BTW we've got a tablet school style set of tutorials on All About Symbian dedicated to the 5800:

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/featu...ips__Hints.php

They're meant for people who already have a 5800, but they're also quite useful for finding out what the 5800's features are like.

Thanks for the writeup. I had a chance to compare the 5800 (NAM) and my NIT for a week while in L.A earlier this month. I'll probably get roasted but, apart from screen size, the 5800 was a much more enjoyable experience than my NIT. Faster, easier to use, the d*mn browser actually works! There are less apps available for the 5800 (for now) than for the NIT, BUT... the ones that are available are completed, finished products that don't reuire any tweaking or extra configuring. They just work.

For instance, Garmin XT on the 5800 or Maemo mapper on the NIT? I know which one is ready to go from the moment you turn it on, maps installed already, routes, street look up, etc.

The 5800 impressed me to the point that i want to swap my NIT for one.

C'mon everybody, grab your pitchforks and some rope. Weer gonna have ourselves a lynchin'. And bring some BBQ sauce, 'cause afterwards weer gonna slow cook 'm and then eat 'm.

@ukjeeper: The 5800 blows. J/K. Thanks for the story.

I've had a 5800XM for some time as well, and have to say that compared to my N800, not the N810, that it makes for a a compelling solution - mainly on the strength of the better user expereince towards using it. Maemo just isn't as refined as Symbian S60 - yet.

That being said, I enjoy the larger physcal screen of my N800, and until 32GB microSDHC cards come to play, the N800 holds my media in a better manner.

Dell had a 48hr deal this past weekend of the 5800XM for $200; for that price, its better than any IT, large suite of open source apps or not.

---
Side comment: Symbian might not be as open source as many here are familiar with now, but remember that the Symbian Foundation has committed to making it fully open source, and it will be a pretty solid competitor to Maemo due to its already huge installed base and malleable ability to take in just about any kind of coding language developers throw at it.

Having played with a 5800 for a bit over at the Nokia store here in Manhattan, I can agree that it is currently the premiere touch screen device for Nokia. The resources dedicated to bringing it to where it is are probably orders of magnitude higher than the resources dedicated to the maemo devices. The flagship N97 looks like its receiving an amazing amount of R and D work, I heard a rumour that they are releasing new firmware every few days for the prototype devices and that the hardware is still going through tweaking with still more revisions before its june/july launch.

I hope that with the graduation of Maemo into a seemingly higher profile place in the Nokia ecosystem the tablets can take steps in the direction of the more polished experience you get from S60 as well as retain their unique mini-laptop capabilities.

Besides the keyboard, and an extra couple of megapixels, and built in memory (surely a 32gb MicroSD would be cheaper?) I can't see anything to make the N97 better than the 5800. It looks like it'll have the same screen, same processor, same features, and even be a bit chunkier, which is a turn off. Though, I think I'll wait till after the N97's launch before I get a touch S60 Nokia... I can see a lot of touch screen Nokia phones on the horizon. I'll wait to see what touch screen phones will be in the 6000 series, they're always classy but practical phones.

Yeah, I heard about that! And those were unlocked, unbranded, SIM-free non-contract models, so those 5800s really did only cost $200 in total. Heck of an offer...

(It was quite funny when people talked about the iPhone being "only $200", failing to mention the expensive contract and all the subsequent payments it demands.)

For my money, the 5800 is possibly the best-value Nokia phone they've ever made. It's not the best phone in the world, but IMHO it is by far the best phone at this price level.

BTW I suppose it's my fault for posting this thread in the "competitors" forum with a title like "5800 vs N810" , but like I said before I don't really see these two devices as being directly in competition. They're very, very different devices aimed at different audiences. The 5800 is primarily used as a phone, the N810 is primarily used as a computer, though of course there's a lot of overlap in the feature set when you see them listed together.

Speaking of competitors, If I was really interested in the 5800 I would try and hold off until the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD came out. It's suppose to be this quarter. It's not going to be $200, but it's staying power might make it a better deal in the long run. And it will almost certainly be a better experience.

They are very similar but there are some important differences.

The N97 has both 32 gigabytes built-in and a memory card slot, whereas the 5800 only has the memory card slot (plus a small amount of internal flash memory). Officially you could expand the N97's memory to 48 gigabytes, but unofficially (if the 32 gigabyte card works) then it could go up to 64 gigabytes in total.

I haven't used the N97 (and the final version isn't out anyway) but I'm going to guess that the N97's camera is a lot better than the 5800's. The 5800's camera aperture is smaller than on Nseries devices so its pictures tend to be darker, especially if taken by artificial light.


The N97's screen is the same resolution but physically bigger, 3.5 inches compared to the 5800's 3.2 inches.

The N97 processor will probably be faster, but no one is totally sure though as the confirmed production model processor specs haven't been released yet.

The features should be broadly similar, but the N97 will probably have better multimedia apps bundled with it as it's an Nseries device. Nseries phones generally have much better photo galleries for example.


Yeah, the Omnia HD looks really good, it's the first mainstream phone to shoot video in high definition. It's the same platform as the 5800 but with a better screen (same res but physically larger, brighter and more sensitive). On top of that the Omnia HD uses (I think!) OMAP3 and has graphics hardware.

However, this hardware comes at a price of course, and the Omnia HD is likely to be very expensive.

Also, you probably won't be able to use Ovi Store on the Omnia HD, at least not officially, because it's not a Nokia device.

x2 on this. My choice for replacing the E90 in september (when my contract runs out) is (so far):

1. Omnia HD (i8910)
2. N97 (it would be #1 if they had put a real keyboard on it)
2. HTC Touch 2 (yeah i know, Win-blows, but i like the form factor. I almost went for the TYTN II last time around).

The 5800 would be just to play with.