Nokia 5800 Express Music

[Stewart]

I lost my Nokia N82 so I picked up a Nokia 5800 Express Music as a
replacement. The vendor advertised he had the N. American version
available but sent me instead an Asian version that doesn't connect to
the Fido 3G network so I've sold it off. Still, I had it for 24 hours
and got to use it a bit.

Right off the top I'll say that I'd rather have an iPhone as an all-
around internet device, but Fido refuses to sell me one! I have 18
months to go in my contract, and they will only sell them on a 3-year
contract. They actually suggested I take out a 2nd phone line in order
to buy one. What kind of business can afford to turn away customers
that show up, cash in hand? But I digress....

I picked up an unlocked Nokia 5800 (you can also get them from Nokia
USA or Amazon USA).

The Nokia's touchscreen uses resistive technology rather than the
capacitive technology in the iPhone and iPod Touch (which I also own),
and it's true that it's less sensitive... but only marginally slow. I
found that in practice I didn't have to press harder, just slightly
longer, for a tap to be recognized, as compared to on the Apple
product. Nokia confirms each valid press with haptic feedback (a
slight millisecond vibration).

Other observations:
- I like the variety of input methods available on the 5800: in
addition to the portrait keyboard that's similar to the one on the
iPhone, you can also use a landscape keyboard in every application
(not possible in the iPhone), which makes it possible to type with
both thumbs or both index fingers. Or, you can use a multi-type
keyboard, or turn on text prediction and use a T9 keyboard. OR, you
can use handwriting recognition. I really like this last possibility,
and it makes me feel all nostalgic again about Palm Graffiti (though
the Nokia doesn't use Grafitti).
- the Nokia screen blinks briefly when you rotate it; not as slick as
the way the iPhone does the screen rotation. However the Nokia's
landscape rotation works virtually everywhere, including the home
screen.
- the Nokia can multi-task, so you can have several apps open at once,
unlike the iPhone (until at least 3.0). And you can copy and paste
text between apps.
- the Nokia supports a tethering app called JoikuSpot, so you can
connect your laptop to the internet wherever you have cellphone
coverage.
- Of interest to the writers here, the Nokia supports the use of
bluetooth external keyboards. this feature alone would make me buy a
Nokia over the iPhone. I tested the iGo Ultra-Slim keyboard and it
worked fine. One kink. After powering off the phone and then back on
again, the keyboard wasn't recognized any more. I just went into the
Stowaway keyboard app, disable and then re-enabled bluetooth, and the
keyboard was recognised again. (Apparently iPhone 3.0 will allow more
uses of the built-in bluetooth, but there's no word yet as to whether
keyboards will be supported or not. iBluetoothProject.com is trying
to build an open-source fully-featured bluetooth stack for the
iPhone / iPod Touch 2G, but it has nothing to show yet).
- the Nokia doesn't have a multitouch screen. Zooming a web page is
not as intuitive as on the iPhone, however it's improved over the non-
touchscreen Nokias. You see a slider on the side of the screen, and
you slide it to change the zoom.
- the Nokia 5800 is a little thicker than the iPhone, but also a
little narrower, so it looks less like you're holding a brick to your
ear when you talk.

Anyone else have additional comments?

cheers
Stewart in Calgary

[Bert Latamore]

Stewart,

The Nokia 5800 sounds like a very interesting device. One thing you didn't mention is bluetooth headsets. I presume the Nokia supports them and voice dialing, so you don't really have to hold the brick to your ear. Does the Touch/iPhone have bluetooth? The one gripe I have about my "classic" iPod is that it does not, so I have to use a Bluetooth dongle -- easy enough but just one more tiny device to keep track of, particularly when I am out of the office/home.

Bert

--
Bert Latamore
IT Journalist, Report Writer and Book Doctor
From tweets and blogs to white papers and books --
You provide the information; I craft the words.

[Ian Barton]

All Nokia's in the last fee years have built in BT for the "headset"
profile ie. phone usage. Many of their smartphones also have A2DP, which
lets you listen to music via BT.

Ian.

