[sriramcheenu]

i'm Sriram doing my Final BE ECE at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.. I'm a Mobile Freak.. Everyday when i open the internet explorer on my PC, my first job would be to read the latest previews and reviews of latest Smartphones.. i'm currently using NOKIA 5800 Xpress Music phone.. i'm writing this mail to share my views about this phone..

        This is The best phone made by Nokia so far, i would say.. i bought it in Jan 09'.. i have completely explored this phone to the maximum and i'm very much amazed with its features and performance.. many 5800 users say that it's touch Sensitivity and camera performance is not up to the mark.. i do not agree with them..  they simply compare it with the Apple iPhone 3G and end up with the comment that Nokia 5800 is not good.. they never think about it's price.. this mobile packed with hundreds of amazing features, stylish and sleek design, 3.2" wide touch screen, 8GB storage space and a 3.2 Mega pixels Carl Zeiss camera is available in market just for Rs.18800.. whereas iPhone 3G, though it has more features and unbelievable 3.5" wide Multi Touch Screen, it has only a poor 2 Mega pixels camera with no flash.. Moreover it is specially designed for '3G' networks.. where is the 3G network in India??? and what is it's price?? Rs.31000 (8GB) and Rs.36000 (16GB).. the price has not come down by even Rs.100 so far.. .5800's Camera pics have a few grains when used indoors.. but it's clarity is amazing when used outdoors.. the touch sensitivity is more than enough for an average user.. it's sound quality is better than what i expected..  Nokia 5800 is really worth for it's price.

[mccbleue]

I had cause to test an iPhone recently, I didn't find the UI intuitive and the touch-screen may be good for navigation, but it's lousy for typing on. If I was in the market for a touch phone, I'd be right behind you!

[sriramcheenu]

ya u r absolutely right man.. Typing messages in iphone is really a mess.. coz we Indians are used to Alphanumeric Keypads.. iPhone does not have one.. it just has a QWERTY keyboard..Nokia has understood us and provided all the 3 kinds of text input methods in 5800 XM..

Nokia 5800 Rocks..!! 

[ruifcastro]

but for does that are used to querty keyboards, 5800 is not that good, it to touchy, the whole key shouldn't be touchable because if we miss a bit (edge of key) and press the next key, the wrong key is pressed (this happens very often with the lower keys, the damn space bar is always pressed). The touch code should be a very small square in the middle of each button (but this will not be pen friendly, just finger friendly). Another solution would be text correction like the iphone has, if you press the wrong key but continue to type the word, the system will predict the right word and your mistake will not even be noticed.

Another thing i miss is not having word and phrase predection, I come from a Palm (Windows Mobile also has it) and I had a app which i have been adding words and phrases for years (it also has a windows app to import dictionaries or any text you want) and on each key press it word give you a list of possible words or phrases, if you choose to ignore just keep typing, if you wish to select a suggested word just press on it and keep typing.

[ruifcastro]

My friend has a Iphone and I a 5800, we took a picture in the same place at the same time, indoors but there was ambient light. The iphone photo was much better, more detail and more vivid color. Of course if it was dark the 5800 would be better. My opinion is that the 5800 has a virtual 3.2 mp camera, its not a real 3mp. Why i say this because on my Palm treo which has a vga camera, i have a app that makes it a 1mp camera BUT the quality is not better, the image is just bigger. The iphone also has a app that makes its 2mp camera into a 4mp camera. The 5800 photos are bigger than the iphone ones but when you zoom into a object with for example that has text on it, you will notice that the iphone has more detail. The dull color on the 5800 is not so bad because i can fix it with the google picasa app.

I do agree what makes the 5800 standout is the price and accessories (tv cable, phone stand for watch films). Mine even got a bluetooth nokie stereo handset, it was a promotional gift, this thing is 100 euros. You can't get better than this price wise.

Caming from a palm comunity, the 5800 has so little apps

[garnett]

I own a 5800 Xm. It's my only phone. Having used friends' iPhones I can honestly say the iPhone is infinitely superior.

A look at specifications only tells half the story. The Nokia 5800 could probably power a moon landing if the user writes the right code for it. Personally I'd like a phone to do what I want without having to configure almost every aspect and resolve issues at every step. As it is so much of the phone's functionality is thwarted by the incredibly clumsy user interface as to make the features redundant.

After the N95 I swore off Nokias and I cannot figure how I came to be swayed by another. I think it's because I'm a bit of a specification sheet monkey.

I ended up selling the N95 and using some ancient handset instead because it was honestly a better phone. I'm thinking I will do the same with the 5800XM.

A lot of what is wrong with the phone I'm sure could be resolved with decent customer support but Nokia's seems almost non-existent.

