My impressions on the new device

Ok my first post in 2010 is about my cell phone

There are numerous reviews on the internet about this device i am not a reviewer the below points are what i observed with the device, since i bought the device now (it was launched on 2009 jan) its very late, anyways those who are having any idea of buying in the future this would help a bit.

After using my 5800 for some three days first i made some comparison with my old device N73, this comparison is not confined to these two devices and it will address what the features you get going for a latest device

Let me start with the unboxing what i got  for 14K

Ofcourse the device itself with the battery also i got some free extras like Reebok watch, senneheiser headset the one given by Nokia was no use it didnt even fit into my ears

First comparison was the camera in a nice evening lighting conditions i took some close-up shots also point and shoot pictures of both the devices and the results

Close up shots taken with N73
                                                                                        

Close up shots taken with Nokia 5800
                                                           
   

You can definitely see some purple colouration on the leaves on left pic of N73 whereas the one taken with 5800 looks OK

With no change in camera settings "Automatic mode"

N73

5800

Even in this pic i find 5800 has captured well i have no reason why my N73 has performed bad

Next is the video comparison on both the devices undoubtedly 5800 wins here since it has got better video recording capability with 640*360 30fps DVD quality recording whereas the N73 records videos only at QVGA resolution with 15 fps

Note: 25 fps is what you see on the Television

Best part of 5800 is the Music player,  i dont know what an ipod or a walkman can offer but i vouch for the music quality of this device it gives you every beat of the song get a dedicated Music stereo headset ( i got senneheiser headset free) and you are in for true music experience it comes preloaded with 8gb micro SDHC card so you have ample room for your music collections. It comes with 8 preset equaliser setting those who are good at fiddling with it can even get better results in sound quality

One more little thing which could have been added to this Music player is the Visualisations which is found on my N73 its not a big deal anyway its a feature missing

Next comes the display it packs 640*360 pixels 3.2 inch 16:9 aspect ratio display which can show you items in 16 million colours and web browsing on that screen it a true pleasure so watching videos

Web browser in this device is webkit based HTML browser with Flash support  in laymen terms you can watch YouTube videos directly on the device and also other flash contents so no more broken images when you load pages with flash content  and the page rendering is good equalling what you see on desktops computers,  the sad part of it the browser is not reliable as it crashes often while loading heavy web pages. Opera mini is the only solution and workaround for this and it dont support flash but it does the job waiting for Nokia to fix this bug in a future firmware update

FOTA ( firmware over the air) its a feature where you can directly update you device's firmware over your GPRS/3G connection or Wi-fi. You can get the firmware version of your device by dialling *#0000# from the main screen. The best part of this feature is the download and update happens fast and its hassle free, another way of updating is through Nokia Software updater application installed on to the PC and with the device connected to the PC via its USB data cable  

Connectivity is plenty for a music centric device it really an extra and Nokia have thrown in every connectivity options available starting from Wi-fi, Bluetooth 2.0 supporting A2DP where you can stream your music wirelessly with a compatible stereo bluetooth headset, 3.5G HSDPA. In india 3g is still a daydream and with BSNL the only provider supporting the service which is not that much appealing.

Memory and Storage Phone has inbuilt memory of 81mb and the supports memory cards upto 16 gb also its compatible with 32 gb cards but those capacity cards are not produced yet , it has 128mb of RAM and the free executable RAM for the end user hovers at around 40 to 50 Mb depending upon the applications running in the background, it never ran out of memory when i opened Web browser, twitter client, messaging i was able to multitask seamlessly

GPS receiver is another feature which comes with the device and its a good one too within few miutes i was able to get GPS fix and it showed me the exact location where i am with Nokia maps 2.0 preinstalled you can also download Google maps which works flawlessly

Messaging  it has a HTML e-mail client enter your username and password of your e-mail provider and it fetches the settings automatically and you are ready to access your e-mails it supports both POP3 and IMAP mailboxes, for your office e-mails you can download Mail for exchange (Mfe) application through the application update, If your office has Microsoft exchnage server then get the settings from the IT dept and your are good to access office mails too

Okay Lets talk about the bad part of it

Build quality utter plastic by seeing the device you wont agree that you have bought a 14k mobile device

Touchscreen sensitivity No means the touchscreen of this one is fluid its no way near when compared to that of the capacitive touchscreen devcies like Iphone, Samsung jet, HTC HD2 etc which supports multitouch (example: you can zoom in on the screen by pinching it ) and kinetic scrolling where the screen reacts to your single flick and never stops scrolling until you keep the finger on the screen again

Double select to open applications and menu items, when you touch any option it never launches instead it selects you have to tap again to open, unless you get used to it you will find it difficult. 

No quickoffice reader and Pdf reader for opening office files like word, excel and powerpoint you need to purchase quickoffice, whereas in Nseries devices you have it preinstalled which is a quickoffice viewer, only on Nokia E-series devices you can edit,create and open office files out of the box also, NO Zip application out of the box anyway i downloaded it later.

As i hinted before Web browser crashes when loading web pages

Selection of items is another time consumig process you have only Mark all and unmark all options so if you want to select few items or delete few you have to do it one by one, assume you have some 1000 songs and you want to delete some 20 in between your patience is tested, In keypad devices you have a "pencil key" holding that and selecting items from your D-pad the job can be done a lot easier and quickly.

Conclusion: I bought this device only for its smartphone capabilities and features like kinetic scrolling and multitouch etc. are more of eye candy stuff than selling points but i never say that i dont want it, if it comes in the next firmware update then its great. Though the touch screen experience is not that much great its only the best value for money mid-level touch screen smartphone one can get

Thanks for reading :-)