Accessing Social Media on the Nokia 5800 - Reviewed

The nokia 5800 xpress music looks really nice. It has a big old screen (3.2") and the touch screen actually works surprisingly well. There is a built in accelerometer so the screen changes layout depending on what angle you hold the phone. This is no i-phone though usability wise. Usability is less intuiive and functionality less streamlined. For instance, when turning the phone to view the screen horizontally it first shows a black screen before changing configuration. Social Media wise - Its better

Using the 5800:

The point of this post:

Is to let you know what it is like for that lynchpin of modern society - Social Media.

• It comes with Flash (Lite) built in. This allows for out of the box use of rich media sites such as You Tube or BBC iPlayer. Mine didn't work straight away though, I had to adjust the RealPlayer setting to be able to stream video which annoyed me. I still can;t use any site which uses any version of Flash over v7 which is actually a fair few.
  

• Once on a site the touchscreen navigation is much like the iPhone but with out the 'pinch' to zoom in functionality. This is no problem though as a zoom in or out bar appear upon a double tap.
  

• Wifi access makes download speeds incredibley fast (for a phone). as long as you are within reach of a wifi hub then you can browse at laptop/PC speed (ok a fairly old laptop or PC but nevermind).

• The camera is 3.2 megapixels which these days is not considered that great but compared to other smartphones, is actually pretty good (better than the iPhone's 2mp). Video or images can be recorded directly to the 8MB card that is supplied and the 2x LED flash is v bright!
  

• Standard features like bookmarks allow for quick access to favourite sites.

• The Nokia 5800 is Java enabled and runs on the latest version of the S60 platform. The number of applications is limited and pales in to insignificance when compared to those available for the iPhone. The phone comes with buttons preinstalled to quickly access Facebook and Myspace from the 'Internet' menu. I am yet to find a good Twitter client for the 5800 though. I have tried Stew, Twibble and Twirl with little success. Although perhaps my expectations are too high after using Tweetdeck all day everyday.

• The Nokia 5800 enables easy acces to Nokia's Ovi platform for sharing videos, images and is synchable with your phone

• The battery life on the Nokia is 8.8 hours talk time; 406 hours standby where as the iPhone is 5 hours talk time; 300 hours standby. Lots more time for social media browsing!
  

Read more on the Nokia 5800:

Bloggersbase

The Nokia Blog

Why the Nokia 5800 is better than an iPhone

social media blog