The largest 5800 'Tube' preview... until Rafe's!

[slitchfield]

It seems that Russian Mobile Review impressario Eldar was also at Thursday evening's launch of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (running S60 5th Edition, etc) and he's put together an amazingly detailed set of photos and well arranged thoughts on the device (in English, thankfully), based solely on his hour or so's hands-on. Kudos. It's certainly the best 5800 preview at the moment, though doubtless Rafe is beavering away, marshalling his own impressions...

Read on in the full article.

[Tzer2]

They seem very impressed, and I'm glad they concentrated so heavily on the price point as I think this is something that doesn't get discussed enough about phones in general. Price is by far the most important specification of any device, and the 5800 is very, very cheap for what it is. It's about the same price as a 6220 which was already considered a "budget" S60 device.

Absolutely no one was expecting the 5800 to start at this price level, and it really does redefine how cheap we expect devices to be. Put the 5800 next to the N96, tell potential customers the 5800 costs half the price of the N96, and see what happens. And of course the iPhone is the same price as the N96 once you add up how much people actually pay for it in their monthly fees.

If the 5800 had cost 600 or 700 euros we would have probably all dismissed it as an iPhone-wannabe, but at 300 euros you have to think about things completely differently.

At this price level you can expect the 5800 to be free or nearly free on practically any phone contract, and even bought SIM-free or prepaid it is a very very reasonable price. The 5310 sold 10 million units and its starting price was very similar to the 5800. The low price will also help the 5800 be a Comes With Music phone, because even with the extra CWM charge it will still be a bargain for the hardware alone.

[viipottaja]

Tzer2, could not agree more. Btw, on the CWM: Eldar says in his preview that CWM is _included_ in the price (i.e. would not be an extra charge). I find that hard to believe, honestly, but IF it is true, the phone absolutely and utterly destroys the competition.. well, ok, maybe not quite but it would be an unbelievable combo. Again, I don't think that's true though - I assume CWM will be an extra charge on top.

[Tzer2]

Even if CWM is extra (and I agree it probably will be), the 5800 CWM would still only be about 400 euros in total, which is still much cheaper than anyone expected.

I normally stay far away from new models, but the price is so low this time that I really do fancy getting the 5800 at its launch. It's a pipe dream, really don't have the money (esp at Xmas) but it makes me wonder how many other people are considering becoming an early adopter because of this phone's low price.

[Nemoi]

For me it is quite a dilemma... I was sure on upgrading to the n85 coming from an e51, mainly because of the better integration with the ovi services, a bigger screen and the ability to play ngage. Now with the Tube, I am not so sure anymore, because of its better price, larger screen and many innovations. Ngage, however, seems to be lacking... I really hope they bring some sort of it to the S60 touch platform

[sapporobaby]

Originally Posted by Tzer2

They seem very impressed, and I'm glad they concentrated so heavily on the price point as I think this is something that doesn't get discussed enough about phones in general. Price is by far the most important specification of any device, and the 5800 is very, very cheap for what it is. It's about the same price as a 6220 which was already considered a "budget" S60 device.

Absolutely no one was expecting the 5800 to start at this price level, and it really does redefine how cheap we expect devices to be. Put the 5800 next to the N96, tell potential customers the 5800 costs half the price of the N96, and see what happens. And of course the iPhone is the same price as the N96 once you add up how much people actually pay for it in their monthly fees.

If the 5800 had cost 600 or 700 euros we would have probably all dismissed it as an iPhone-wannabe, but at 300 euros you have to think about things completely differently.

At this price level you can expect the 5800 to be free or nearly free on practically any phone contract, and even bought SIM-free or prepaid it is a very very reasonable price. The 5310 sold 10 million units and its starting price was very similar to the 5800. The low price will also help the 5800 be a Comes With Music phone, because even with the extra CWM charge it will still be a bargain for the hardware alone.

I beg to differ. If you got to www.verkkokauppa.com and do a search in the box next to the word: HAE! and type in Nokia 5800 Express. Guess what the price is?

That's right sports fans. 999.90 Euros for this phone. Your 400 Euro guess is only off by 599.90 Euro's and I bet you the 999.90 Euro price will be closer than yours. As much as I would like to buy this phone, I am sure, as well as what my buddy at Nokia told me, there will be some good stuff coming so I should wait.

[slitchfield]

I doubt it. £999 or 999 Euros is normally a placeholder in a shopping system until the real price is calculated and inserted.

There was no mention of the Full QWERTY keyboard in landscape mode which can be used for texting. I think that's quite a major feature, especially over the iphone. I don't want to have to use a stylus or plectrum to text! But a full size qwerty keyboard is very welcome.

hmmmm i cant believe that he actually thought the phone was going for 999.90 euros...nokia clearly stated 279 euros...how does that equate to 999.90 euros:-S. one must understand we are dealing with nokia, not apple. nokia doesnt lie about its device prices :-P or at least try to mask them :-P

Sorry sapporobaby but you are wrong, and propably haven't done much shopping at Verkkokauppa.com.
999 euros is what they use for pre-order items that don't have final price yet.

For example, when I pre-ordered the Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft (back in mid-2006) it had price of 999 euros, but I (obviously!) didn't pay thousand euros for a vide-game. It ended costing me 30 euros.

[Tzer2]

Sapporobaby, you might want to do a bit of research before telling people they're idiots.

"Sports fans" indeed...

ALL of verkkokauppa's prices start at 999.90 if they haven't yet decided on a final price. They've always done that, they probably always will.

The place to find out the real price of an upcoming product is in the manufacturer's press release, and Nokia's release for the 5800 quite clearly states it's 280 euros plus taxes (which in Finland would come to about 340 euros including 22% sales tax).

[viipottaja]

Sapporobaby, heh, that was, frankly, pretty funny.. going from Euro 279 without taxes to Euro 999...

Apple use one of many simple design principles to make the iphone look easy to use.

White space and large fonts. Put in lots of white space and big fonts and it always looks easier to use.

Why doesn't nokia try this? Maybe 2 view modes, new user (large fonts and limited info), experienced user (basically as it is now).

Just a simple observation.

[talhamid]

Eldar is awesome. The guy puts his heart and soul into everything he writes and that's what sets him apart from others. The brilliant thing is that what he writes is relevant to every market in the world. With due respect to AAS, but his are the DEFINITIVE reviews for any phone. AAS comes as my prime source for news, info and overviews.

The price discussion is laughable. ANY S60 phone is better than iphone in terms of its feature set. Even if the 5800 was priced equal to iphone, it would have it beat hands down, except for the prettiness of interface and hardware itself which seems to be a solid lock for Apple.

At this price point, it is not only better than all competing touch screen phones, it is also better than the entire NSeries lineup , N-gage or no n-gage. My N82 looks fat and ugly next to it (not that 5800 is something of a beauty - it ain't). My only grudge is that they should have provided an emulator for old S60 apps, which should have included a virtual D-pad. PErhaps someone else will come up with this.

[slitchfield]

Yes, we love most of Eldar's writings too, which is why we often link to them, though the one big beef I have against him is that he does tend to base 'reviews' on prototype hardware and firmware, sometimes as early as 2 or 3 MONTHS before the device actually appears in production form.

With the complexity of modern devices, you can't really form an accurate opinion of their performance and usability until most of the rough edges have been knocked off the software, IMHO.