Nokia 5800

While Nokia has ventured ever-so rarely into touch screen phone territory (we're thinking of the Nokia 7710, the first and last S90 smartphone, dating back to 2005), the iPhone craze seems to have gotten them on their way. Better late than never, as the cliche goes; and the Nokia 5800 is worth the wait. This is Nokia's first S60 5th Edition phone-- 5th Edition is the touch screen version of S60, while 3rd Edition is the non-touch version used on all other current Nokia smartphones such as those in the N and E series. There is no 4th Edition since many high tech companies that market products in Asia avoid the number 4 because in Chinese the word for four sounds the same as the word for death. The flagship Nokia N97 will run 5th Edition as well (due out mid-2009), which makes the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic even more interesting since it gives us a sample of what's to come in that top-of-the-line model and it offers an affordable alternative to the pricey N97.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic was first available in Europe several months ago and is now available for the US in the NAM (North American) edition. We're reviewing the NAM model which has 3G HSDPA for AT&T's 850/1900MHz bands. The NAM version works on EDGE with T-Mobile US and overseas. The Euro version has Euro 3G (900/2100MHz) rather than US 3G and lacks a US warranty. The Nokia 5800 is a GSM quad band unlocked world phone, and it's sold direct from Nokia's US website and from online retailers like Amazon and Dell.

Priced at $399 list with no contract and available for less from a variety of online retailers, it offers a wealth of features for the money. These include WiFi, GPS with Nokia Maps, a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, Bluetooth and Nokia's usual bevy of built-in S60 smartphone applications. The 3.2" resistive touch screen runs at 16:9 widescreen resolution (640 x 360). It has haptic (vibration) feedback and an accelerometer. S60 5th Edition supports both capacitive and resistive touch screens, so why did Nokia go with resistive? To support character input (handwriting recognition), which capacitive can't do. While US buyers might not be in love with handwriting recognition, it's very popular in Asia for character input, and Nokia is a global company.