Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a Symbian smartphone from Nokia as part of the XpressMusic line. It was unveiled on 2 October 2008 in London and started shipping in November of that year, marking the company's first mainstream phone with a touchscreen. The Nokia 5800 was the first device to run S60 5th Edition, designed as a touch-specific version of the S60 platform which was otherwise originally built for use using a traditional D-pad and keypad.Positioned as a mid-range offering, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has a 3.2-inch display with a resolution of 640x360 pixels. The 16:9 aspect ratio display was the first among mobile phones. The resistive touchscreen features tactile feedback, though it does not use Nokia's Haptikos technology. While rich in multimedia, it also had many features standard to the flagship Nokia Nseries, such as GPS, HSDPA and Wi-Fi support. The S60 5th Edition interface has a compatibility mode for S60 3rd Edition software as well as Java applications, that are not touchscreen-aware, using virtual keys on-screen.
Code-named "Tube", it was a highly anticipated device in 2008 and went on to become a commercial success with 8 million units sold a year after release, becoming the firm's first major smartphone hit in almost two years since the Nokia N95 debuted. The Nokia 5800 was praised for its supplied stylus and affordability, but was viewed negatively by critics for its camera and software issues. Nokia supported the 5800 with firmware updates until 2011.
History
Nokia's touchscreens
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is not the first touchscreen device in Nokia's range of handsets. In 2004, the Nokia 7700 was announced, a Series 90 Symbian device that was cancelled before it reached the market. This was followed by the Nokia 7710 which was an upgraded version of the 7700 and became available during 2005. Nokia also produced the UIQ-based Nokia 6708 phone in 2005, but this was not an in-house development and was bought in from Taiwanese manufacturer BenQ, and it targeted the Chinese market. Nokia have also produced a range of Maemo-based tablets called the Nokia Internet tablet range, which have a touchscreen interface but are not mobile phones by themselves. The 5800 is, however, Nokia's first S60-based Symbian touchscreen device and hence their first mainstream touchscreen handset. Public interest in touchscreen mobile phones rose significantly in 2007 after Apple released the iPhone. Nokia's rivals LG and Samsung had both also launched consumer-oriented touchscreen handsets during this time.Development and leaks
At Nokia's Go Play event in London on 27 August 2007 — where the Nokia N81, N81 8GB, Nokia N95 8GB, Ovi, Nokia Music Store and N-Gage 2.0 were unveiled, — the company's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo also said that a touchscreen-operated smartphone based on the S60 platform will be launched in the following year. The event also showcased a touch-operated concept running S60 software. The device presented in the video was remarkably iPhone-like, which Engadget referred to as the "Nokia iPhone". It was later explained that the concept was regarding the touch software and not the hardware device mock-up.At the Symbian Smartphone Show in October 2007, Nokia announced and showed an S60 touch interface, stating that it will be released in 2008. It was demoed during the 2008 Mobile World Congress. Many rumours started circling around regarding Nokia's first touchscreen S60 smartphone. On 8 April 2008, images of this device and running an early touch-based interface were leaked and soon a Nokia official confirmed that the company is working on such a device, codenamed "Tube". Nokia soon also bought out Symbian Software and made the operating system open source with its partners under the Symbian Foundation. This also led to S60 being adopted as the sole user interface and the discontinuation of UIQ.
The "Tube" was widely leaked and discussed about during the year. Notably a prototype of the Tube also appeared in The Dark Knight, released in cinemas in July 2008. The scene where this prototype appears was during the final scenes which were shot in Hong Kong in November 2007.
Unveiling, release, and issues
Nokia unveiled the "Tube" 5800 XpressMusic at the Remix event held at Koko in London on 2 October 2008. Alongside the handset, the company also announced the Comes With Music service and a number of stereo wireless Bluetooth headphones. The device began shipping on 27 November 2008 retailing for €279 before taxes and initially available in markets including Finland, Spain, Russia, India and Hong Kong. It launched in other territories in 2009, including in North America in March 2009. Nokia also expanded the Nokia Music Store availability globally to complement the release of the 5800.In early February 2009 the website Mobile-Review.com, which was initially very enthusiastic about the handset, published its research and concluded that the Nokia 5800 had a design flaw. Specifically, when phones were used on a daily basis, their earpieces, produced for Nokia under contract by a third party, would cease to function in a very short time. Repairs performed under warranty would only temporarily fix the problem. The defect was found to be in the earpiece design. Nokia's public relations department had admitted that the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic contained this design defect. According to Nokia, they switched to another earpiece manufacturer, so all 5800's produced during February 2009 or later should be free from defect, with previously produced earpieces eligible for free warranty repair. New earpiece parts have also been supplied to Nokia service centres and future phone repairs should permanently fix the defect. Many early units also had faulty speakers. Nokia acknowledged this issue in January 2009.