Honestly, unless you really can't afford the iPhone (and unless living with one brings more faults to the fore than I have seen in my limited usage of one) there is absolutely no contest between this phone and the iPhone.

[grschinon]

I agree. There is no contest between the 5800XM and the iPhone.

The iPhone doesn't have any of the features that I use in a mobile phone (other than voice calling and SMS).

[ruifcastro]

Iphone 3G (this will change with the new version) vs 5800

Iphone

pros

- real glass screen protection (more green and better finger feeling and less scratches)

- a little bit better camera even if its just a 2mp (detail and color is better) if there is light

- better main interface navegation, one press always

- text correction, you can miss spell a letter and it will guess the right word if you continue

- capacitive scree, more sensitive

- lots of apps, which means lots of developers, bigger comunity

- app store with lots of free apps

- better wifi, the certificates in protect wifi places are automatic

- better browser navegation, less finger taps

- multiselection is much better, to select a list of photos is very easy (5800 mark and mark all is just to old school

- more internal memory, 8gb and 16gb

- better processor

- better graphics chip

- screen scrolling is great(just a finger swipe)

- front is all smooth, no plastic borders, the screen is the front of the case

- multitouch, zoom with two fingers, rotate with two fingers

cons (if you jailbreak or put v3 beta, you can get around some of theses cons)

- menu doesn't have categories, there all together but on differents screens, a bit clumsy

- no mms

- less resolution 380x320

- no multitasking or multitasking in a clumsy hacky way

- no copy and past (the new v3 has it and its done a better way than the 5800)

- screen doesn't work using gloves, this could be bad for for cold countries and motorcycle riders

- no tv out cable in the box

- no usb drive support

- no camcorder (v3 fix this)

- no a2dp bluetooth support(can't use bluetooth stereo headset, external keyboards, etc...)

- very expensive price

- needs more keys, needs a 5-nav also

- no sd card support

- not slip friendly, plastic on the back is to slippery

- no flash for camera

- 2mp camera

- apple controls to much the apps that are put in the app store

- few apps that let you use landscape querty keyboard (v3 fixes this)

- no java for browser

- no adobe flash for browser

- few 3rd party browsers

- no theme system, iphone are all the same

- no universal search (v3 fixes)

- no home screen

- no removable battery

- screen doesn't work with your nails

- only one way to insert text, querty keyboard

- phone sound is not very good

- external speakers not very good

- no front camera for conference calls

- no stylish pen, to play games which gets the screen all smuged

- no Carl Zeiss lens

- no hard case out of the box

5800

pros:

- more resolution, 640x3??, plasma format (16:9), great for watching films

- camera flash, not very good for closeup photos but it has it

- great video recorder, camcorder support

- more buttons but still needs a 5-nav

- support to make it a usb drive

- browser that supports flash and java

- copy and past (clumsy but has it)

- theme system

- universal search

- user profiles are easy to use

- home screen

- sd support, offers a 8gb card

- landscape keyboard in every app

- great price for what you get

- the back of the 5800 is grepy, very hard to slip out of your hand

- removable battery

- a2dp bluetooth support for headsets

- menu can bet organized by folders

- mms support

- great multitasking, could be better if it had a Palm Pre card filosofy to navegate through them

- screen works with gloves on, great for cold countries

- screen works with your nails

- 4 ways to insert text

- phone sound is good

- external speakers is great
- front camera for conference calls
- stylish pen (nokia even offers a little plastic triangle to hook to the phone), great for games and not to smuge the screen
- tv out cable
- Carl Zeiss lens (i don't know if this is good)
- hard case offer out of the box
- 3rd party browsers , opera mini is great on a GPRS connection (fast and less bytes which means you pay less)

cons:

- more screen press than the iphone

- plastic screen, great for scratches

- app store is not very good

- wifi is not great, always nagging if i want to connect, the certificates in protect wifi placees is manual

- internet browser navegation is not very good, too many presses, full screen, scene screen, etc...

- screen scrolling it still the old way, needs lots of tapping to scroll

- no word correction

- no word and phrase predection

- camera with bad details photos

- clumsy menu interface, sometimes double and sometimes single taps

- no 5-nav

- multiselection is very bad (mark or mark all)

- photos gallery is not organized (if you have 1000 photos and want to but it in folders, the terror, and folder don't get names under them to be easy to identify)

- video support is not good, just supports fews codecs, when will core player come out to fix this?

- processor is very slow, 3?? mhz, even my treo 650 with 5 years has a 320 mhz processor (which i overclock at 506 mhz)

- very little internal memory

- nokia uses a certificate system that is still hard for me to understand

- 3mp camera that has details of a 1.5mp camera

- camera takes pictures with dull color, has to be corrected with apps like picasa

- to few 3rd party usefull apps

- few great games, no ngage support, almost all in java which means 5-nav screen controls, remember no multitouch

- screen not so sensitive has the capacitive screens

- acelerameter is very confusing sometimes, mostly if your lying down on your bac, try to change modes?

