Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Mobile Phone

by Parsley on Sun, 2009/03/29 - 8:45pm Post to Twitter

PARSLEY’S COMMLOCK
Technology Review: Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Mobile Phone
I realised just how little my life meant, when I felt how totally eclipsed it was by my new mobile phone. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Mobile Phone, henceforth referred to as ‘my new phone’, was given to me free by Orange in return to signing up for a new 18 month contract.

Actually the most significant element in that decision was the free broadband, including internet telephony free to landlines in most countries of the world. But as they reduced my talk plan price to around £15 a month, and gave me unlimited UK texts, they happened to mention that receiving a new handset would not influence the deal.

I asked for something ‘wizz-bang’ that would make me feel less embarrassed in front of the iPhone-owning world, and they came up with this or a better-featured Samsung. However, the Samsung had some suspicious battery life statistics, so I went for the market leader Nokia, and all my expectations of their reliability and performance.

To my mind they must be bricking it about the way the iPhone has swept the popular imagination, redefining expectations about mobile phones and touch screens. If I were them I’d have moved hell for leather to come back with a decent answer, and then price it/make it available in such a way that it could become the new default phone.
I have seen a fair bit of the iPhone. My brother moved to O2 just to get his. It is not only functionally exciting, but like most Apple things it also has an aesthetic quality that is satisfying in its own right. However, a friend of mine who has owned one for over a year mentioned that over time one uses less of the wiz-bang functionality, and more of the phone function, and in this he found it quite disappointing.

I, however, had been using a Sony Ericsson of over 2-years vintage. I was extremely ready for an upgrade. When my new phone arrived I experienced a wave of euphoria and excitement, which grew as I realised all the things I could now do.

Principal amongst these was I was now not obliged to have my iPod, camera, or cassette recorder Walkman (yes, some musicians are still recording new songs on cassette) when I left the house.

It came with 8GB storage which enabled me to dump a whole heap of favourite MP3s over from iTunes (the Nokia favours Windows Media Player for linking to). The recorder has proved very ready for rehearsal recordings – recording in easily emailable format.

Meanwhile the 3.2 megapixel camera (& I stopped caring when they got past 2) has 2 flash bulbs in it so that it can produce enough of a flash to take decent night time photos. This week I passed the filming of ‘Ashes to Ashes’ in a side street in Hoxton. I was quickly able to get a decent snap of Phil Glenister.

Aesthetically, it’s just a phone to me, and I’ve been quite surprised that people notice it, although they do. It’s been a while since I had a Nokia, and I’m afraid their rather laboured interface doesn’t suit the high functionality. You tend to wait for functions to open before you can then choose to open anything. The list of available options requires scrolling down to see all options available.

Some simple actions seem weirdly complicated. For instance, I can’t simply look at the files I’ve just been recording with the recorder. Instead I have to find them using the file manager. There’s also no obvious distinction between the main menu functions and the ones sitting under ‘applications’. In fact ‘camera’ sits on the second page of the applications functions, very well hidden. Fortunately I’ve found by accident that if you just hit the camera shutter button then the camera function comes up.

Email has been an absolute dream as merely giving email address and password caused it to answer all other remaining questions automatically and give me send and receive capability. Again there was some unnecessary strangeness, as word document attachments cannot be opened despite all manner of web pages being viewable through the browser. Finding out that an email has an enormous attachment requires you to select ‘details’ from the second page of options when highlighting an email. There are several similar examples that suggest the phone’s functions are about ‘ticking boxes’ rather than being easily useful.

However, the standard mini-jack socket for my favourite headphones was much appreciated. The fact that those non-Nokia headphones became the aerial for the built-in FM radio, whilst still allowing me to use the built-in speakers, i.e. not the headphones, was a bonus.

There’s a fair bit more I could tell you, with a built in BBC iPlayer, and maps that have already helped me find places, and worked in Stockholm. I expect some wiz-bang phone users take these things for granted, but for me they were new treats.

I haven’t yet dared to take the sticky label off the front of the phone, as I understand my career wiping it will begin at that moment. I confess I also miss the mirror and the easily viewable clock that my previous phone gave me, and after a week I am taking a lot of the functions for granted and wondering why I thought they were such a big deal. Still, it was very nice for nothing!

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]