Nokia 5800 Tube Review

Nokia has been quite careful to position the 5800 as an affordable equivalent to the iPhone and not something that will blow the Apple out of the water, and given the current economic climate it could be a very clever move.

Although it may be the first Series 60 smartphone to have a touchscreen, that doesn’t automatically make it an iPhone killer. In fact, if Nokia hadn’t added ‘XpressMusic’, it could have been any ordinary smartphone. However, Nokia has other plans for the user interface, such as the N97 featured last issue, so it’s early days yet.

The user interface is the long awaited touch version of Series 60, first shown off in the autumn of 2007. Very little changed in 2008, with the pre-production ‘Tube’ being little different to the final product; so what was Nokia doing all that time?

Apple started from scratch, whereas Nokia had to modify a UI that wasn’t designed for touch operation. This has thrown up a series of problems, meaning the end result is a hybrid interface that’s a bit inconsistent, and has a range of text input options – none of which are particularly brilliant. You’ve got an on-screen keyboard, handwriting recognition (to be used with the stylus) or a T9-style keypad. To emphasis the music aspect, Nokia has even bundled a plectrum to let you press keys. Of course, that is a gimmick for this music focused model and not something you’ll get with future models.

Apple was accused of arrogance when it left out Bluetooth file transfer, stereo Bluetooth audio, cut and pasting and many other seemingly standard features on a modern phone. However, the winning UI meant a lot of people didn’t care. The 5800, despite not having the same wow factor from a design point of view, has at least got all of these features and more. There’s a 3.2-megapixel autofocus camera, with flash, and decent VGA resolution video recording. It also has a card slot, meaning you can upgrade from the 8GB card supplied to 16GB and eventually 32GB. Oh, and the battery is changeable too!

The 640x360 pixel display is particularly good at playing video, with an improved media player given DVD-player style options like picture zooming, so you can either enjoy a 4:3 aspect ratio film in a cropped, fullscreen mode or enjoy downloaded or ripped movies in 16:9 widescreen. Music is equally well covered, with album art and a range of search options to manage your music. Besides the supplied headphones you also get internal stereo speakers. Nokia claimed these to be the loudest around, but while they are good they’re not going to replace external speakers.

The media player may make full use of the large screen, as does the web browser, but the rest of the menus are little different to any ordinary S60 device. All you get here are bigger icons and smoother text because of the increased resolution.

The email client also has a new way of sorting messages, and as you might imagine, Nokia Maps can show a lot more detail when you fire up the GPS receiver.

It’s the web browser that begins to show where Nokia has become confused as to how S60 should work with a larger screen and touch input. When you switch to landscape view, which is the best way of looking at any site, you have to rely on overlaid icons to perform certain tasks. There’s no fancy finger controlled zooming or anything like that (the screen isn’t multi touch like the iPhone), so you need to tap, or double tap, to do things. Selecting URLs can be fiddly, and you begin to realise that a high resolution screen is one thing - but introduce fingertip control and you need a larger screen size too. Compared to the iPhone, the 5800 screen is simply too small.

Switching from one mode to another is easy though, thanks to an extra button that sits at the top right of the display. This brings up a menu that lets you switch between music, pictures, the web browser, video and sharing content. There’s also a nice little sliding keylock button on the side, which like the iPhone effectively puts the phone into (and out of) standby mode.

The standby screen can be set to show a traditional list of applications, or four of your favourite contacts with associated messages, chats and shared content. Content can be shared using the Ovi service, and Nokia has its own push email service, should you want more than just music and video.

The 3.2-megapixel camera doesn’t sound much now we’re surrounded by five and eight-megapixel devices, but it’s adequate, if a little rough around the edges. Video recording is another big bonus compared to the iPhone, but better still is the fact that the battery is able to keep running for ages even when you’re using the features. If nothing else, Nokia has got one thing right by using an older software and hardware platform than its rivals.

Another advantage of the 5800 is the Comes With Music service that will soon be offered, allowing a year of unlimited music downloads using the Nokia Music Store. Up until now, the choice of handsets was limited to older kit. Now, you can choose this or the N96, which are handsets you may have wanted to buy anyway.

The 5800 isn’t as slick as the iPhone, that’s clear, but it is exactly what Nokia wanted; a cheap alternative that offers more functionality – if you’re able to accept a UI that still needs some improvement.

VERDICT

We’ve been waiting patiently for Nokia’s first touchscreen Series 60 smartphone, but it seems Nokia has had difficulty changing things to operate by fingertip operation instead of real buttons; it can be a little fiddly to input text. The larger screen resolution isn’t fully utilised by every application either, although the media player and web browser are obvious beneficiaries. The 5800 is very well featured, from a good camera to excellent video recording, plus content sharing options. It’s a cheap alternative to the iPhone, especially with the optional Comes With Music service for unlimited music downloads.

RATINGS (OUT OF 5)

PERFORMANCE: 4
FEATURES: 5
USABILITY: 3
OVERALL: 4

Watch the Nokia Tube Dance with George Sampson, from the UK launch party on 23rd January 2009