rotates in about one second, meanwhile there is no animation, just a blank background. The phone's touch screen reacts perfectly accurate and it offers feedback via slight vibrations.
This amazing phone supports 60 different languages, which represent more than 90 per cent of the whole human population. As people around the globe are different and vary in the way they use cell phones, 5800-XpressMusic features many different ways of using it - virtual keypad, virtual QWERTY, stylus and plectrum (both with handwriting recognition).

The phone is well equipped and as it uses brand new S60 operating system it definitely is a great balance between functionality, top notch equipment and price, as it is about 300€ cheaper than N96 (in my country). But if this was an attempt to beat iPhone, than I must admit that it will be a tough battle.

All in all it really is a great phone, especially for all those who like to have fun with their phone and who do not need it for some real practical purpose like capturing really good photos or navigation. It surely is a fancy phone and if you intend to buy a new one and you are looking for something relatively cheap and fancy with brand new features than this is a good choice. Yet still keep in mind that 3,2MP is not a very good camera for nowadays standards. I personally would not buy a new phone with a 3,2MP camera.