Nokia 5800 XpressMusic review

The 5800's 3.2-megapixel camera isn't the best that's available on a Nokia handset, but it performs well enough in daylight and works well for MMS messages or small prints. In low light, the dual LED photo lights illuminate a subject within a few metres but, beyond that, start to falter. A xenon flash would have been much better.

Once you've taken a picture, you can view it in the gallery and flick though your photos in a similar way to how you would on an iPhone. A built-in accelerometer lets you see your pictures in landscape or portrait mode simply by turning the phone, but we found it lagged at times. You can also zoom in and out of pictures by moving an on-screen zoom key. Overall, the photo-viewing experience isn't bad, but it doesn't have the speed or fluidity of the iPhone's photo gallery.

Holding all of these features together is a remodelled interface, designed to work better with your fingers. On the homepage, you get a series of large icons that give you access to contacts, messages and other information. A shortcut key above the screen allows you to access your media, but we found it unnecessary.

The homepage can be set to display a variety of notifications, such as text messages and calendar updates. We think this is useful but you may find it cluttered. Something else you might not like is the text-input system, which displays a variety of on-screen keypads, including a standard keypad and a full Qwerty one.

Due to the screen using resistive technology, we found the keypads awkward to use at times, as they didn't always respond as we expected. In the end, we resorted to using the stylus to tap out messages, which was annoying. We would have welcomed with open arms a slide-out Qwerty keyboard on this handset.

Performance
Audio quality during calls was acceptable, as was audio quality from the MP3 player. As expected, the loudspeaker sounded tinny when turned up high. Being able to use your own headphones makes a massive difference to overall sound quality, so we advise you get a decent pair of cans if you want to enjoy your music.

Using your own headphones with the music player makes a huge difference to sound quality

Picture quality from the 5800's 3.2-megapixel camera is adequate for MMS messages, small prints and viewing on the screen, but, as we mentioned before, don't expect great things in low light. Comparing the 5800 to other Nokia phones, such as the N82, we're disappointed that a better camera wasn't put in.

Battery life is quoted at over 8 hours' talk time on GSM and 5 hours on 3G, with standby time quoted at around 17 days on GSM or 3G. We found that, depending on how much we used HSDPA, GPS and other features, battery life varied significantly. With heavy use, you'll get at least a day.

Conclusion
We'd like to say that Nokia's first touchscreen phone is a winner, but it's not as good as we expected. There's nothing outrageously wrong with it but, when compared with phones such as the Nokia E71, it's rather lacklustre. If you're going to use a touchscreen, it must work really well.

The 5800's screen just didn't do it for us -- it doesn't offer the kind of feedback or speed we expected and, as a result, the overall user experience was clunky. If Nokia had used a capacitive screen and improved the 5800's styling, it may have fared better in this review.

Edited by Charles Kloet

Update: The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic came early in the wave of touchscreen handsets, and, as our review stated, it wasn't as good as we'd hoped. Now it's going head to head with mid-range touchscreen phones such as the Samsung Jet and the LG Arena KM900, and we think the 5800 doesn't compare well. We still like the 5800's music prowess, but its lacklustre looks and unresponsive touchscreen drag it down. To keep our review up-to-date, we've re-scored the 5800 from 7.9 to 6.3 to reflect how we think it ranks within its category.