It’s been around three weeks now and I thought I’d throw down some thoughts on Nokia’s first touchscreen offering the S60 5th Edition 5800. In short I love the phone – it has some obvious flaws but in the main I’m impressed. As a die hard Apple fan people often ask me why on earth I don’t carry around an iPhone. There are simple answers to that – poor camera, GPS is no match for Nokia’s superb ‘Maps’ application, no quick flickr posting integrated into the OS as with Nokia’s Share Online app, no copy and paste, awful battery life, no MMS, no video, no good in car solutions…the list goes on!

What Apple have done though is totally shake up the industry – which is great. It means products now have to be oustanding and push boundaries. Suddenly consumers expect a plethora of social media applications and functionality on their devices – never mind only email! I love what’s happening right now in mobile, exciting times.

So Nokia’s 5800 XpressMusic is in many ways a response to Apple’s iPhone. I believe however that Nokia are saving the best till last here and merely testing the water with the 5800. Check the N97 spec and you’ll see tighter PIM integration, a hugely enhanced widget based homescreen and a load more fat functionality that REALLY guns for the iPhone. For now though the Nokia 5800 provides a pleasing if somewhat crude touchscreen experience. The screen is big, bright and has a higher resolution than the iPhone – so things LOOK great. However the UI needs some refinement. Double taps are all too often needed where one would suffice and web browsing is not easy unless using the stylus or quirky plectrum that Nokia provide.

Things I like about the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic:

- Screen (Gorgeous, bright, lovely resolution, not bad in sunlight)

- Familiar Nokia feel. This is a strong point of the phone, I really love the instant familiarity of the OS

- Size / Weight / Design

- Functionality, good camera, Flickr / Share Online, RSS feed implementation

Things that could be improved:

- Camera low light performance

- Homescreen needs more information available to be displayed such as email notification previews and more contacts…but coming soon perhaps via firmware update

- Browser