Nokia 5800 : XpressMusic Review

Here is a very short hands-on review of the ownership. Feel free to ask any specific questions.......Although this must have been done already and you must have read the reviews a 100 times till now :)

Please drop in a line if the review is liked / disliked. Thanks.

The Bundle

Neat bundle package set. Phone + 3.5mm Headphones + Multimedia Controller 3.5mm jack + Strap + Stand + TV Out Cables + Extra Stylus + Manuals + Warranty Card + Battery + Adapter + Mini CD + 8GB MicroSD Card.

Thumbs up: Neat bundle.

Thumbs down:The default scratch guard on the phone has a design all over it. :mad: Nokia should have either left it completely blank or bundled a fully plain scratch guard along in the bundle.

The Startup

So I popped the battery in and started the device. The device bootup time was less than a minute up and running completely. The usual Nokia logo at the startup ( which can be replaced by Text as usual as in older models as well )

I loaded about 2-3 gig of data and even with it , the bootups finishes under 30 seconds currently.

[BREAK= 1st Impressions/The Sim&Memory Card]

1st Impressions

Well, I sat thinking there, wat! nothing different. The phone really doesn't seem different as in...its yet another SYMBIAN phone, I've been using symbian since the Nokia 3650 days so this was no different. Was very impressed with the responsiveness of the phone and the touch is very sensitive. The double select feature doesn't bother and it took me precisely 5-10 mins to get used to it. Its simple and you would get used to it eventually.

The SIM and Memory Card

The sim and the memory card have slots of the left side of the phone. As shown in the review of the phone on youtube where it was said the slot is 'difficult to get to' , I din't find any difficulty with the same. To remove the memory card , there is a option when you press the main on/off button on the phone that says 'Remove Memory Card', something like 'Safely Remove Hardware' like we have in windows. The sim slot is push and hold type unlike the memory card slots. The sim card goes in and is held there by no spring - press retention method , its just a usual slot. To insert the SIM card you do not need to remove the backcover , but to remove the sim card you need to turn the device off , remove the back panel and then push out the sim card from the phone , painfull mechanism.

[BREAK=Other Layouts/The Rear Panel]

Other Layouts

The right side of the phone has the 'excellent' screen lock/phone lock latch. This is the best thing i've ever seen in any phone till date. Best accessed using the right hand only. Above there are the Volume up and down keys which act as zoom in and out keys in the camera function. The rest usual volume control in multimedia applications and call volume control. Also at the button the camera shutter key , which when suppressed would bring up the camera, half click used to do AF during taking pictures.

Another thing to be noted is that the phone vibrates as a feedback everytime a touch is made to it , this can be successfully turned on/off as per users preference. I've personally turned it off since i din't like it. However, each time the phone is unlocked from its locked position using the slider the phone vibrates as an indication that the phone has been successfully unlocked. This again is unwanted and I was not able to figure out a way to turn this feature off , This also needs to be addressed by Nokia in the upcoming firmware for users like me who would want this feature off , just sliding of the latch is enough to lock / unlock the phone with no feedback mechanism required.

At the bottom nothing but just the mic. On top is the 3.5mm jack which is also the TV Out jack. Then the USB and the power connector. I checked the specs on the charger with the older similar small pin charger and they were different. Hence refrain from using the older one on the phone. (In my case I had to use a flat pin to round pin converter for the charger)

On plugging in anything in the 3.5mm jack a small menu pops up asking 'What has been plugged in'. On selection it would switch to that particular mode. The phone automatically detects if the headset connected is with mic or without mic, Thats what amazed me most , when I plugged in my HD201 (music discussed later) it gave me a nice prompt saying 'Use Phone Microphone' , which meant I can continue on a call on 'any' attached headphone and converse with the phone mic ! On connecting the headset with the mic the usual functionality of that was restored and no prompt was shown.

The Pick / Cancel and the Menu buttons are easily accessible and have no issues with them. Nor are they cranky or make a sound.

