We’ve already talked about how well the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is built, how well it does photography, and how it handles music. So what about the actual phone? You want to know how well the software works, where the quirks are, what’s annoying, and what Nokia did right with S60 5th Edition. This is it. I’m currently using firmware v10.0.007, which is the latest officially available firmware. There is a v11 firmware floating around, though it’s not available through NSU or FOTA, yet.
From a fresh boot, I have 44MB of RAM available on the 5800 XpressMusic, which is plenty. Sure, I would like to see more, but I have yet to see RAM be an issue when in real-world usage. For S60 5th Edition, there are various user interface tweaks throughout, but really, it’s basically a touch-enabled version of S60, as you know and love it. This is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending how you look at it, and what other touchscreen cell phones you’ve used.
The touchscreen features 3 different levels of haptic feedback, though it’s general, and not localized. That means the entire phone vibrates, and not the specific area of the screen that you touched, and this is how the majority of haptic-enabled touchscreen phones are. You can also turn this off completely, if you wish. Conveniently, the haptic feedback setting is part of the phone’s profile, so you can have different levels based on the profile of the phone, which I personally like.
One thing I was especially interested in was how S60v5 would allow me to organize my menu, since you know that’s an important factor to me. To do this, you need to enable ‘organize mode’, by opening the menu, then pressing ‘Options, organize.’ You can now easily drag and drop the various icons into different positions, or even folders in your menu layout. You can also easily create subfolders, and move applications in and out of folders. Curiously, despite a ‘remove’ option in this Organize mode, there doesn’t seem to be a way to uninstall an application, except through the Applications area in the settings menu.
There is also alot of talk about the tap/double-tap aspect of S60v5, and yes, it’s rather confusing. However, while I found it to be somewhat annoying initially, I quickly learned which situations require a single tap and which call for a double-tap, and I find myself not even thinking about it after a week or two of using the phone. Basically, if it’s a list, you probably have to double-tap on it. Otherwise, it’s probably OK with a single-tap.
The biggest issue facing the 5800 XpressMusic right now, I believe, is the lack of extra applications, beyond the default set. There are some *great* 3rd party applications, such as Handy Shell, WorldMate, Mobbler, and others that work great. Unfortunately, my 2 must-haves, Nokia Messaging and Jaiku Mobile, are both non-starters on the 5800 XpressMusic. Thus, I’m left to use the built-in email client on the 5800 XpressMusic, and I’m sad to say it’s the same suckiness as it has been since the N73 and before. I still can not download the entire email over IMAP (only headers) and it has a habit of disabling auto-check for no apparent reason. I’m told that Nokia Messaging should be available for the 5800 XpressMusic ‘soon’, though.
The menu is rather snappy, though by default, the eye-candy theme transitions are disabled. To turn them back on, you need to go into the Personalize settings, under themes, and choose Options-Theme Transitions to toggle them on. This adds some great transition animations and looks great, but unfortunately, it also slows things down slightly. After having these on for a week, I had to turn them off.
Java apps such as Opera Mini and Gmail work great on the 5800, using up the whole display, which is nice. However, it does take a bit of tweaking to get this function. When you first install any Java application, there is an onscreen d-pad and set of navigational keys that take up roughly half of the screen. While this obviously increases usability, it’s also incredibly annoying. Luckily, you can easily turn this off by again going into the Application options in the Settings menu. Highlight the application and press options, change suite settings. Here you can toggle the onscreen keys for each application.
I really think Nokia did a knock-out job with the firmware on the 5800 XpressMusic. It’s stable (I’ve not had any random crashes or lockups), and responsive. The settings and ‘extra’ applications have been cleaned up, so I have far fewer icons in my menu, which is a good thing, if you’re familiar with S60v3 at all. While it’s no iPhone or Android for the user experience, it’s noticably cleaner than previous versions of S60, and it’s obvious that Nokia is working on cleaning it up further.
That being said, I would give the 5800 XpressMusic’s software a 2 out of 5 stars. There are too many things that need to be fixed, and easily can be, with a firmware update. The lack of available third party applications brings to light the failings of S60, specifically with the built-in email client. Sure, the firmware is stable, but the overall experience is rather minimalistic, which I found frustrating, and is a large reason that my SIM card is happily back in my N95-3 for the weekend. However, Nokia can easily increase this to a 3 or 4 star rating if they address some of these firmware issues that I outlined before.