- front has plastic borders, not very good for fingers on the borders of the screen

- no multitouch, you can only use one finger, there are developers trying to fix this but its still in beta

Hope this helps

[aronpresley]

I second that, What Iphone has is a capacitive screen that gives it a great touch experience while Nokia though having a Resistive screen is not bad at all but it won't and can't compete with  I phone's Touch Interface and it's build quality along with it's firmware stability.

On the other side 5800 XM has got every thing that a phone requires, a Very Good (If not Great) touch screen, Various features that the Apple doesn't have, frequent firmware releases that will fix bugs and add extras, User Interface is great, good audio quality which could be a bit argueable cause Iphone too has a good Audio, Well camera, flash some others unique features makes 5800 XM win this everyday battle between Iphone and Nokia 5800. I'd definitely prefer 5800 over Iphone anyday.

And about the 3.2 MP camera being Interpolated, I strongly don't agree with that. I am sure that 5800 has a genuine 3.2MP camera. 

[grschinon]

@ruifcastro:

You forgot to mention in the drawbacks of the iPhone that it can't be used as a modem (yet). That is an absolute must have as far as I'm concerned. If the phone doesn't have it, it's a deal breaker.

[ruifcastro]

yes your right, please complete the list.

[clonmult]

Some good points raised on both sides here ....

Nokia would probably hate me for this, but I'm sitting squarely on the fence on the 5800 v iPhone debate.

1.  They aren't targeted at the same market - the iPhone is (over) twice the price of the 5800.

2. Camera - interesting comment about the quality; Nokia have released a 2mp device marketed as a 3mp, using interpolation (N80)

3. Touch Screen.  I've got an iPod touch - cannot stand typing on it.  Thats why its mainly used for video playback for the kids, and for music playback in the car (handily hidden in the glovebox)

4. App store.  Not many apps are used that regularly, but its definitely of interest to people, and Nokias Download! could have stolen the glory if Nokia had bothered.

5. Locked out functionality.  I used JoikuSpot on my N95 to allow it to run as a WiFi access point - the ultimate in tethering.  When will Apple allow such an app on the iPhone?

6. Capacitive touch screen.  Thats my biggest issue.  Apart from the lousy sensitivity, I do use my phone in the cold, and wouldn't be too happy with having to take my gloves off to dial someone.

7. Apples EQ - utterly dire.  Its never been good on the iPod range.

8. Podcasting support - the one major area for me that Nokia have got so completely right.  It handles 99% of the iTunes podcast support.  Why couldn't Apple do that on the iPhone?

Neither quite hits the spot in every area, so I'm left wondering my options.  I like the idea of the 5800, but may have to go for an N97 or Samsung Omnia HD ....

[ruifcastro]

forgot:

5800 has  amore profissional camera software (scene, square matrix, sequence taking, white balance, etc...)  and a dedicated button with focus feature (press slightly). The sequence is very good to take lots of phones of the samething and than pick the best photo, normally the first is the blurry one.

The iphone doesn't have focus or a dedicated button, which means for fast moment photo the 5800 is the fastest. (and if its in memory already, its even faster, remember 5800 has multitasking).

But sadly both have keyguards (i don't know on the iphone but the 5800 can disable the keyguard or have a larger time interval to switch back on) so be swithed off before using camera.

[balky12]

Forgetting some small detials such as iPhone does not have Bluetooth File Transfer... Something every teen like me needs. And also it does not have a user replaceable battery... (if i were to be real picky )

Although Kintetic Scrolling is great... Come on Nokia!

Plus I heard a 32Gb Card was going to be comming out for the Nokia? Anyone know anyhting about this?

Nokia 5800 FTW! (For the Win)

[roberth]

how are you guys taking pictures?

the 5800 (v20) has better photos imho than the iphone.....

people complain about the  screen of the 5800.......

i think i was great to go with the resistive screen........

the fact that one can use gloves and still opererate the 5800

is great....the iphone cant do that as far as i know.......

the bonus of resistive screens.........

value for money....lets not even go there........especially with

the current world recession.........

for the poster who said that there is not enough apps for the 5800......

try here:

http://www.n95users.com/forum/nokia-5800/23011-5800-compatible-apps.html

and most of them dont have to be bought from an app store..........google works quite fine!

the iphone vs the 5800 just reminds me of the craze that was the original

motorola razr.......everyone went crazy, had to be seen with it, it was the

phone of the day..........yet 3 full ringtones and the memory was full lol.......

no memory card......the camera was **bleep**..........

i held my nokia 6620 (which i still own) and had a blast!

it was simply better than the razr......but........still "it wasnt" from

razr user point of view......

history does repeat itself............

