Nokia 5800 XpressMusic review

It's taken a while for Nokia to deliver its first post-iPhone touchscreen handset, but with the release of the 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia is now firmly in the touch control game.

The first handset to be built on the latest touch-operated 5th Edition of Nokia's S60 smartphone platform, the 5800 XpressMusic packs some heavyweight feature punch.

It may line up as Nokia's flagship music phone, but it has a set of functionality more akin to the Nseries high-end phone roster.

Generous package

Touchscreen action is centred on its large 3.2-inch touch display, but under the bonnet the 5800 XpressMusic features Wi-Fi support plus HSDPA high-speed 3G mobile data connectivity, A-GPS location finding and mapping technology, a host of smartphone multimedia gadgetry, including a substantial amount of music-playing ability.

Nokia boxes it with an 8GB MicroSD memory card (with cards up to16GB supported), it has a built in 3.5mm standard headphone socket, and the onboard music software is capable of delivering excellent quality audio.

A 3.2-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics takes care of snapping business, while Nokia has included a spread of online-based features for sharing stills and video content, plus a variety of online links to services such as Facebook, and a full web browser.

Nokia has introduced the 5800 XpressMusic at a surprisingly competitive price for a touchscreen newcomer – it costs £249 SIM-free, although it's also available from free on some contract deals.

Slender smartphone

Nokia hasn't tried to do an iPhone-alike with this device. It has a distinctly Nokia look and feel; even though it does do the minimalist black front panel design, there's typical XpressMusic red or blue coloured trim, and the solid bodywork has more Nokia Nseries candybar about it than slimline Apple phone. Still, it isn't exactly a pocket-bulger though – it weighs 109g and measures 111(h) x 51.7(w) x 15.5(d) mm.

The button count on the front is low, with Call, End and Menu buttons under the display, a touch-sensitive Media button on the top right above the display, plus a secondary video calling camera and proximity sensor nearby.

The 3.2-inch, 16-million colour 640x360 pixels display provides a decent amount of finger room for the new Nokia touch user interface. A small stylus is also slotted into the back panel offering a more precise tapping option – and Nokia also boxes a plectrum on a wriststrap.

Managing contacts

The S60 5th Edition user interface debuting here marries a familiar S60 style of menu structure and navigation to a straightforward to operate touch set-up. It's not the sort of easy-swiping, pinch-to-zoom Multi-touch screen employed on the iPhone, but it does allow finger stroke scrolling through menus and lists of options.

The home screen display has a couple of tappable buttons for pulling up a virtual numberpad and scrollable contacts list. Pressing towards the top of the screen pulls up quick access to calendar, clock, ringtone profiles, plus Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity options for fast switching on or off.

The neatest new homescreen feature is a Contacts Bar – a panel of four contact buttons you can assign to any of your contacts, and to which thumbnail images can be attached.

Press the contact and you have one touch access to new text messages or calls plus a log of recent communications with that number. You can also link up to two web feeds to each contact, so by pressing the contact bar you can see regular online updates from the relevant blogs, web pages or social networking sites.

If you like, these can be switched off or replaced by a more familiar S60 shortcuts bar.

Another set of shortcuts arrives via the Media touch key, glowing just above the display. A tap of this drops down a multimedia toolbar with five icons, providing quick-tapping hotkey access to the music player, web browser bookmarks, Video Centre function, media gallery, and the Share online option – offering online uploading for video and images, plus networking via sites like Nokia's Ovi service and Flickr.

Haptic feedback

The main menu touch action is clearly evolution rather than revolution. A grid of main menu icons onscreen is tappable to get into more sub menus in a way that's consistent with S60 conventions. Responsive onscreen softkeys help tap-to-select options, while generally it's easy to scroll through and select, with haptic feedback giving you vibrating confirmation that keys have been touched.

Text input can be done via a very usable virtual alphanumeric pad – just like normal texting - or via Qwerty keyboard input, using a large and very well proportioned sideways view one, or a mini any-way stylus-tappable one. A very good handwriting recognition option is also to hand. The phone has an accelerometer built in for automatic screen rotation, so it switches views to how you're holding it.