On the other side are the stereo speakers separated by the SIM/Memory card slots.

The Rear Panel

Well, Nothing different or unknown here , a standard flat panel with a 3.2MP Carl Zeius Camera with Dual LED flash leds. The rear panel is a 'sweat' magnet and tends to keep those stains on them!

[BREAK=Multimedia/ransferring of Music /USB]

Multimedia

Well, its a mixed bag actually. The audio quality is just amazing and so is the video quality (playback). Haven't really transferred a video to check on the same. The audio is really good even on the stock headphones but quality on better earphones are even better. The application is fast and doesnt lag any user inputs. On the other hand the camera was a little wee bit let down for me. It underperformed my expectations. Color loss was evident in some of the pictures that were taken in low-light situations. However photos taken in sunlight were fine. Video on the other hand was a little disappointing as well. I'm relying on the next firmware of Nokia to fix these issues. The camera application has lots of user options and customisatin options available, like different modes / color scheme / quality , etc etc. Good bundle with the software I must admit.

Transferring of Music / USB

I haven't like checked the exact transfer rate and benchmark it and all , all I did is took a folder with 2GB of music and simply drag - dropped the folder onto the music folder of the phone , running in MASS STORAGE Mode. An odd 150+ files , the transfer happened without any issues and took a little over 9 mins for the transfer to complete. Once done , the internal default music player automatically detected that files have been added and updated the music library and it was up and running. Played music on loudspeaker (at middle range volume ) for about 20-25 mins at stretch and there is NO heating up of the phone anywhere , nor the rear panel near the battery , nor near the speakers.....(next I'm going to check out some videos, just figuring out the same to convert an .avi file to .mp4 at the correct resolution.

[BREAK=Video/Messaging]

Video

Haven't been able to hook on to a 3rd party app for the 5800 XM for playback of videos yet , Div X player for mobile phones is still not supported by the 5800 and might take a while for its release. Although I did try out a random .mp4 file which by default plays in "Real player" of the phone and yet again , it just doesn't disappoint. Crisp , No lags , lockup or flutter at all. Bang on target. Its like a mini wide screen :)

Messaging

Well, T9 lovers rejoice , no adaptation required at all.....all you have to do is use the normal keypad layout and type away to glory. Zero adaptation skills needed.....It dint even take me a minute. SMS'ing is a breeze. The handwriting pad is AMAZING as well...its fantastic....the best part was the symbol recognition messaging system. Suppose i put up a 'custom' symbol and associate a message (for eg. Hi, How are you doing today?)....Then all I have to do is draw the custom symbol and the message "Hi, How are you doing today?" will automatically be inputted , amazing huh! :) ......so to summarize for sms'ing....10/10 for it!

[BREAK=GPS/Wifi]GPS

I decided to check on the GPS and loaded Mumbai Maps, All I wanted to do is pure tracking but at all times i was not able to lock on to any satellites, the bar would just not move and keep on saying connecting to GPS, but it wouldn't search for the satellite for a lock on the position... :no: This is what I did :

- Deleted all MAPS.

- Loaded the Map Loader software which came in a CD

- Uninstalled all the MAPS as default

- Downloaded new maps.....

Still haven't been able to check on the GPS part. I read elsewhere that what I would need to go is allow it to connect externally 'once' before it would allow running navigation offline. I have already updated the maps for India with the latest update map pack from Nokia.

WIFI

Tested the WIFI access. Since my WLAN is mac id protected I had to look out and search for my MAC; I know for sure its easy cakewalk on Windows OS phones , but no where could I find the WLAN MAC ID of my phone...

Google came to the rescue here......

For everyone's reference , all credit and thanks to the original poster of the page : Phones:Nokia keypad codes - Gammu.org Wiki

*#mac0wlan# (*#62209526#) Show MAC address of the WLAN adapter
WLAN experience was nice....downloading a 1.5mb file (read:Google Maps) took around 3 minutes. Browsing on the phone was a good experience and smooth. The browser does need a upgrade. It played flash content right out of the box...Various options like saving password , blocking pop ups are also there....