[ubarua1]

Commenting on the camera of the 5800xm, i think there's actually no problem with the camera itself. its with the software that takes the picture.. because, after tweaking with the settings viz light sensistivity,contrast etc and adjusting to the scene, the display that you see before taking the picture seems pretty ok.. infact it looks good.. But when u take the picture, the picture is different from wht you actually saw!..Suddenly noise,grain gets introduced... So, the software needs to be improved IMO.... 

i wouldnt complain abt the processor speed, coz with theme effects off , v20 version, the phone is blazing fast... almost everything opens instantly.. I really love the alphanumeric keyboard, we indians love it!.. 

Screen problem under sunlight?.. thats a MINOR issue.. go under a tree!

Iphone is just too damn expensive...moreover locked sim.. wht the hell man.. 

[ruifcastro]

About the camera, when I complained about it, I was comparing just with the Iphone because I had the oportunity to use one and which the iphone only has a 2mp camera and how does it have more details pictures? If I was to compare to other phones maybe the 5800 is the best. Whats strange here is that a 2mp camera can have more detail than a 3.2 mp camera. Its not that the 5800 is not a good camera, it is a good camera, not as good has the ones on the n82 and n95 but a good camera.

About not having enough apps, I come from a Palm and I also have used a Windows Mobile, and have you seen the list of apps for the Iphone also? There is nothing you can think of and they don't have, and if they do, they will have lots of apps doing the same thing so you can choose the best one. Specialy this symbian v5 there is very few right now, but when i say few its more like in the same category app there is few to pick from, for exemple, on the Palm OS i can get about 50 types of apps that are launchers and lots of them have there own home screen. This is just one type of app. They even I have a new launcher call TealOS thats simulates the new Palm PRE (palm made them stop but i have a copy). On the symbian side, how many launchers can you name, i just found myphone a iphone clone and handy shell, there not a lots more.

Another app example,  Core Player, they have it for every phone except the v5 (5800 version of symbian), and with this app we can see any film codex without conversions, right out of the card. For the Palm, just on my old 5 year old treo 650 I have 4 film players, never need to convert any film. Would love Kinoma Player for the 5800, great app.

I wish and I'm hoping the symbian comunity will start developing apps for this symbian version, maybe with the n97 coming out things will change, for now I still have to use my old Treo 650 tank with a overclocked processor at 506 mhz to complete this new generation 5800 phone, just my thought.

About the processor, its not slow with normal usage, menu, app switch, its actualy very fast. But for that my old Treo 650 has a 320 mhz processor and is also faster or even faster (have it clocked at 506 mhz). The 5800 has a 369 mhz processor, maybe this is why the ngage framework isn't supported yet?

The Iphone has a 624 mhz processor, the 300 mhz processores are 5 years old tecnology. Nokia tries hard to hide this. Thats why its cheaper, nokia almost always but slow processores. But any ways what all this means is more for games or apps that will need the speed. Have you seen the plane simulater on the Iphone (same code that is used for the linux, windows and mac versions), you need power for that. Maybe thats why core player is not yet ready for the 5800 (on my palm i have this app overclocked). The Palm Pre is coming with a 1ghz processor.

For a great comparsion, check this site: http://www.phonegg.com/compare/24/Nokia-5800-vs-Apple-iPhone-3G.html

Don't get me wrong, i like the 5800 and i think it was a good buy, we get what we pay, if its cheap than something most be missing, 5 years ago my Treo 650 cost me 720 euros, this 5800 cost me 360 euros. Do the math. 

Some of my statement on te software side can be fix by nokia, i'm hoping they are watching this forum and run it in the next firmware updates. Mostly what Apple does with the Iphone. Keep up the good work Nokia, we want more firmware updates.

[planetmike]

Obviously the 5800 needs but what is more glaring is that Nokia and Google should have partnered together from the start.  Nokia should have given up on its Symbian OS and let Google provide the software.  Nokia is a fantastic hardware manufacturer.  Their weakness has always been on the software side.  Google, with their army of programmers, would already have a huge selection of apps to choose from whenever a phone is released.  Even at this late date, given Google's Android, it still makes sense to have a cooperation between the two companies.

[garnett]

I agree completely. I think Nokia are part of the group worjking with Google, so hopefully they can be led away from the software table and left to what they're good at.

[ruifcastro]

Talking about 5800 camera:

http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/pictures-taken-with-the-nokia-5800/

Conclusion, its the camera sensor thats not that good. Or can it be fixed with a firmware update? Lets hope so