Nokia 5800 Xpress Music Review
The Nokia 5800 created great excitement when released, being Nokia’s first serious foray into the touch screen market. The fad for touch screens has reached the point where it is the norm for your phone to be operated by fingertip, and this is no exception. The name, however, gives things away, for the 5800 is also a member of that ever-growing family – the music smart phone.
So is it any good? Reviews have raved about aspects of its performance, and we shall see below whether we agree with the general consensus.
How does it look?
The candy bar style is very popular, and the 5800 follows the traditional route in this respect; it’s a pretty phone, and weighs in as solid device – not too large, but not so miniscule that it disappears in ones pocket. This is, after all, an iPhone challenger, and it looks the part.
The large screen is very much the norm in this class of phone, and the 5800 is no shirker on this front: it has a very nice screen, perfectly sized for its needs and with a lovely feel. The phone is available in black – another traditional presentation – or a very pretty burgundy, a colour that adds a touch of class that stands it proud from the crowd. It’s lightweight, although not too much, as just less than four ounces, and at just over half an inch thick it matches the best of them in terms of size and handling.
The screen is over three inches in height – perfectly adequate and almost the size of the iPhones – and the user interface is simple to get to grips with; this really is a nice phone to handle, and a very simple device to use. It passes the test in looks and feel, then, and is a suitably sturdy and typically well built handset from Nokia.
What does it do?
Like many of its rivals the Nokia 5800 is far from just a phone; back to that screen, for example – it can handle 16 million colours and 640x360 pixels. This is a quality display, and one that stands to match anything in the class.
The screen also adjusts, automatically, to different levels of available light - a neat touch that is typical of this acclaimed maker. Scrolling down the menu is very simple and effective – there is a scroll bar on the side that many have commented may be a little too small but we found perfectly fine – and the menu itself is a very well designed and beautifully arranged system.
Navigation on this handset is straightforward, and the features equally impressive, as they should be for an iPhone challenger.
Shortcuts are easy to add and a lovely virtual dialler is very useful indeed; in terms of handling and usability this feels closer to the Google G1 than anything else, and that is no surprise as that phone, too, is a decided rival.
With a full qwerty keyboard available, utilising the screen, and ease of use again at a top level in this area, the 5800 will win many friends in terms of capability for it is a very fine and usable device. There is little to say about the media player except that it offers everything one should and, being a music phone, is of the very highest order indeed. A match for the Sony Walkman phones it is, with consummate ease.
To sum up then, do we like the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music? Yes, we do; it may not be as smooth in operation as its intended rival the iPhone, and has none of the gimmicks or the sleek beauty of, for instance, the HTC Touch Diamond, but it achieves all of its aims; it is pretty, nice to handle, easy to use and with all of the relevant features that are expected of a smart phone.
I have chosen some of the Nokia 5800's most valuable offers for you:
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