[BREAK=Gaming/Conclusion]

Gaming

The pre-loaded games are "Bounce" and "RT GR" both games fully playable on accelerometer and man-oh-man, Wat fun it is. No controls , no touching all you gotta do is move the phone and let the phone do whats it supposed to do. I even connected the phone to the TV and checked it out just for the sake of checking it out....it sure did lag. However on the phone its fun for sure.

Overall Conclusion

Overall, its an excellent device. IMO its a definite buy for people who 'do not' have a dedicated multimedia device like a i pod or anything else or who do not have multimedia enabled phones already. The camera picture and video quality is a major turnoff currently though :no: I have to agree here , N82 beats the hell out of this cam where as picture quality is considered. Deviating a little off topic from the 5800, if we are to talk about picture quality of the cam in the 5mp category, the Omnia steals the show for me.

[BREAK=Bugs]

BUGS

Here are some of the bugs that I have personally found out......

- The auto rotate doesn't work in messaging after 2 times. I.e if i do the rotate thing 2 times , the 3rd time the screen gets stuck in the default mode only and will not switch to landscape mode at all......

- After the phone has been put in USB data mode for data transfer the phone automatically resets the Messaging Inbox to go to Phone Memory , then we need to manually go into settings and set it back to the card memory.....

- During multimedia playback in full screen like videos and pictures , if we call for the Options menu the screen flickers as in to refresh the menu........

- Big BUG - The phone due to some weird reason stopped showing me call alerts. For eg. It would show i have a missed call , but it wouldn't show me from whom , the sms's stopped coming in even though i was able to send out messages absolutely fine. Noticed this after a few people at work told me that they had called me a couple of times but I dint have any alert on my screen. Again , its not that the phone dint show me that the call was coming, but it dint show me the missed call alert and the number , when it showed me the alert , it dint show me the number. I had the SAME problem in my N72 which I had got when the N72 was out (which was fixed by the updated firmware)....so certainly this would really be something wanting to be had. To fix this I had to reboot my phone and allow it to refresh its mem or whatever and then the alerts and all blocked sms's came in fine.

- Experienced keypad issues when entering WEP keys for wifi access.

[BREAK=Camera / Picture Samples]

Camera / Picture Samples

Phone Pictures - Random



Sample Pictures from the Phone



[BREAK=3rd party software]3rd party software

I've loaded Google Maps and let me tell you even though it gave me a pop up saying that its not compatible with the device. It installed and its running absolutely fine.

Also from Nokia - Hongkong website i've loaded :

-Touch Piano - App

-Touch Guitar - App

-Mail for Exchange - App

-Touch Popper - Game

-Touch Maneuver - Game

Thats it from me. Hope this is liked by everyone. Do leave back a comment.
 
Whatever is used, it would be safe IMHO. It's used so that you don't accidentally use the touchscreen when you are talking on the phone. So what do i get to identify the sensor :p

EDIT : Mostly it's a infrared beam, not a light sensor (As we cannot see it:p), and not a magnetic one (As it would light up/get screwed when even the tiniest magnet is brought close to it). And mostly the IR one would be pretty safe.
 
PhOeNiX said:
And mostly the IR one would be pretty safe.

i never knew exposures to IR is safe :S

Phone Update : December 28th 2008
Alright, the phone is super fast now , at least 20% fast in between screens and switching menus .... all I had to do is go to themes and turn off > theme effects....it cuts out the transitions between screens and the fade in/out stuff and the extra bling :D.....:hap2:

Also loaded new 3rd party themes :D.....themes on this are huge....ranging from 1mb to 10mb per theme :lol:
 
Lol. Now i know why they put in a 16GB slot for this one :p

IR exposures are safe upto a certain wavelength, beyond which the heat is too much in them. Even your TV remote has IR. :p
 
hanzy said:
:eek:hyeah: :eek:hyeah: :hap2: :hap2: :eek:hyeah: :eek:hyeah:

LOL , ICON ISSUE also solved :D :D im looking at the grid in 2 column view :O and its so uneasy to see it in this layout , lol........wait will type how it is ;)

Menu > Settings > Phone > Display > Font Size :D :lol:
Set it to large and you get 2 column
Set it to Normal and you get 3 column
Set it to Small and you get 4 column view
:lol: ...........

