Nokia's first ever full touchscreen S60 phone has had quite the bumpy ride into reality. After launching here in North America, it was on the receiving end of
heavy pounding from early adopters who couldn't adequately take advantage of 3G services. Now that those issues are ironed out (and you've had five minutes to cool your jets), we're wondering how you'd tweak / change / overhaul the
5800 XpressMusic. Needless to say,
our own personal list would likely span a few pages (collated, double-spaced, 1-inch margins), but this post isn't for us. In fact, it has been specially crafted just for you, so feel free to let off some steam in comments below. Just keep it constructive, okay?
posted Apr 25th 2009 2:43AM
BY BEING FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh and its too damn narrow.
^^You shame your user name.^^
My recommendation is optimization of all components and a capacitive touchscreen. A custom OS based on android could possibly work well.
$1000 rebate + meal tickets.
when are you guys going to stop this "first post" nonsense?
Anyway, I Love my 5800 so much it really is the best touchscreen I ever owned (I had an iPhone, HTC Tytn II and nokia 7710 before)
I would note some of my discontents in specific points:
1- I would really Like some music controls on the side of the phone (it's really a pain to switch songs, even with the boxed 3.5mm adaptor.)
2- Make it a capacitive touchscreen
3- more rugged Nokia pick!! I know it's a first to any phone to come with a pick, but it's scratched already and I mean really scratched, probably from my keys.
4- Most important discontent is the camera!!!! I'm sorry to say it but it puts the "shit" in "shitty"! an absolute letdown, I don't even know why the double LED flash is there, picture is ALWAYS crappy during the night ( and I've seen a lot better from 3.2 Mpix mobile cams)
but just to be fair it's A LOT better then the iPhone under normal Lighting situations and outdoors.
5- boxed nokia earphones are useless, absolutely useless, so cheap in my opinion and shouldn't even be in the box, because anybody getting this phone has to be a music fan so I find putting crappy earphones in a music device very frustrating for a b.
6- overall body of the 5800 is odd, it makes freaky noises when you touch it's plastic edges, the edges of the touchscreen gets really dirty, I miss the iPhone mostly here, also the iphone's edges are flushed with the screen and this would be really a must have for the 5800 because of the 3G camera, I always have to clean it before a video call because edges of 5800 get really, and I mean really, dirty.
7- better PC Connectivity, in mass storage mode on vista and windows 7 it's a mass problem!, I even found lots of threads on nokia discussions on this issue, there seems to be a problem in the mass storage driver making the 5800 connecting and disconnecting simultaneously and very fast for checking it's content or changing anything on the memory card, it seems to be good when connecting via Ovi Suite though, but I just hate using Ovi Suite!
8- Nokia N97 homescreen & widgets.
9- wifi antenna is on the side of the phone so if I'm holding the phone normally in upright position it wont connect to any wireless LANs because my hand is covering the antenna, I have to hold the phone in landscape mode to connect to wifi, believe me this is really frustrating when using GPS to download maps because the Nokia Maps interface isn't landscape friendly.
it's heavily noted that I absolutely love the 5800, it does have a lot of problems - at least more than the iphone - but I can live with most of them, I LOVE Symbian S60 5th edition, its really foolproof and easy to use, I know the iphone's Mac OS is a LOT of eye candy but I've never seen the easiness of any OS to be like that of S60, I love my 5800 and will absolutely get the N97 if I found its camera quality to be at least Like that of N95 8gb.
So there you go, that's my tiny review for the 5800 Xpressmusic.
I forgot:
10- USB charging
11- faster data connections with the PC, I get really slow data transfer speeds, very frustrating when copying Large data amounts Like movies or Videos.
12- better internet browser, or at least I wish for any company (Probably Opera) to make a touch browser for the 5800, and I wont get started on the browser's problems because they are A LOT to talk about.
13- if the N97's homescreen isn't going to be available for the 5800 through a firmware update, at least I would Like the current homescreen to be Landscape friendly.
sorry for some spelling mistakes, too bad this comment system won't let me edit them!
