A day ago I got a call from my friend at Nokia that finally all my persuasion has paid off and he’s got a brand new Nokia 5800 available for me to review , you can imagine my joy on hearing the news and as soon as I got off work , I raced to his office and there the box was lying with the phone for me to discover and make the most of . The surprise didn’t end here , Nokia also had 2 pair of speakers and 2 set of head phones to make the most of the phone of which I’ll write later .
I gather up the stuff and again raced back home to try out the phone .
The phone is made for Pakistan market and even has the description in urdu written at the back , for initial freebies it got 100 music tracks , 8gb MicroSD and 7 Day Navigation License of no use in Pakistan 
My first impression when I opened the box and held the phone , “ wow” it’s better then I expected . with sleek body and the satin burgundy back finish it’s a keeper .
The Standard Accessories in the box were
- 8 GB memory Card already inserted in the phone
- A Rubberized hard plastic pouch with satin layer inside on one end and mesh cut plastic top on the other
- An extra Stylus , one is already inserted in the back cover
- A Red Plectrum for handwriting although I had been using the stylus with ease. It can also be used as a phone charm but it didn’t appeal to me .
- A Stand to watch movies hidden inside the pouch with string to be tied up with the pouch
- BL-5J 1320 mAh Li-Ion battery
- Video Out Cable
- Standard Nokia Mini Pin Charger
- Standard Nokia CA-101 mini USB cable
- Mini Disc for software ( unusable for me I’ve got slot loaded disc drive )
- Standard N-Series Headset with music controller
It took me 5 min to figure out how to open the back cover to insert the battery . At first I was a bit shaky in prying open the cover but I gave in to temptation and it came out just fine . Inserting SIM card was easy , the instructions were given behind the back cover .
On pressing the power button it came to life instantly . The first thing I noticed that this phone has a knack to vibrate , the screen vibrates when touched given tactile feedback , some icons required double touches but actions were performed in single touch.
The learning curve is almost non existent , with almost the similar icons and menu sets as S60v3 / my previous E71 , I was running the phone in no time .
The first folder I went to was applications . My phone came bundled up with 8gb MicroSD containing 100 music tracks ( all Arabic so no use for me ) but I wanted to see the applications provided , they were generic so I went to the Download menu and Nokia has a whole list of software to be downloaded , In the applications menu a number of applications were given but many although marked free like Joiku Spot Premium , Acrobat Reader and Quick Office 4 ( yes 4 not 6 the latest version ) are trials which are later to be purchased . I’ll talk about the applications in later posts .
Clicking on the Internet menu , it gave me a pleasant surprise a standalone Facebook Widget . one click and I was connected to FB . Now came the part where I have to use the input methods for my login and password .
5800 offers multiple options I can use Handwriting , Mini QWERT , Full Screen QWERTY and AlphaNumeric Keypad . the difference between all is
- Handwriting – Easy as anything , even with my hideous handwriting it recognized the letters instantly without any training , although the option is available , only problem I had with ‘K’ but it was solved after a few tries . The handwriting area is highlighted orange and it can be moved anywhere on the screen.
- Mini QWERTY – a Mini Keyboard on which you can type with your fingers , it does not matter if you have thin or a little thick fingers it works fine or better if you use the provided Stylus .
- Full QWERTY Keyboard , like the whole keyboard , very easy to use even without stylus
- Alpha Numeric Keypad , – press each button one to three times to get the desired alphabet and keep it pressed for the number associated with it
The best thing I like about the Mini and Full QWERTY were that when I press the key , the phone screen vibrates and the key turns red and jumps up and zooms so I know what I’m pressing and leave very little chance of mistakes
So I entered my password and login and accessed FaceBook.
Coming to Entertainment , I found no other Nokia Phone parallel to this one , the stereo speakers are ‘badass’ , the screen clarity is awesome . I tried Black Eyed Peas ‘Boom Boom Pow’ on it the sound came out good but it did lacked Bass even on Bass Booster Mode . On movies the phone rocked my world , saw the Batman Returns preview on it and the colors took my breath away .
The phone has many initiative features like the Media Bar , just press the small lighted button beside the ‘Xpress Music ‘ on the main screen and Media Bar is activated offering ready access to Music , Image Gallery , Messaging , Video and the Web Browser wherever you are on the phone what ever program you are running .
The Adress Book is another pleasant surprise , when I first started immediately after copying my 1500 record address book , the phone was auto scrolling through and in a min it scanned them all . Now when I tried searching for a name , it showed me half of the total alphabets i.e from A to J and a couple of numbers by pressing the arrow key it showed other half from K to Z , so what you must be thinking it shows half keyboard and you have to go to other screen to access other half . The intuitive part is that after I press an alphabet it only shows those alphabets which proceeds that alphabet in my phone book example I have an entry for ‘Sam’ an entry for ‘Simon’ and another for ‘Sara’ . When I click on ‘S’ the keyboard now only shows two letters ‘a’ and ‘i’ when I choose ‘a’ now it again shows only two alphabets ‘m’ and ‘r’ corresponding to ‘Sam’ and ‘Sara’ while the phone book like E71 shows only those names which matches the entered letters . No need to hunt for alphabet key it’s intelligent enough to know what you want .
There is a lot to discover on this phone but my initial encounter is coming to an end
My concluding thoughts
Nokia 5800 is a great phone with the technologies and concepts it has but in everyday use it’s good enough for ‘Music’ and entertainment and not meant for a business user . It can be made to use business applications but at heart it will remain a Xpress Music Phone .
Will I buy it ???
I sure will but as a weekend phone , for my day to day business usage nothing beats my E71 ,
hey if some people can have a weekend Nissan Z and a Lexus for daily routine I’m talking about phone 
Discoveringly
Farhan
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