Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition

The Nokia 5800 Xpress Music has been one of the most popular handsets of 2009, leading the sales charts for many weeks with most leading mobile retailers and networks. As the first real touchscreen phone from Nokia, enough excitement was generated around the handset, as a competitor to the handset that is regularly lauded for its status as touchscreen king, the Apple iPhone. Now, in reality, the Nokia 5800 and iPhone have little in common, but the fact they are both touchscreen phones is enough to drive most people to make the comparison. So, following on from the 5800 Xpress Music, Nokia has launched another handset with the 5800 model name, but this one is the 5800 Navigation Edition. So, just what are the differences?

Well, thanks to Nokia’s helpful naming policy, we can see that the focus of this handset is all about mobile navigation. This is not to say that it fails as a music device, in fact the two devices, 5800 Xpress Music and 5800 Navigation Edition are almost identical. What the Navigation Edition brings to the table though, is a lifetime Drive and Walk navigation license, plus an in car charger with stand for mounting the handset when in car. Running on the latest version of Nokia Maps, now rebranded as Ovi Maps, the touchscreen interface on the phone really comes into its own, and the device is a more than capable replacement for in car navigation, as well as working as a portable handheld device, ideal for navigating around unknown territory; for example I use my phone to help navigate around the locales when on holiday abroad.

The Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition is a smart looking handset, and looks much classier than its Xpress Music cousin, coming in a chrome and black colour combination. Size wise the two handsets are identical. So, we find the 5800 Navigation Edition weighing in at 109g, and measuring a comfortable 111 x 51.7 x 15.5mm. The screen is a high quality resistive TFT display, supporting up to 16 million colours, measuring 3.2 inches across and with a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels. Thanks to the resistive TFT display, data entry on the 5800 can be either by a standard on screen alphanumeric keyboard or full screen QWERTY or using stylus with the mini QWERTY or using handwriting recognition.

Although the handset isn’t marketed under the Xpress Music label, the music player still offers all the options found on the 5800 Xpress Music. The music player will arrange music copied to the device into order of album, artist, composer or genre. There is an option to create your own playlists or choose from those that are included as standard, such as a list compiled of your most often played songs. Multiple formats for music are supported on the 5800 Navigation, including MP3, WMA, WAV, RA and AAC. The handset includes a 3.5mm audio output jack, allowing you to use the device with any headset of your choice, or you could choose to use a stereo Bluetooth wireless headset, as the 5800 includes Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support.

The camera on the 5800 is a 3.2 Megapixel affair, using Carl Zeiss optics and supporting Auto focus, with an LED Flash for use in low light conditions. The video capabilities on the 5800 allow for video recording at 30 fps in VGA resolution, whilst captured images and video clips can be viewed on a TV screen, thanks to built in support for TV Out.

Connectivity is not neglected on the 5800, with the device supporting all major connection options. A quad band GSM handset, the 5800 Navigation Edition includes 3G over HSDPA Mobile Broadband and WiFi, with GPRS, HSCSD and EDGE all included. Internal memory capacity on the device is 81MB, which can be expanded up to 16GB with MicroSD memory cards. An 8GB card is included in the standard retail package, however you should check with your network if this is included as standard in their own offering, as on occasion some networks will remove such items from the package to keep the costs down.

So overall, the Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition makes for a fine handset, building up the range of available touchscreen phones from Nokia. Whilst some may see this as just a cheap rebranding of an already popular phone, the 5800 Navigation delivers a new perspective on the device, and ably showcases the Nokia Ovi Maps capabilities. Expected release date September 2009.

Courtesy of Nokia Conversations, check out the 2 minute video below showing the Ovi Maps and navigation features of the 5800 Navigation Edition.