REVIEW: Nokia 5800 (Tube) released - new model is officially presented

Nokia 5800, previously known as Tube, gained much attention because it was the first Nokia answer to Apple iPhone - not a rival, but a phone with similar looks and interface. Touchscreen thumb-controlled devices are getting more and more popular, and Nokia's first attempt in this market - Nokia 5800 release - promises to be successful one. As was announced earlier, at October 2 Nokia finally presented its first multimedia touchscreen smartphone on Symbian - Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. We dug into details, which are described below.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic most interesting side is that it is working on a first Symbian S60 made especially for touchscreen control and big resolutions - S60 5th Edition. It is designed to be controlled either by thumbs or stylus, with ability to choose what you prefer the most (unlike Windows Mobile, S60 5th Edition is fully optimized for thumb usage - although, f you like, you can take the stylus and work with it with no problems. On Windows Mobile all thumb operating features are just a shell that works above stylus-oriented OS). Interesting enough, Nokia oriented this smartphone not as a premium class smartphone but as a middle-class music phone.

iIt comes with 3.2 inched sensor display with 640 x 360 resolution, which is bigger than the iPhone's and is capable of displaying movies or images very crisp and bright, 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus and double LED flashlight, GPS. Wireless features include Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, which, in combination with its high-resolution display, makes 5800 great for web surfing. Built-in accelerometer adjusts image on screen if the position of smartphone is changed from portrait to landscape mode, this feature is present in almost every modern multimedia smartphone, so it is not a WOW factor anymore.

While aimed at music lovers, smartphone has all that needed for listening in comfort - 3.5 minijack slot for connecting almost every model of headphones to the device (no adapters or proprietary accessories is needed;, powerful multimedia player that runs smoothly and benefits hugely from the display's size - album arts look lovely, especially if saved in high resolution; expandable memory via microSD cards - up to 16 GB is supported, 8GB card is bundled with the phone. Text input is done fully via touchscreen and virtual keyboard - it has two modes of operation, one for thumb input and one for stylus. Needless to say, phone supports 3G networks and has all that is needed for video calls.

First version of this interesting smartphone will be released pretty soon - models in black, red and blue colors will be sold for attractive price - 279 Euros (approximately 380 US dollars), with special edition "Nokia Comes With Music" launching in the beginning of 2009. It is curious, how it will be compatible with great amount of S60 applications and games that are already released. In any case, expect to see many great applications written to use all of Nokia Tube possibilities.