That's great hanzy... Went to another NPD today and check out.. that phone had the normal 4x3 grid :cool2:
 
PhOeNiX said:
Lol. Now i know why they put in a 16GB slot for this one :p

IR exposures are safe upto a certain wavelength, beyond which the heat is too much in them. Even your TV remote has IR. :p

ya but u dont point to ur brain keeping on pressing buttons for 3-4 hours a day :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: , u also na...:hap5: :rofl:
(can't stop laufing :rofl: )
 
One more thing hanzy... Can we add our own shortcuts to the s60 shortcut bar that's displayed @ the top in the standby screen?? If yes, is it limited to only four or can we have more??
 
vpraveenis said:
One more thing hanzy... Can we add our own shortcuts to the s60 shortcut bar that's displayed @ the top in the standby screen?? If yes, is it limited to only four or can we have more??

"4" only......and it can be anything that you wish to have
i.e. pre-installed or 3rd party installed apps etc etc....

wait until u find some 3rd party app which can sit as an active desktop on the standby screen :hap2:

Edit : I also got the GPS tracking to work today ! :hap2: really nice and perfect..........

lets see this....

Total distance i travelled : 8kms
Shown on phone : 7.9kms

Low Speed I did : 30km/hr
Shown on phone : 29.7 km/he

Max speed I did : X5km/hr
Shown on phone : X4.9/hr

:clap:
 
This page / thread has been deserted from the past 24hrs now :O.....cant guess why....neways.....a bump with an update......

-I'm getting good satellite locks for tracking from the past 2 days as I mentioned above. I tried it today as well. The track nicely gets mapped to Google Maps as well as Nokia Maps. One thing that surely needs to be noted is that it needs an all clear top. Even from my balcony i can't get the satellites to lock on.

-Installed 7-8 themes :D ......

- Enjoyed good 2 hours of music (trance)on the phone today :lol: was fun......btw what i'm using for music are these
41M25PJXDKL._AA280_.jpg
 
PhOeNiX said:
Whatever is used, it would be safe IMHO. It's used so that you don't accidentally use the touchscreen when you are talking on the phone. So what do i get to identify the sensor :p

EDIT : Mostly it's a infrared beam, not a light sensor (As we cannot see it:p), and not a magnetic one (As it would light up/get screwed when even the tiniest magnet is brought close to it). And mostly the IR one would be pretty safe.

Why would they use an IR proximity sensor?

A light proximity sensor uses a photo electric resistor.

When it's illuminated it provides very high resistance similar to an open circuit. When light is cut, the circuit starts behaving like a closed circuit and current starts flowing.

It's the simplest of proximity sensors and it seems well suited to this particular application. When you hand is over the sensor, it cuts out light.
 
sahilm said:
Why would they use an IR proximity sensor?

A light proximity sensor uses a photo electric resistor.

When it's illuminated it provides very high resistance similar to an open circuit. When light is cut, the circuit starts behaving like a closed circuit and current starts flowing.

It's the simplest of proximity sensors and it seems well suited to this particular application. When you hand is over the sensor, it cuts out light.

:hap2: amazing explanation and to the point......:cheers: :director: repped.
 
hanzy said:
Edit : I also got the GPS tracking to work today ! :hap2: really nice and perfect..........

