Dec 22, 2009 11:45 AM
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(Updated Dec 22, 2009 12:09 PM)
I had been hearing a lot of good things about Blackberry and was entertaining an express intention of buying one soon. Sadly, whatever little I knew of the machines told me they were expensive to buy and still more expensive to run (unlimited BIS/BES service costs one grand/month no matter which service provider you subscribe to). Besides, Blackberry like Sony, seems to have got into the pathetic habit of creating a huge fuss over trivial features (like giving a 2.4647484950 inch screen size in the 8520 against a standard 2.8 inch benchmark that we've grown to expect from any business phone) which otherwise you'd take for granted. And when someone tries to do that I have trouble subscribing. So I turned my attention to the old loyal friend Nokia and zeroed in on the Nokia 5800 Express Music.
The phone cost me 13K and when I opened up the Box and began assembling the gadget, my heart began to sink. 5800 has a cheap plastic cover that is secured even more precariously. The stylus is just as cheap and difficult to access. It has an even funnier method of inserting SIM card. And the phone is difficult to grip.
But no sooner had I pressed the startup button, the machine started roaring like a pard. The 5800 has a 434 Mhz processor which though not as powerful as the Snapdragon, it still a handful for running the applications. I checked playing a couple of 1.5-2 hour mp4 movies and the playback was excellent without any glitches. I even used the timebar and scrolled to different places and the machine responded equally well.
The 5800 boasts of a good 3.2 inch touchscreen; or "widescreen" I should say. Dont know when the manufacturers' fetish with widescreens will end. The Blackberry Storm that I was considering alongside the 5800 also has a 3.25 inch screen but the aspect is such that the Blackberry outscores the 5800 heavily in this department and its screen looks much larger. The 5800 Interface is not as "snappy" or as "intuitive" (two favorite words used by Iphone guys) as the legendary Iphone but is still quite good for casual use. Handwriting recognition is better than what I have on my P1i. It has to be. Remember the phone doesnt have a keypad! The virtual keypad is available in different sizes and responds well to touch. The accelerometer works fine and so do the light sensors meaning you would find the screen lightening up when out in the sun ! Browsing is much better courtesy its large screen size and decently powered processor.
As expected the Music department is the Forte of the phone with excellent playback of the popular formats (MP3/WAV/?AAC+/WMA. No FLAC though!) and good speakers. There is a bit of distortion at high volumes but thats natural and you'll probably never play at those volumes, so its ok.
Now for the usuals. The Reception is loud and clear. The memory backup is excellent with a 8 GB card coming free and scope for extending it to 16 GB. With a 1320 mAh Battery, backup is ok for a 3.2 incher. It easily lasts 2 days with 2.5-3 hours daily use without recharging.
Every Cellphone, no matter how good it is, must have a list of drawbacks. For the 5800 they are as follows :-
(1) As mentioned earlier, the substandard quality of material/plastic used, especially for the back cover can be embarrassing, especially at times when you remove it in front of others.
(2) No keypad. No matter how comfortable you are with using the touch keypad, there are times (while moving in a crowd for instance), when a real keypad comes in very handy.
(3) No Adobe Reader. How will I read my e-books? While you'll likely get a solution surfing the net, its hardly the kinda thing you'd like to waste your time on.
(4) The camera is a little “below average". My P1i that also has a 3.2 Mpx camera gives wonderful shots compared to this one.
(5) No support for DivX/Xvid (.avi format). That means I wont be able to playback almost 500 odd movies in my catalogue. It also means that I'll spend precious time on the Net looking for a solution.
(6) Nokia has been rather stingy with free on board softwares/applications, including just a couple of games and absolutely no choice in themes, etc.
The 5800 is a great buy purely on the basis of the aforesaid points. However, Nokia has more than a trick up its sleeve which swings the argument even more dramatically in its favour.
The Surprise Package - Here's where your jaw will drop! Nokia is currently giving a "100 songs free download" voucher along with the 5800. The songs can be downloaded from the Nokia Music Store. And there are no riders. You can download any song on the website and the song length doesnt matter at all. Its a total no. of 100 songs.
Had Nokia introduced these vouchers 10 years ago I'd probably have bought hundreds of their sets and would have been reselling them at a discount sans the voucher. Nokia has done a remarkable job with its Music Store. When it comes to music I rather fancy myself but even I was positively surprised at the exhaustiveness of their catalogue. They not only have a fantastic collection of Rock, Jazz and Western Classical stuff, they have an equally euphoria inducing collection of Ghazals/Sufi/Eastern Classical music from Pakistani/Indian artists, to say nothing of the usual Bollywood stuff. With the 100 song voucher you can download anything from worthless to absolutely priceless music worth thousands of rupees. The bad news is these songs are DRM protected and only 10 writes are allowed.
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