Nokia 5800 Xpress Music has been in the market for a while and has a proven track record. It is the first phone to be featured in this space because of its phenomenal commercial success and widespread usage. The phone, after downward price revisions, now sells at Rs 14,299* (Nokia recommended price)-- which is quite a bargain for a phone of this caliber. It can easily compete with other, more expensive, smart phones in the market with all generic features a smart phone user would ideally look for. Some users have complained of sluggishness in loading apps after prolonged usage. However, this does not seem to be the case in newer phones. Early buyers had issues with the touch screen which has improved with firmware updates. The phone is available at all leading cell phone retail outlets in the city and at Nokia showrooms. Nokia also sells cheaper variants of the phone with stripped down features. At 133 grams, the phone has a solid feel to it and is not as delicate as it appears. It also has a full and mini qwerty touchscreen keypad and handwriting recognition for input. Camera is easy to operate with dedicated keys. It also sports a front faced camera for video calls. The phone supports Java games and can support hundreds of applications. Google maps with googles location aware buzz feature is one app which could be of lot of use and fun at the same time. For instance, one could take a photograph of a restaurant at a location and upload it with a comment (like an instant review) for others to see.
When used with a combination of the right apps like Gmail, Google Maps and Opera Mini and features like 3G, front facing camera and GPS, the Xpress Music 5800 is lots of bang for the buck.
jayadevan@expressbuzz.com