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Nokia 5800
De la Portal semantic Pagini Favorite
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| Generalitati | |
|---|---|
| Fabricant | Nokia |
| Retele 2G | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
| Retele 3G | HSDPA 900 / 2100 |
| Anuntat | 2008, October |
| Sunet | |
| Speakerphone | Da |
| Memorie | |
| Slot card | Da |
| Date | |
| GPRS | Da |
| HSCSD | Da |
| EDGE | Da |
| WLAN | Da |
| Bluetooth | Da |
| USB | Da |
| Camera | |
| Camera secundara | Da |
| Functii | |
| Browser | Da |
| Radio | Da |
| GPS | Da |
| Surse bibliografice | |
Four months have passed since its announcement in October 2008 and the 5800 XpressMusic has finally landed in Singapore. It is the first touchscreen smartphone that runs on the Series60 (S60) 5th Edition platform and bundled with an unlimited music download service, Comes With Music (CWM).
Meanwhile, Nokia has already announced the N97, its second touchscreen S60 model, in December last year. That is expected to be available worldwide in the first half of 2009. Samsung, too, has shown off its Omnia HD based on the same software at the recently concluded Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Editors' note:
As this is the first handset that runs on the S60 5th Edition platform and bundled with CWM, we are taking a different approach for the review of the 5800 XpressMusic. Our evaluation will be split into three main sections looking at the software, service and hardware before ending with our usual performance tests and conclusion.
August 21: Nokia has just announced the Navigation edition of the 5800. This is a regular 5800 model without CWM, but packs a car charger, car kit and lifetime voice-guided Drive and Walk navigation licenses.
S60 5th Edition Software
Naturally, the highlight of this device is the touchscreen-enabled S60 interface. This is an extension of the current S60 3rd Edition UI, dubbed the S60 5th Edition. What happened to "4", you might ask. Without elaborating too much, Tuula Rytila-Uotila, vice president for Live, GoToMarket, said the company traditionally doesn't use that number in its products. In the Asian context, the number 4 is considered unlucky.
The 5800 doesn't have a directional pad or an Enter button, but is instead fully controlled using the touchscreen and the three hardware keys below the display. The resistive LCD which allows you to use your fingers or a stylus for input requires a little more pressure to tap compared with capacitive screens.
Going with the music theme, Nokia has even included a plectrum--normally used with a guitar for plucking or strumming--as an alternative pointing device. Making up for the absence of tactility associated with hardware buttons is onboard haptic feedback.
User Interface
A lot of what you expect on an S60 phone has been retained, including the ability to bring up a list of running applications by holding down the menu button. To quit any application, just press and hold the corresponding icon and a context menu will pop up for you to do so. Additional shortcuts have also been added to capitalize on the touch interface. You can set an alarm by tapping on the time or switch from Silent to General by hitting on the profile. The battery indicator, on the other hand, brings up the connection manager.
The key takeaway with the touch interface is the inconsistency with scrolling and tapping gestures in the software. It's not a deal-breaker, at worst marring the initial experience with the device. The irregularity makes it seem like Nokia hasn't put much thought into what it wants to deliver with the 5800.
For instance, you slide your finger down in the menus to scroll down, but you "push" a page up in the Web browser instead. The swiping finger gesture is also implemented only in selected applications. One example is the picture gallery.
Applications need only one tap to activate, while other menu options require you to tap twice. Granted that a possible reason for implementing a second click is to prevent accidental presses, the constant switch between single and double taps is something which takes getting used to.
The Home screen with three preset contacts' faces.
(Click for larger image)
While we like the overall "stickiness" of the interface, it doesn't beat the iPhone in terms of fluidity. Given an option, we would have preferred the rim that runs around the circumference of the device to be flush with the display instead. That will make it easier to scroll pages using the onscreen bars at the sides.
The Home screen on the 5800 prominently shows pictures or avatars of those contacts you want quick access to. Tapping on their pictures, you can then see your recent activity log with them on the screen and conveniently call or message them. Vital information like your RSS feeds and calendar appointments are also easily accessible via this Home screen.
Alternatively, you can switch back to the standard Shortcuts bar which you can customize with four frequently accessed applications. The icons are noticeably bigger to cater for finger-based inputs.
On the top right corner, a touch-sensitive "button" above the LCD brings up a shortcut dropdown column which allows you to access your music, videos, pictures and the Internet browser quickly.
Text Input
Various text input methods have been implemented including a full QWERTY for landscape mode use, a mini QWERTY if you'd rather thumb type in portrait format, the good old onscreen numeric keypad for one-hand operation, and handwriting recognition.
L to R: Alphanumeric keypad, full QWERTY, mini QWERTY.
(click for larger images)
There is haptic feedback for every action, a useful feature when you don't have the tactility of physical keys. You can adjust the intensity, and we found that keeping it to the minimal, so that the vibration was subtle, gave us the best experience overall.
During our review, the mini QWERTY input was much too small to be useful. On the flipside, the full QWERTY and numeric keypads both take up the entire screen so you can't see the screen you are on. That may also cause problems in some cases where you have to type in something while referring to text or images on the display at the same time.
While we fully understand the need for these onscreen keypads to be large for accessibility, some size compromise could have been implemented so you can still see part of the original page. That said, we got up to speed typing on the full QWERTY the moment we picked up the phone and it was our preferred mode of text input.
Applications
According to Rytila-Uotila, programs created for current S60 phones will also work on the S60 5th Edition, though many of them have not been formatted for the 5800's 640 x 360 display and may look odd. The software development kit (SDK) for the S60 5th Edition has been released to developers and they will be able to tweak their current applications for this UI and create new ones, too.
Bear in mind that there are still very limited applications that are fully compatible with the 5800. Preinstalled are the Web browser, Maps 2.0, music player, file manager, calculator, converter, voice recorder, FM radio, Podcast, RealPlayer and your usual Calendar, Contacts and Messaging facilities. Missing are Quick Office and a PDF reader which would have been useful for document handling. Mail for Exchange, one of our favorite free apps for syncing with Microsoft Exchange, worked perfectly fine on our review unit though.
The Web browser hasn't seen much improvement, so it's basically still the Webkit version, but with touch capabilities. It's a pity because Nokia could have taken the opportunity to make it more polished than the Safari browser on the iPhone. What's good is that the browser supports Flash and Java.
The 5800 is preinstalled with two games--Bounce and Global Race-Raging Thunder. Interestingly, only the racing game makes use of the onboard accelerometer for steering the vehicle in-game.
Tags: Apple iPhone, Screen, Web Browser, Nokia Corp., touch screen
