A touch to Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (aka Tube)

This year, I am starting with a new resolution - to make my posts here shorter and easier to read.
I am not targeting to please everybody with a 'balanced' position, this blog would give technically correct comment - but not from an engineer's point of view - I have preserved ability to view things with a fresh user's eye.

One day I had walked into Nokia flagship store in Moscow, specifically to try and judge for myself "the buzz" about Nokia 5800.

It was a sturdy device, moderate weight.
I checked sound quality first, using a pair my new Etymotics ER-4P earbuds.
I was pleasantly surprised with increased power (compared to my N95), and the sound quality seemed better than N95.
But both sound quality and sound power were less than those of an iPod Touch that I also tried.
So far, Tube seems to be on par with other XpressMusic phones (5310 comes to mind).
I checked the Bluetooth file transfer between SonyEricsson P910i that I had in my pocket and Nokia 5800 - it worked fine, although a bit slow because of old Bluetooth standard supported by P910i.
I wanted to check for improvements in the Nokia Music Player and Podcasts integration, but the flagship store does not have a WiFi access point, and no SIMs inserted in the phones, and so Mobile Computer buyers simply do not have a chance to check online capabilities!
I think this could be improved by setting up a secured WiFi access point and setting up the AP password in smart phones (S60), at least the most popular (N-series). Otherwise it's not possible to check browser, Downloads!, WidSets, MOSH, and others.

Next on, the navigation. At first I was a bit confused with unusual 3-button setup (no d-pad), but then something more annoying came up -

Some things you do by single tap, some - you have to double tap!

Before trying out, I did not realize how annoying it is!
Sometimes it gives you impression that the touch screen is not working!
The only obvious reason for double tap is so that you could use the Options menu. Single tap selects item, then you can tap on Options or quickly tap again to launch/open item.
This bad user interaction design drags it's ugly head from non-touch S60; Nokia really ought to have a look whether it's worth it to serve non-touch dishes in a touch restaurant to cater existing S60 users...
If you go to a Chinese restaurant, don't you expect things to be really different from, say, McDonalds?
What if they set up single-tap policy for every launch, while reserving tap-n-hold for Options menu?
It was this way in UIQ - plus there was JogDial for easy re-selection, and there were checkboxes beside every item that can be selected.

Does the S60-UIQ antagonism continue, even after whole Symbian belong to Nokia?

Now, that they started to put out touchy-feely things, and UIQ went haywire - isn't it the time to borrow the best and create a perfectly converged device?

My final feelings are that Tube does not really reach the UI efficiency of P910i, the phone which was produced 5 years ago.

Checked the Camera - it's slow-ish, the screen gets smudged as you move and view around as you aim. Not so bad as XM5310 (which is almost unbearable), but quite noticeable. Of course, here comes the usual line - "this phone is not marketed as a photo solution".

Quite convenient are the two slots on the left - one for microSD card, another for the SIM module.
I wonder if changing SIM could damage the module...

Tube screen is very decent; I started to edit a message and I noticed some screen mis-calibration: tapping with the plectrum in the middle of a word, and the cursor inserts four character left in the word.
Asked a nearby consultant - he did not know how to re-calibrate and he thought it impossible. I later found it myself in the Settings panel, did a very precise re-calibration, but the cursor was still inserting one character left from the place touch. Could have been an old firmware bug (there was version 10.x) or some hardware defect.

I checked the Handwriting text input method - and I was perfectly surprised!
IT WORKS! AT LAST!
Remembering my pitiful attempts to write on N800/810, I was kind of sceptic.
But it was working really fine, and the best of all - in Cyrillics (Russian) letters, too!
I could never get Primetech Jot to work on my P910 (it's for Russian handwriting on UIQ).
Checked the usual "t" "!" "?" "@" and all of them were recognized at my expected speed of natural quick jot.
Did they finally accept the Jot engine used in P910? P910 is still better in this area because you can write anywhere on it's screen (in fact, lower half of screen for letters, upper - for numbers; crossing the middle dotted line capitalizes character)
In the Tube you have special amply sized palette to write on - but it's not "half of screen", still.

Noticing that I did not get "tactile touch feedback", once again, I turned to a store consultant. In vain. They seem to be best at saying "hello" to all incoming visitors (they have policied this).
I myself could not find the setting, too.
Should not it be in the same Display control applet?

