Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic Will Rock Your World

By Author: Jamie Hanson
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The Nokia 5800 is a Symbian S60 smartphone and a portable entertainment device. A phone in the XpressMusic series, the 5800 emphasizes multimedia and music playback. Although the phone does possess tactile feedback, it does not feature the upcoming Haptikos Nokia technology. The device does have a compatibility mode for those applications requiring the use of Java that are not touchscreen-capable. To run programs in this mode, part of the screen is used for displaying the buttons that are essential to running the program.

The specifications included with the 5800 include a resistive, 3.2-inch 16M touchscreen; use of the Symbian S60 fifth edition operating system, with touch input; accelerometer for auto-screen rotation; a 3.2 megapixel, auto focus Carl Zeiss lens with dual LED flash and geo-tagging support; Global Positioning (GPS) system with A-GPS function; FM radio (87.5 to 108 MHz) with RDS; 8 GB microSDHC card; a microSDHC card slot up to 16 GB; 360 x 640 pixels resolution at a 9:16 display ratio; and a 3.5 mm headphone/video-out jack.

The 5800 introduces a drop-down menu, which provides direct access ...
... to entertainment and music, known as the "Media Bar." The bar also offers the opportunity to directly link to the Internet and to online sharing services. Since the phone supports Flash, users can surf the entirety of the Internet from the phone. The 5800 also provides music essentials such as a graphic equalizer, enough memory to hold up to 6,000 songs and built-in surround sound stereo speakers. Users can easily access the Nokia Music Store (in countries where applicable) and the Nokia Music PC software allows for the easy management of large music collections.

There are several input methods available for use with this phone, including plectrum, finger-touch support and stylus for text input and also UI control, which uses full and mini QWERTY keyboards, handwriting recognition, and an alphanumeric keypad. The 5800 also has the capabilities to connect to mobile broadband using HSDPA (3.5 G) or WLAN.

The phone was announced in October 2008 with a suggested retail price of €279. In a suspected move toward not putting other Nokia product sales in peril, Nokia held the phone from Christmas sales in several more matured markets. The phone is expected to be available in all of Europe in early 2009. There is not yet an Asia-Pacific release date and beginning Dec. 14, 2008, the European version was available for purchase by those in the United States. A North American version is expected at the end of February 2009 and it will have an Australian release March 25, 2009.

Nokia announced Jan. 23, 2009, that it had shipped its millionth 5800 device, despite the fact that the product had as yet not been released worldwide. The phone, which has generally received positive reviews from both users and critics, and which received a 5-star rating in the Feb. 8, 2009, issue of "Mobile Choice," a UK phone magazine, can be seen in prototype form in 2008's "The Dark Night" and in 2008 music videos by Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears.

For the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic or any Nokia mobile phones visit DAP.