Having used the 5800 XpressMusic as my primary phone off and on for the past several weeks now, I’ve come up with a laundry list of things that I simply can’t stand about this phone. All but one of these are easily fixed with a firmware update (that’s supposedly on its way already), but the hardware issue is one that I’ll simply have to live with. I’ve tried to keep this list as specific as I can, without all-out railing on this phone, so here it goes.
1. The Menu – The only action that you simply cannot do on the 5800 XpressMusic with the current v10 firmware without using a hardware button is open the menu. Yes, I know, it’s rather unbelievable. You can do nearly any action on the phone that you want, including turning it off, simply by touching the screen, but you cannot open the menu to get to your applications. You simply *must* use that non-descript white key in the middle. What makes this even more frustrating is that, on the S60 5th Edition emulator in the SDK, there is an on-screen S60 menu button, right at the bottom next to the dialler and contacts buttons. Basically, that means that, for some reason, Nokia specifically removed that button on the 5800 XpressMusic. I hope they bring it back.
2. The SIM card slot – the SIM card slot is not actually under the battery. It is accessed through a door on the side of the phone, next to the microSD card slot. You can insert a SIM card without opening the phone up, but you cannot remove the SIM without opening the phone up and using the stylus to push the SIM card out. It’s very annoying, and it’s actually somewhat of a juggling act, as you must hold the phone (and the removed backplate/battery), use the stylus inside this little slot, and pop the SIM card out, which you must then make sure you don’t drop. The whole process is far too involved, and left me missing the SIM card slot on the Nokia N79 (more on that later). This is actually the only thing I’ve needed the stylus for, thus far.
3. Rotate and input – This is actually somewhat of a mixed opinion still. Basically, when you rotate the phone while you have a text input field active, it does not automatically change from T9 to QWERTY, as I feel it should. If you have T9 open, it stays on that, and simply relocates it to the far right of the screen. As others have pointed out to me, it’s nice that you have the option of T9 in landscape, and that the phone allows you to choose. It just seems more natural that it would change to QWERTY when in landscape mode. Either way, it’s something I currently hate.
4. No predictive text on QWERTY – Nokia: from now on, if you build a QWERTY phone, touchscreen or hardware, it needs to have the E71′s predictive text feature integrated. Period. There are no exceptions to this rule, it’s absolutely absurd that you’re still putting out QWERTY phones without predictive text. Even the Sidekick beats you at this. Please, in a firmware update, add this predictive text software to the 5800 XpressMusic. For the love of all things rubber.
5. Geotagging is not native – This one completely blows my mind. With Nokia having such an emphasis on location and context and all that, why on earth doesn’t the 5800 XpressMusic support geotagging of photos natively? Similar to #4, if you put out a phone with a camera and GPS, include geotagging. It’s completely silly not to.
So there you have it, the quick-and-dirty of the 5 most annoying things about the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. As I pointed out earlier, all but one are software issues that can (and hopefully will) easily be fixed in a firmware update. Since the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic includes that awesome tool to automatically check for new firmware updates, that shouldn’t be a major issue. On the SIM card slot, please don’t ever use that design again, ever. Never.
If you’ve got your hands on a 5800 XpressMusic already, do you find these things annoying, as well? If not, what else do you find incredibly annoying?