All impressions wrapped up, I would not buy this phone. I was spoilt by UIQ2.1/P910i, and I have tried iPhone for a week.
But if all you really liked, all you've had was Nokia phones, go ahead, you won't be disappointed.
(You might switch from non-touch solutions by SonyEricsson, Sagem, Samsung, MOTO and the like, too!)

After all - there is Nokia Maps, a decent Music Player, you can finally write letters, not to tap them like a woodpecker...and it does not break a wallet like iPhone does (oh, this should be Russia-specific comment - iPhone here costs 25000 RUR, Tube 15000 RUR) nice anti-crisis purchase for those who do not get Apple and it's closely-controlled nature.

Nokia 5800 Tube effect

Hello dear pundits,
As you probably know, Nokia has recently propelled it's beloved and enamoured Symbian-based S60 into a new era - era of analogue control. Analogous control may not be new per se (think of volume knobs, sliders, or even computer mouse manipulators), it is definitely new when applied to, arguably, the most ubiquitous thing on this planet - a mobile phone.

I will delay detailed usability analysis until the time that S60 Touch device lands in my hands, and this is probably for the better sales...
Let's think of it in more visionary way - what this means to the whole mobile market.
Now, here I do not share Mobile-Review's point of view, that this will surely crush the competition (Sony Ericsson UIQ, iPhone, Windows Mobile); neither do I think that devices like Nokia 5800 won't change much of the game.

I strongly believe, and see a reason behind such beliefs, that S60 Touch will change much of Nokia's own game.
It will certainly be elevated from XpressMusic line on to the N-series line of models, and thus will overtake significant portion of the current N-series users.
While it's too early to say much of whether the careful and confident approach of Nokia to creation of analogous control devices will capture many _new users_, one thing can be said right now - the S60 Touch platform will retain many of the current Nokia users.
In this sense, I see it much as a defensive move, not innovation.

And, amongst all of the possible defensive moves, Nokia chose the most conservative approach - not to change the user interface, but rather augment it with a touch screen enablement.
They could have decided to develop a new UI, or to shoehorn Maemo into cell phone devices, but what we see in 5800 is more a strategic move - new Symbian version, new S60 edition, a touch-based control of the old-style S60 UI, and two new features - contact bar and the media menu, which look as "strap-ons" to the existing UI goodness.

I am not trying to say that was wrong decision! That was a very careful and considerate, and wholly in line with Nokia's style - when you've got mammoth legs, move slowly but very assuredly.
Check your every step, so as not to fall and lose existing user base.
This is very considerate of us S60 users.
This is also very considerate of the S60 developers out there.
Apparently, Nokia sees S60 as it's greatest asset ever...
They are not carrying out revolutions a-la Guy Kawasaki, who once said (and still says so): "Kill your cash cow."

There have been previous attempts of Nokia to market touch-based devices, such as Nokia 7700 and 7710.
I don't know what went wrong with S90 - this looked very promising and innovative (for those times) devices.
My pure guess is that S60 had more Nokia people going to vote for them, in a political sense.
Bad luck, I must say. By now they might have been deeply entrenched into touch devices.

Should Nokia have decided to continue with S90 evolution,
There could have been no possibility and no market for iPhone!

Now I myself, personally used SonyEricsson P910i.
It was a remarkable phone, and in many ways that was the top usable device of those times.
I even consider it top usable device of SonyEricsson's all-times line.

It was a great pity and a great looming mistake, that SonyEricsson decided to drop UIQ2.1 and break all compatibility, and develop and debug on top of new UIQ3, which happened to be a flop, mostly due to the extremely buggy P990i.

Come on SE, I wanted hard to get a new phone to upgrade my aging P910i, but I simply could not make myself to buy your new crap.
It is incredibly wise and great that Nokia decided to go their different path, and not break compatibility (at least for some apps), and not to "revolutionize" S60 with completely new interface, which would almost inevitably have it's own sizeable share of bugs.
Here in 5800 we see beautiful evolution - precious time & effort spent on debugging the code is not lost, just the new features added.

Obviously, there have been people (even me) who tried to reason [for many years] for the renewal of the shut-down line of Nokia touch-screen devices.

But only Steve Jobs' voice was heard.

Now, 16 months after the iPhone, we can finally welcome Nokia to the analogue control game.

Would you use your PC/Mac without a mouse?
If in few years I would ask you "Would you use a smartphone without touch-based control?" my bets are that your answer will not be any dfferent.

(Yes, I remeber the old arguments from the DOS guy who would never use a mouse - but where are those now?)
We, humans, are analogue creatures. By nature.