subject: Nokia 5800 review – a rare touch screen phone from Nokia [print this page] Nokia 5800 review a rare touch screen phone from Nokia
The craze for touch screen technology was first started by Samsung and now everyone has joined the touch screen bandwagon. Nokia 5800 is a touch screen phone from Nokia and it is hard to understand why Nokia took so long to adopt this technology. It seems that the Finnish manufacturer made a ton of research before going for touch screens. This phone is unlocked here in the US and it is sold for $399. It is hard to recommend this phone considering the drawbacks that it has and also because there are other handsets in the market which are much better than this.
My Nokia 5800 review model had the same design characteristics as the iPhone or Samsung Omnia. This is one of those Nokia cell phones with a candy bar design and it has rounded corners along with burgundy and black color screen. There is also a red thin stripe. This Nokia phones is 0.61 inch deep, 2.04 inches wide and 4.37 inches tall. It is a bit small as compared to other touch screen phones in the market right now and it is also a bit thicker than average. The weight is 3.84 ounces and you can easily carry it around in your pocket. Also, the phone feels quite comfortable in the hand.
The touch screen of the Nokia 5800 review model was 3.2 inches big which is as big as that of the iPhone. You get a resolution of 640x360 pixels with support for 16 million colors. The aspect ratio is 16:9 and with such a resolution, you get vibrant and bright colors with great graphics. The photos too look really sharp on these Nokia cell phones. You can adjust the font size, backlighting time and brightness on these Nokia phones. In a call, the display automatically goes dark when you place the handset too close to the era. The brightness is automatically adjusted according to the light in the ambience.
The menu system of my Nokia 5800 review model had standard design and the icons were laid in grid format. The submenus are quite intuitive but sometimes I felt that the manufacturer hasn't really optimized user interface in some of the applications. There is accelerometer which lets you switch between portrait and landscape menu view by just rotating the phone. This accelerometer works in most of the applications.
Display of my Nokia 5800 review model was responsive; you can either use the included stylus or browse through your finger. It is a bit confusing sometimes because sometimes, the items open up on a single tap while sometimes; you need to tap twice on these Nokia cell phones. Sometimes, I waited for some time to wait for the app to open up and in the end realized that I hadn't tapped on the screen at all. The items open up quickly and you won't have to tap too hard on the screens of these Nokia phones. You will need some time to get used to the long lists scrolling there is a narrow arrow on the left side for this but I got used to it after some time. Scrolling is not as smooth as other touch screen phones that I have seen in my labs like the iPhone. The calibration can be adjusted and there is a choice for handwriting too. The screen offers haptic feedback where in the phone vibrates when a touch is registered but you cannot adjust the intensity of it.
The home screen of my Nokia 5800 review model had icons for phone dialer and phone book. You can add customizable shortcut bar or favorite contact on the home screen for quick access. The dialer has big virtual buttons with bigger numbers and this makes it easy to punch the phone numbers.