@Muhammed
capacitive touchscreen would drive up the price big time,its meant to be a cheap phone. plus it almost as responsive as a capacitive, and i like the option that i can use the stylus/pick for handwriting etc.
the camera issue is a really annoying, should be better. A xenon flash would be great. The latest firmware has made it a hell of a lot better though.
opera have made a browser for it, opera mini works really really well on the 5800.
connectivity is pretty laughable on most pcs and macs (even worse for macs, which is a shame, i'd wish they'd sort this out) slow transfers (64 bit windows 7 is great with it, device stage is brilliant)
imo wifi connectivity is a hell of a lot better than my ipod touch which is now broken :( (not sure if the iphone connectivity is the same as the touch)
sound quality is better than every phone i've heard including the iphone. but i've been one of the unlucky ones to have the left earphone lose audio (quick fix though) but the headphone are hands down the worst headphones ever to come with any device, truly awful.
also "flick" scrolling would be great.
dude, i would not post first but god damn it if someone else does and i don't then i feel like dirt.
treaties must be signed.
@ mogeansai : I have opera mini on my 5800, unfortunately it lacks a lot of usability because it is a "modded version from S60 3rd" but not official from the opera team, it's still a lot faster than the S60 browser but somehow looks unprofessional.
And on your capacitive touchscreen comment I guess you are actually right about pricing, plus I'm already starting to like resistive touchscreens, I couldn't use my car key to touch the iphone but I actually do it a lot on the 5800!! because my car keys are always in my hand and I'm too lazy to get the stylus out xD, I guess you can consider the capacitive screen my least wanted feature to change.
@Muhammed
yeah, you're right about opera, shame it doesn't have any flash support, youtube would be nice.
when it comes to the touchscreen it would be awesome if it was like this http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/19/stantums-mind-blowing-multitouch-interface-on-video/
I would just get an iphone... this 5800 sucks
make it an iphone...
aww just kidding
third comment. i wanted to see how long it took before someone suggested that.
No iPhones dude... Only phones with Multi-Tasking allowed.
The original post I made was a joke.
But after reading the comments, it seems like its a phone very similar to the iphone.
Most of the comments asked for a capacitive screen and to make it thinner.
So, while the iphone has some glaring issues, some of which will be addressed years late, I'd take the iphone any day.
-Edward
@ vvnraman: Total Pwnage.
@raman and @muhammed.... nice to see some Hindu-Muslim amity there! ;-)
xenon flash, larger screen, slim it down, at least 5mp camera
NEEED MOAR MEAGPIXLS!!!!!!
The phone has a lot of issues really....I have it...Its unresponsive, the OS is dated, the stylus requirement is just awful, SIM removal is redundant and most Symbian apps won't run on it. Flash is cool but the keyboard is a real pain.
It doesn't require the stylus at all y'know.
My 5800 is very responsive. Symbian S60 is much more solid then any other OS I have used. Finally, the 5800 (Euro version) has the best call quality of any phone I have used.
I agree with Jah, UI is very responsive (i also have a Euro version - I'm european), but a little bit more powerful CPU wouldn't hurt.
All current firmware gliches fixed would be my first request, it should also make a better use of the standby screen.
Capacitive over resistive screen is a matter of taste, i've used iPhone and can say that capacitive is nice, but that's all, i'm used to resistive screens since i own a very old WM2003 PDA ...
A more resilent screen cover would also be nice, or electro-static sheets (not overpriced please), in this matter a capacitive screen might help yes, i can already see faint scratches appear from the use (and i'm extremelly careful - i still have my first mobile phone working without a scratch) when screen is off or full black.
A physical keyboard would make me buy this phone... Much like the g1
n97 is for you then
you know he doesn't HAVE to stick with Nokia
Xperia and from what we know of the Touch Pro are better then the N97 (except hard drive) but that's just an SD card. The N97 is going to cost millions, easily.
@Dave Chappelle
The touch pro is a horrible phone, so if this is worse I can't imagine
As the 5800 has the BT HID profile you can use a Nokia BT keyboard - I do and it works well.
@digital
sorry i was referring to the new touch pro which has been getting pretty hyped lately.
but know that i think about it even the first one is a better option then a $1000 Nokia 97, isnt it?.