Cool. Do we have a limit on the GPS function? For e71, the nokia folks said 3 months or so (don't remember exactly). After that it's a hefty annual subscription of 4k
 
hanzy said:
This page / thread has been deserted from the past 24hrs now :O.....cant guess why....neways.....a bump with an update......

Well... I have a question.. How do you browse through sms in inbox.. I mean open the first message, then go to the second message directly without coming back to the inbox??

Great to know that GPS is working fine... How long is the free navigation thing valid??
 
sahilm said:
Why would they use an IR proximity sensor?

A light proximity sensor uses a photo electric resistor.

Which means it will work only in the daytime and not during the night, when there is no ambient light....
 
vpraveenis said:
Which means it will work only in the daytime and not during the night, when there is no ambient light....

No :rofl: . The light is emitted by the sensor itself, not taken from the surroundings. Just imagine, the Mission Impossible scenes, where tommy goes through the air duct just to find the laser beams ?? Just replace those lasers with light, mostly in the invisible spectrum. Once you cut this beam,maybe by bringing it close to the face, the connection breaks, and the sensor kicks in. Once you take it away from your face, the effect fades.
 
vpraveenis said:
Well... I have a question.. How do you browse through sms in inbox.. I mean open the first message, then go to the second message directly without coming back to the inbox??

Great to know that GPS is working fine... How long is the free navigation thing valid??

The same as old symbian OS....u can go back and go to the next sms OR use the arrow navigation at the top to go to the previous / next sms.......

I'm using tracking :) not navigation....tracking is free , navigation is charged and there is -NO- free subscription that comes along with the phone......
 
PhOeNiX said:
No :rofl: . The light is emitted by the sensor itself, not taken from the surroundings. Just imagine, the Mission Impossible scenes, where tommy goes through the air duct just to find the laser beams ?? Just replace those lasers with light, mostly in the invisible spectrum. Once you cut this beam,maybe by bringing it close to the face, the connection breaks, and the sensor kicks in. Once you take it away from your face, the effect fades.

From sahlim's post I got the impression that the light is sensed from external environment, and I feel he meant that.

And proximity sensors based on photo electric effect relies on reflection. A source inside transmits the beam. When there is no reflection of light, there is nothing in the porximity. When an object comes closer, it starts to reflect light which is caught by the sensor and thus an object in proximity is detected. And in most cases, this light is InfraRed.

So there's no cutting of beam involved here. Those are mostly used for security.

Source: Wikipedia.
 
hanzy said:
The same as old symbian OS....u can go back and go to the next sms OR use the arrow navigation at the top to go to the previous / next sms.......

I'm using tracking :) not navigation....tracking is free , navigation is charged and there is -NO- free subscription that comes along with the phone......

So there is a way to go previous and next without coming back...Great that's what I wanted to know. One more thing... what about marking several contacts at once. Say I want to send sms to 5 ppl and i want to mark 5 from my contacts. I used # key for multi marking in normal symbian phones.. how to go about it here??

Also do we have a recently sent list displaying last few contacts to which the sms was sent?
 
vpraveenis said:
So there is a way to go previous and next without coming back...Great that's what I wanted to know. One more thing... what about marking several contacts at once. Say I want to send sms to 5 ppl and i want to mark 5 from my contacts. I used # key for multi marking in normal symbian phones.. how to go about it here??

Also do we have a recently sent list displaying last few contacts to which the sms was sent?

lol, this is excellent in the 5800.....when u click on the "To" option , it brings up the contact list which has "checkbox's" you can search and check as many as you want , alternately.....if u tap the field option next to "To" a box comes up asking u to type a number manually or type a name manually......say u want to send a message to me...so you will type 'hanzy' and then say "OK: as in check mark option for the phone" ...it will take u back to the msg screen , then all u have to do is click on "To" again and the phone will go ahead and search the contact list and put up ....say u have stored my name as 'Hanzy' and not 'hanzy' as u typed ...it will autocorrect to 'Hanzy' :lol: and then u can send :D ....:hap2:
 
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