This lovely piece of Finnish cellphone has been with me for more than a week already after I succumbed to my wife’s persistent request to replace my 3-year old Motorola L6. Besides, the old cellphone is becoming to be the cause of failure-to-communicate since its speaker conked out due to countless drops and misuse. And needless to say, in my current bum status, not clearly hearing an initial job interview over the phone is a no-no—justification, justification, justification.
So far since I bought it though, I haven’t had any job calls. But why should I care, this phone after all isn’t just a phone. If there’s one phone that will make one happy even while his much awaited calls seem unlikely to happen, it is the Nokia 5800. There’s just so much to this phone that job hunt frustrations can be easily forgotten and that killing time can become a habit.
The Nokia 5800’s touch pad meets expectations although I’ve read that upgrading the firmware version from V11 to V21 will improve its response. Right now I care less and might not care about it in the near future after learning from Nokia Care that it will take at least two hours to do the upgrade.
This model is part of Nokia’s ExpressMusic series and true enough it sounds crisp either through its earphones or its loudspeaker. I don’t recommend connecting it though as an input to the car’s stereo as the MP3 quality varies thus affecting the volume of each music file that other than watching out for potholes while driving, one would have to deal with adjusting the music volume all at the same time.
The Nokia 5800 comes with a 3.2 MP that is great for shots under bright light—e.g., daytime—and just like any other low quality/resolution cam, it doesn’t perform well under low light conditions. But you get what you paid for, right? Paying P14,900 for a phone one shouldn’t expect an SLR-like quality. Don’t get me wrong though, for a bum, for a blogger (both of which best describes me), this is more than enough. I just hate it though that there’s no option to turn the camera shutter sound totally off (there are 3 other settings but none that makes shooting discreet). It’s a skeuomorph and I don’t like it.
I love most of the videos (mp4 format) that comes along with this phone. The resolution is unbelievable. Even those I’ve shot came out almost on par with my Sony handheld video recorder. However, I discovered that the mp4 format has to be converted at least to wmw for it to be played once transferred to the PC. Good thing I was able to download a converter from Freewarehome.com.
Others raise their eyebrows at the guitar pick that comes along with the strap of the cellphone. But I don’t, as I prefer using it over the stylus, except when I’m in the mood to kill time by texting using the handwriting feature which I’m now starting to learn and appreciate.
With the hectic time I have right now both at school and at home where my favorite photo subjects are—my wife and kid, it might take me another week more to discover and learn the other features that this perfect bum tool has. I’m just wishing though that next time I’d hear another lovely HR voice saying, “…Mr. Nacionales, this is to inform you that you are scheduled for an interview…” When that time comes, I’m quite sure she’d hear me clearly say, “Yes…I’m coming”.
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Mood: 3/10 Honks!
Marcus Can Blog 