@Dave
Well, Dave, why don't you try both and let us know?
it would be quite a pretty thing, if it was twice slimer, like 5310. it would be the dream-device!
and also hard buttons for player with option to block them when scren locked or not.
and also split mini-qwerty in landscape mode:
#####__________#####
#####____text___#####
#####__________#####
^buttons ^buttons
N97 widgets, capacitive glass, wider screen
Right on. All of that you said and keep S60. Never mind the naysayers.
I don't get the people who are harping on about Symbian since I'm willing to bet that most of them probably haven't used it given the laughable market penetration that Nokia have in the US. Having used WinMo, Mobile OS X and Android - admittedly the latter in a cursory fashion - I can't see why people think it's any better than S60. Operating systems are there to run the phone's applications. S60 does this very well and has for years so just because something is new doesn't mean it's better in this case.
Anyway...
1) Refine the tap/double tap system.
2) Slim it down a little (although it's not that bad really)
3) USB charging
4) Predictive text on the QWERTY keyboard
5) Better processor and graphics acceleration
6) Better camera sensor
7) 'Flick' scrolling
8) Full Opera mobile browser
Apart from that, nothing much - I don't want the screen to be bigger because then it becomes a brick like the iPhone or the Omnia (in my opinion), a capacitive screen on this unit is pointless given it's narrow form and adaptibility, plus the screen is very responsive anyway. Call, music and connectivity are all awesome and Ovi will give it an app store.
For a mid-range phone it's very good.
1. Make it thinner.
2. Add a QWERTY keyboard
3. Support for N-gage 2.0 games
4. Built-in multi touch
5. 8 Megapixel camera
I wonder why so many people put a lot of weight on the megapixel count. You *do* know that a bump in megapixels won't appreciably enhance the picture quality, right? It's still going to look flat, lifeless, and wonky no matter how many megapixels you cram in there. It's up to the sensor, the lens, and the processing, and for phones, these things just aren't going to be good, or anywhere near what a cheap digicam has. If a good camera's what you want, buy a dedicated one... stop using the tiny sensor in your phone to record your memories. The only thing it's good for is an emergency, or if you're too cheap to buy a digicam.
About the only reason I'd see a 8mp going into the 5800 is because "others are doing it", but that would serve to drive the price up beyond "affordable"... that and the addition of a capacitive screen, amoled, and better materials. The phone's priced at this level because some corners were cut... if you want more, then buy the flagship model.
I'm with solmar on this one, raising the megapixel count does nothing more than making your blurry useless pictures take up more disk space. With the quality of sensors and lenses that these phones get, they might as well stick with VGA 0.3mp, because that's about the maximum number of pixels that they can fill with detail.
"1. Make it thinner.
2. Add a QWERTY keyboard"
LOL !!
To answer Engadget folks' question :
1. Make it thinner and looks high end (plastic -> metal)
2. Replace the crappy camera by the one of the N95 - at least... it's 2 years old! -
3. Replace all the grey color of the GUI by something more 'actual', with transparency... (how comes the two bottom options are not transparent ? It looks cheap... The background HAS to take the whole screen - even worse, it looks to be the same one the N97...
4. The contact bar would be PERFECT if we could add shortcuts (webpages/programs/whatever...)at the bottom of it.
5. ...and then of course add multiple homescreen ! (at least 3)
6.Give us more picks !!
Predictive text on the qwerty keyboard.
Larger camera sensor.
Hardware 3D accelleration.
Hopefully this will all be sorted by the time the N97 is here!
Predicitive text
Better web browser
Higher res camera
Wider screen, slimmer phone
Better Browser.
I couldn't find the back button.
thinner
keypad
capacitive screen glass of course
8 megapixel
better touch interface (star from the ground up because whats on it now is horrible)..(you what android should do it)
better onscreen keyboard
i feel like am forget something mmm let's see....ohh yeah a carrier!!!!! ...it is cheap now is a great price for an unloked phone
Amoled screen!
fucken release the n97 instead of this phone!!!!
hopefully its subsidized with a contract... or released in the us first
the N97's out
No. It isn't.
My friend actually bought it online, it is out, but probably just test units.
It'll be officially out later this year -probably in September- so as not to interfere with the 5800's sales.
Oh it's out, but not with US 3G (assuming you want that).
Nothing.