Navigation Edition
On 21 August 2009, Nokia announced a new variant named Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition. In addition to the normal Nokia 5800, it had the then-latest version of Nokia Maps/Ovi Maps pre-installed. It also comes with a car charger and car kit inside the box because the GPS decreases the battery life. Both the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the 5800 Navigation Edition, however, have free lifetime navigation, due to the new version of Ovi Maps.Reception
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic's low price, about half that of rival touchscreen phones, was praised. Mobile-Review.com stated that the 5800's price included not just the handset but a subscription to the Comes With Music service, allowing music downloading from the Nokia Music Store for 12 months. It cited that this potentially made Nokia a big winner against Apple, Sony Ericsson and various manufacturers of portable media players that feature video playback but retail for high prices.On the market, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic would compete with other touchscreen devices such as Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, Sony Ericsson Satio, iPhone 3G, HTC Touch Diamond, LG Renoir, LG Arena, BlackBerry Storm 9500, Samsung Pixon and Samsung i900 Omnia.
Sales
On 23 January 2009, Nokia announced it had shipped the millionth 5800 XpressMusic device, even though it still had not been fully released worldwide. Noknok reported by April that it was one of the fastest selling smartphones of all time. In Nokia's Q1 report released on 16 April 2009 it was announced the company had shipped 2.6 million units during the quarter, with cumulative shipments of more than 3 million units since the smartphone's launch. Q2 results released 16 July 2009 reports 3.7 million units shipped during the quarter and more than 6.8 million units total have shipped since the release. As of November 2009, over 8 million units had been sold.Nokia's Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo estimated in April 2009 that as much as 20 percent of touchscreen devices sold worldwide were 5800s and said it has the potential to become one of the company's most successful devices. Its low price had been cited as a factor in its popularity coming at a time of a "cheap chic" trend of affordable but attractive touchscreen mobile phones on the market, and during the peak of the Great Recession.
Critics
The phone has received generally positive reviews, with UK phone magazine Mobile Choice awarding it a full 5 stars in its 7 January 2009 issue. There were however critics who found the new S60 touch interface clunky and slow. TechRadar called its touch interface a "practical evolution rather than jaw-dropping revolution". It wrote that while it is not as smooth as the iPhone's interface, it is still functional and gave praise to the 5800's functionalities within.Legacy
The launch of the 5800 XpressMusic was followed-up with the release of the flagship touchscreen Nokia N97 in May and June 2009, as well as the Series 40 touchscreen Nokia 6208c for the Chinese market in January 2009. Building on the 5800 XpressMusic, the company released in 2009 new offerings for even cheaper prices than the 5800, namely the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic and Nokia 5230. Samsung i8910 Omnia HD and Sony Ericsson Satio were also released by rival manufacturers using the new S60 5th Edition user interface.The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic was succeeded as the company's premier music-oriented device by the Nokia X6, which also dropped the XpressMusic branding.
Despite the large success of the 5800 XpressMusic, the device has in retrospect been seen as the first misstep for Nokia that led to its decline as the leading mobile phone manufacturer. Nokia's Symbian team decided to build the touch interface for the 5800 on its existing S60 platform, which was not touch-optimised as it was originally designed with physical keypads in mind. On the contrary, Apple's iPhone OS and Google's Android, the latter of which first launched around the same time as Nokia's 5800, were built from the ground up for touchscreens, resulting in a more responsive user experience. This made Symbian^1's user interface quickly becoming dated in the face of competitors as efforts to improve it proved difficult in the Symbian source code. Nokia's first flagship with the improved Symbian^3 OS and capacitive touchscreen did not ship until September 2010.