The forgotten smartphone: Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
In 2008 Nokia came up with a very interesting and popular multimedia device. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic was born and was special because it was the first Symbian phone with a touchscreen. We tell you everything about the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in this edition of ‘The forgotten smartphone’.
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
At the end of 2008, the Finnish Nokia launched the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. This smartphone was equipped with a 3.2 inch display with a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels. This was special because it was the first smartphone with a (resistive) touchscreen, which was equipped with the Symbian S60 OS. Nokia released the 5800 in the colors black, red and blue. Below the screen were the hardware keys for the menu and the call keys. The stylus for operating the screen was integrated at the bottom.
Successful
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic was very thick with a thickness of 15.5 millimeters. However, nine years ago we weren’t that demanding when it comes to telephones. This was also noticeable in the success of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Worldwide availability did not go too smoothly, but after two months of sales it managed to report that one million copies had been sold. Six months later, the counter stood at almost 7 million devices, something that was very popular for that time.
Camera and capabilities
At the back, the phone was equipped with a 3.2 megapixel camera for which Carl Zeiss worked together. There was also a dual LED flash, autofocus and a movie option (480p). It was also interesting that the device at that time had a front camera for video calling. The resolution was QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) and therefore on the low side. Taking pictures was also not possible with that camera. The focus was therefore more on the music; the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic had stereo speakers, an FM radio and WiFi and UMTS was also on board. Connections for Micro-USB, the headset and even TV-out were present.
Symbian S60
Because the device was equipped with Symbian S60, the 5800 was equipped with various applications. An example of this was the map service Nokia Maps 2.0 with which you could navigate for free and offline at home and abroad. There was also 128MB of RAM, 81MB of storage (expandable) and an ARM single-core processor with a speed of 369 MHz. The battery capacity of the Nokia 5800 was 1320 mAh.
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic was very attractively priced for that time with a price of around 300 euros. Have you also had the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic? We are curious about your experiences with the device.
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic summarized in 5 points:
- First touchscreen smartphone with Symbian S60
- Front camera for video calling only
- Popular device with more than 7 million units sold
- WiFi and UMTS available
- Focused on music
