The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be available in Australia on the 20th of March, and the Comes With Music all-you-can-eat subscription service will launch there simultaneously. The Nokia 5800 will have a recommended retail price of 979 AUD (£440) for a device with a 12 month Comes with Music subscription.
In contravention of the prevailing spirit of the age, I find myself unconvinced by a touch interface on a phone, having tried using both Apple iPhone and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, both of which I've rejected as my main device for different reasons. And, for a change, there's survey data (see the postscript) to back up my crazed(!) opinions - it seems that the majority of the great unwashed also prefer physical buttons to touch...
You'll forgive me appearing to be sucking up to the 'boss', but Rafe has done an exemplary job with his photography at this year's Mobile World Congress. Witness the first of his in depth photo galleries, this time featuring the highest specification phone any of us is likely to hold in 2009, the Samsung Omnia HD, running S60 5th Edition. Rafe takes us over the device in gory detail, so enjoy!
Rafe's back from the Mobile Word Congress, so this is Steve and Ewan's first chance to quiz him on what he found out. In an extended Insight, we look at the hardware and services from the phone manufacturers that were on show in Barcelona.
One of the more interesting demos at MWC was Google's demonstration of off-line access to Gmail through browsers based on Webkit (thanks to Mobile Crunch for the reminder). Of course the demonstration was with the Apple iPhone, but other browsers, including the S60 browser should be able to run the system. It's still in the labs, but could prove an interesting counter-point if released to Nokia's Ovi Mail.
More tutorials for Nokia's first S60 touch device: an introduction to the basics of using the 5800's camera, and after you've read that you'll want to move onto Steve's earlier article on how to get better photos from the 5800 (despite its rather small camera sensor!). As always, previous tutorials can be found on their index page.
Nokia have recieved a loan from the European Investment Bank to support Research and Development in the Finnish company. Spread over five years, the 500 million euro loan will be used by Nokia to "make Symbian-based smartphones more competitive." While not directly for the Symbian Foundation the work will benefit the Foundation and other Open Source initiatives.
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic may not be a S60 flagship, but it's selling well wherever it launches, apparently. S60 celeb Sittiphol (the Mobitubia guy) reports here in an illustrated post on the 5800's launch and sell-out in Thailand.
Continuing our series for beginners, we've done a guide to the Nokia 5800's S60 5th Edition interface, and to complement it there's also a brief look at the 5800's various methods of text entry including on-screen keyboards, keypads and handwriting recognition. You can find a complete listing of all the articles in this series on the 5800 tutorial index page.
Now that the excitement of MWC is over, we present another in our series of tutorials for people who are new to the Symbian world: How to update the firmware on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. As always, if you spot a mistake or have a suggestion please do let us know in the comments thread. Our previous articles in the series can be found in the Nokia 5800 Tutorials Index.
In all the rush of innovation and new devices, we missed the announcement by F-Secure that they are the first anti-virus company to support S60 5th Edition. Their Mobile Security 5 product is now available via F-Secure or Nokia Download, if you feel the need for some extra strength protection.
With so much news flowing through this front page over the last 72 hours, I thought a brief link summary might be in order. Sony Ericsson went first, with their display of their early prototype 12mp, S60 5th Edition Idou. Then we had Nokia's main keynote, introducing the S60 3rd Edition Nokia E55 and side-sliding E75, plus the Ovi Store. They also quietly dropped the 6710 Navigator and 6720 Classic. Samsung chipped in next with their launch of the Omnia HD, running S60 5th Edition and with 3.7" OLED screen and 8mp camera. Nokia then showed off the new N86 8MP at a breakfast launch, an N85 with significantly reworked camera. LG brought up the rear with their latest, the KT770, an otherwise unremarkable 3rd Edition slider.
Continuing to round up Mobile World Congress 2009, a few links of interest for Wednesday morning. Nokia Messaging just got itself an upgrade, with the return of Access point selection and a better experience for Yahoo! Mail users; well spotted Symbian's William, showing a veritable wall of Samsung Omnia HD phones all waiting to be carted off to AAS for review(!); plus our own Rafe has been busy overnight, see the live link above for his own photos and thoughts on the new phones announced; finally, Rafe was cornered by the chatty MIR team at the show and asked for his thoughts so far.
Steve and I continue to look over the stories from Barcelona in the second of three planned podcasts discussing the MWC, before a full blown Insight Podcast when Rafe returns. More after the break.
Nokia and Skype have announced plans to fully integrate Skype into selected Nokia devices. Kicking off with the Nokia N97, Skype will be part of Contacts, enabling users to easily see when their Skype contacts are online, to call and to chat using a data connection. Other selected Nseries devices are also likely to come with integrated Skype functionality, through initial inclusion and through firmware upgrades.
