Nokia 5800 Xpress Music - Hardware
(Page 2 of 4 )
On paper the Tube looks impressive enough. The first thing you’ll notice is the display: slightly smaller than the iPhone’s at 3.2 inches, it delivers 640 x 360 pixels, 30 fps video playback, and has surprisingly been given a matte finish by Nokia’s designers. This is only the first sign of the utilitarian approach that Nokia has taken. Matte screens are more resistant to glare and therefore more usable in difficult conditions, which should appeal to the serious phone user if not so much to the movie-watcher.
Touchscreens, though, are about much more than their appearance. Nokia has coined the term "Resistive" to describe the Tube’s screen, and if this is meant to suggest that you have to press harder on it than other touchscreens, then we can confirm that it’s accurate. The plus side of this is that input isn’t limited to finger taps, Nokia having taken the sensible decision to include stylus input supported with handwriting recognition.
This should broaden the Tube’s appeal to include PDA fans, as well as the many regular cellphone users who find inputting text by thumb a tedious and frustrating experience. If Nokia has called this one right, it could even be the beginning of a stylus revival.
Other significant hardware includes a 3.2 megapixel camera with twin-LED flash, video recording capabilities, built-in stereo loudspeakers, standard 3.5mm headphone socket, GPS, and built-in Wi-Fi. Memory expansion is via an SD Card slot that currently takes cards up to 8GB, and will support 16GB cards when these eventually become available.
The casing itself is nowhere near as slim and elegant as the iPhone’s. Some bloggers have even described it as short, fat and ugly, and while we wouldn’t go that far, it is definitely a little on the chunky side.
Once again, though, Nokia’s functional aesthetic is reflected in the way that the design is satisfyingly comfortable to hold and use in one hand. The fashion-conscious will probably use it in the dark, while the rest of us can simply enjoy the experience of holding a phone that doesn’t try to leap out of our hands at every opportunity.
Next: Software >>
More Mobile Devices Articles
More By Bruce Coker