[Donald E. Stidwell]

On 5/8/09 8:09 AM, "Bert Latamore" <bert.l...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Stewart,
>
> The Nokia 5800 sounds like a very interesting device. One thing you didn't
> mention is bluetooth headsets. I presume the Nokia supports them and voice
> dialing, so you don't really have to hold the brick to your ear. Does the
> Touch/iPhone have bluetooth? The one gripe I have about my "classic" iPod is
> that it does not, so I have to use a Bluetooth dongle -- easy enough but
> just one more tiny device to keep track of, particularly when I am out of
> the office/home.
>
> Bert
>
> On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 9:32 PM, Stewart <stewart....@gmail.com> wrote:
>

Bert, the iPhone has BT but the current model only supports phone headsets,
not music ones. The iPod Touch doesn't have BT (second generation has the
chip but it is not activated IIRC). I think the 3rd generation iPod Touch
and iPhone will have music headset capabilities when it's released (as
always with Apple, nothing confirmed, even that a 3rd generation device will
even exist, but the rumour sites seem pretty confident that there will be
third gen devices when iPhone OS 3.0 goes live).

--
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how
unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (Rom. 11:33)

[midtoad]

As Ian confirmed, the 5800 does support bluetooth headsets. Also it
has A2DP so it supports bluetooth stereo headsets for listening to
music.

I just picked up a N. American Nokia 5800 and am very pleased to see
"3.5G" when I open a browser. Pages open MUCH faster than they did
when I was connecting via Edge on my Nokia N82. This will come in
handy in the near future, since I'll be using my 5800 as my sole
internet connection point for my home... I'll be tethering my Mac
Powerbook to it using the JoikuSpot Wifi Router app that runs on the
phone and turns it into a wireless hot spot.

cheers
Stewart in Calgary

[Luis Rivera]

On May 7, 8:32 pm, Stewart <stewart.midwin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Other observations:
> - I like the variety of input methods available on the 5800: in
> addition to the portrait keyboard that's similar to the one on the
> iPhone, you can also use a landscape keyboard in every application
> (not possible in the iPhone), which makes it possible to type with
> both thumbs or both index fingers.  Or, you can use a multi-type
> keyboard, or turn on text prediction and use a T9 keyboard. OR, you
> can use handwriting recognition. I really like this last possibility,
> and it makes me feel all nostalgic again about Palm Graffiti (though
> the Nokia doesn't use Grafitti).

> [...]

> - Of interest to the writers here, the Nokia supports the use of
> bluetooth external keyboards. this feature alone would make me buy a
> Nokia over the iPhone. I tested the iGo Ultra-Slim keyboard and it
> worked fine.  One kink. After powering off the phone and then back on
> again, the keyboard wasn't recognized any more. I just went into the
> Stowaway keyboard app, disable and then re-enabled bluetooth, and the
> keyboard was recognised again. (Apparently iPhone 3.0 will allow more
> uses of the built-in bluetooth, but there's no word yet as to whether
> keyboards will be supported or not.  iBluetoothProject.com is trying
> to build an open-source fully-featured bluetooth stack for the
> iPhone / iPod Touch 2G, but it has nothing to show yet).

For us, writers: what use is a keyboard without a text editor? Does it
run a J2ME text editor or something like that.

> [...]

> - the Nokia can multi-task, so you can have several apps open at once,
> unlike the iPhone (until at least 3.0). And you can copy and paste
> text between apps.

Cool! It is better than the classical Palm.

> - the Nokia supports a tethering app called JoikuSpot, so you can
> connect your laptop to the internet wherever you have cellphone
> coverage.

Is it EGSM, GSM, or WiFi?

Interested,

Luis.

[midtoad]

hi Luis, disculpa la demora en responderte.

The 5800XM comes in several versions depending on where you live. In
N. America, it has HSPA, i.e. 3G or 3.5G. It runs on the networks of
GSM carriers. However, the phone also has WiFi. In addition, if you
purchase an app called JoikuSpot, it will turn the phone into a
wireless router so that you can tether your laptop to it for internet
access through the phone and your cellular data plan (if you have
one).

cheers
S