Five ways Nokia 5800 XpressMusic beats the iPhoneNokia’s unleashed its first touchscreen phone on the world, and we’re seriously impressed. We even think it has the power and flexibility to topple the iPhone. Why? Read on and find out.

Beating the iPhone, as a phone
The 5800 XpressMusic is a Nokia through and through. The company’s been making phones since 1964. That’s 44 years of experience, compared to just a few years for Apple, and it shows. The handset has all the phone features you’d expect and even beats the iPhone on some of its new talents. For a start it’ll hold a conference call with up to six participants, compared to the iPhone’s three. It’ll also receive MMS messages, while the iPhone refuses to accept them. As a straight forward phone, the Nokia 5800 wins hands down.

Beating the iPhone as a media player
OK, the iPhone’s iPod software is excellent. But there are still a few things missing. For a start there’s no support for stereo A2DP Bluetooth, it won’t play tracks unless they’re loaded using iTunes, and graphically, you’re limited to album artwork.

The 5800 XpressMusic meanwhile, plays nicely with Bluetooth headphones, will play back MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA audio files regardless of how they’re loaded (even if they’re sent via Bluetooth or loaded on a memory card), and packs in graphic visualisers too. There’s also an FM radio inside.

When it comes to video, the 5800 packs a proper 16:9 widescreen, will play tons of movie formats, including Realplayer and WMV and while the iPhone only supports streaming from YouTube, Nokia’s Video Centre serves up content from YouTube, CNN, Sony Pictures and many more.

Beating Apple’s web browser
The 5800 packs a surprisingly powerful web browser. It’ll even support Adobe Flash, something Apple has failed to achieve with the iPhone, claiming it’s too complex, and uses files that’re too large for a mobile to handle.

To date, Apple is still working on a Flash solution for the iPhone, despite Adobe saying it’s achievable. No such problems for Nokia – it’s browser supports all the HTML, JavaScript and Flash files to view entire web pages, no matter what’s on them.

Beating the iPhone’s camera
The 5800 XpressMusic packs a 3.2 megapixel camera. OK, it’s not as impressive as some mobiles, but it’s enough to beat the iPhone. What’s more, Nokia has packed in auto-focus and Carl Zeiss optics, so pictures are sharp and clear. The 5800 will also record video, something the iPhone has never managed, and instant sharing means snaps and video clips can be uploaded anywhere you like, not just to MobileMe.

Beating the iPhone’s GPS
Google maps and a spot of geo-tagging for photos is fine, but we want real navigation. That’s where Nokia trumps the iPhone. While Apple can only serve up directions using Google Maps, Nokia Maps is a full-blown satnav system installed as standard. It’s capable of giving voice guidance, so you can use it in the car, has special pedestrian modes, and you can even pre-load maps for foreign countries, so it’ll continue to navigate without costing a fortune to download them while roaming.

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  • Macr

    I don’t understand what the fuss is about the 3.2MP camera. Yes it is nice to have a bigger picture, but really the only thing everyone that writes about phone cameras forgets to mention (or has no idea about) is the sensor. Even with Carl Zeiss glass, it can still be crap without a decent sensor to reduce noise.

  • krzystoff

    conference call — I fail to see the value of that, something most people will rarely if ever use; MMS — I’ve been using mobiles for work for more than ten years and I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve used that feature;

    the Flash/Silverlight/Java vs HTML5 argument is ongoing, but for most iPone/iPad users, not being able to view YouTube or favourite pr0n sites in all their glory (for the next ~12mths) is a big downer.

    I agree with you iTunes is the single worst aspect of the iPhone/iPad — being coerced to use that piece of s##t software is a huge hangover for anyone used to any of the countless better multimedia managers out there, which alone could see Google or Windows gain massively over iPhone sales in the next generation of phones — after all every phone user uses music and video at some point in their daily life, but an insignificant number use Macs. once you add the source and DRM issues that Apple cripple their systems with, the Steve Jobs iBorg generation is looking very unlikely.
    as for the FM radio, why bother with ancient technology, when a DAB+ is readily available to enhance the user experience, whilst being a huge selling point if any new phone included it.

    Nokia Maps is good, and comes at an unbeatable price, but TomTom on the iPhone is a whole lot better and very good value. the GPS thing would be even better with some good augmented reality apps, perhaps combined with Google Earth or something (I wouldn’t be surprised if this is already available on Android).

    I really don’t understand why they bother with the 3.2Mpx cameras, when they could have a 10Mpx camera for a few cents more — Sony/Samsung/Panasonic are probably the only companies with an interest in both cameras and mobile phones, so for any other manufacturer, it makes sense to exploit the cheap CCD/CMOS sensors available. at the moment most phones use 10yr old tech — purportedly so users will continue to upgrade their phones to more expensive models, but that argument is pointless and only ensures more people buy more cameras, and don’t commonly use their phones for that purpose.

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