HUAWEI MatePad 12 X (2026) Review
I ran the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic to a lot of stress test to dig beyond the touchscreen hype and found some surprisingly great features as well as shortcomings. Let me share with you why I thought the Nokia 5800 falls short of expectations but will remain on top of a lot of people’s must-buy list.
Make and Construction
When I first read that the Nokia 5800 has a 3.2 inch (360×640 pixel) display screen. The three buttons at the lower part of the screen serve as shortcuts (Call knob, App Launcher and Cancel/End button — from left to right.) The other keys on the side include a dedicated camera button and volume controls. The SIM card slot (usually placed inside the battery compartment) is found on the left side along with the microSD card slot for easy access.
There’s a well placed slider-lock at the center-right side of the device that serves as a screen lock/unlock mechanism (easily reached by the right thumb or the left middle finger when holding the phone).
Aside from the glass screen, the entire device is made up of plastic so it feels light for its size. It’s a little thick at 15.5mm. I think it would have been nicer to the grip at 12mm or 13mm. The phone’s casing feels solid but battery cover suffers from the usual creaks (pretty common with NSeries phones). The hard-rubber carrying case is nice and the plectrum, which doubles as a stylus, can be attached to the case to avoid being misplaced.Â
Connectivity and Mobile Web
The Nokia 5800 comes with all sorts of wireless connectivity – 3G/HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS — so it’s all set in that department.
Nokia’s built-in browser is generally good, especially on smaller screens especially that of the E63 and E71. Of course, they had to do something different for the 5800’s bigger screen but I felt the real-estate wasn’t maximized so you don’t get a great surfing experience. The browser is fast and displays flash files, but doesn’t render pages with javascripts well. The all-important back/forward buttons are also missing. Despite that, the pages load fast and the scaled images and texts are crisp (almost as good as on Opera Mini).
Usability and UI
The phone came with a stylus (with an extra one) and a plectrum (guitar pick) which gives you an impression that you will be using them more often that just your fingers when navigating the touch screen UI. Personally, I have an aversion to stylus as they remind me of the old, clunky PDAs. There’s haptic feedback which I think is a necessary feature for resistive touchscreens.
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Fortunately, with the 5800, you are still able to make a phone call and send text messages with one hand, though half the time you’d end up using your fingernails instead of your thumb. The 5800 gives you 4 options for text input — full QWERTY, mini QWERTY (for portrait mode), handwriting recognition and the normal virtual phone keypad — which is nice because it provides the user more ways to type in text depending on the need and screen orientation. The system remembers your last input method and shows it in future instances until you change it.
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The Media Bar is a small touch sensitive portion of the phone just at the top outer border of the screen that drops down to some shortcuts — Music Manager, Video Center, Internet and Photos.
The touchscreen is quite responsive but sometimes, it requires two taps to select an item or hotspot. Scrolling down with the finger takes a bit of practice and can become easy but scrolling up is almost impossible (that’s when you need to use the stylus). Haptic feedback makes things much easier though.
Multimedia & Photo Quality
The sound speakers are the loudest I’ve ever heard on a mobile phone and worthy of being in the XpressMusic class. I find it odd though that the speakers were unevenly placed on both the left side of the phone which makes me wonder that if you position it horizontally on the cradle for some hands-free movie viewing, both speakers are facing downwards (not upwards where the sound will have more open space to propagate). I guess that adds to the bass effect.
 
Video quality is good but not very impressive. If you compare the 5800’s 3.2″ screen at 360×640 resolution against the Xperia X1’s 3″ @ 480×800 pixel, you can see which screen has more pixels packed per square inch (more pixels per square inch, better video quality). The Nokia Video Manager (an app that automatically converts video files transferred to the phone) makes a low-quality compressesion that videos played on the 5800 ends up very pixelated. I converted my own videos (using Super) to match the settings I use for the iPhone 3G and while the output was better, the videos still appear dithered and the colors a bit faded.
I was puzzled why 3.2MP Carl Zeiss camera didn’t perform as well as other Nokia phones with the same optics. I took several sample photos below:Â
Doesn’t work well at night and the dual-LED flash only performs better on close up shots. The picture of the steel Buddha here can be compared to the same taken with the Nokia N78 here.
What’s Missing or What I Would Have Wanted
Of course, some of the items in this list would affect the phone’s final price so it’s a trade-off.
Conclusion
Over-all, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a nice-to-have phone but fell short of my expectation as a flagship touchscreen phone. I guess, and because Nokia was late in the game, I expected them to score high in changing the way touchscreen phones interact with its user. The device’s dependence with the stylus ruined the experience (just like many stylus-touting touchscreen phone) and the plectrum was just a fancy addition that serve no extra function other than it symbolizes music (as in XpressMusic).
The S60 platform holds a lot of promise. It was great with a lot of NSeries and ESeries Nokia phones but it needs to be refined more for the touch screen. Had the Nokia 5800 been launched in January (or even June) of 2008, I would have given it more excuse. If this was the first touch screen phone I’ve ever used, I might have liked it a lot but after trying out the Omnia, Xperia X1, Touch HD, LG Cookie and iPhone, I’d put the 5800 somewhere in the middle.
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What’s most surprising with the Nokia 5800 is the price tag. It’s already a high-end phone but the price seemed unbelievably affordable. We’ve seen the N96 priced at 37k and the Nokia 8800 Arte at 47k. Even the 2-year old Nokia N95 8GB is more expensive than the 5800 — and this tells us something about how Nokia perceives its flagship touchcsreen phone.
Nokia knows its the king of alphanumeric candybar phones. It’s also getting a good boost in the qwerty smartphones. Yet, they are relatively behind the touchscreen race (despite the fact that they already had a discontinued touch screen phone 5 years ago) although this battleground is still fresh. Most consumers are wary to shell out 30k or 40k for a touch interface they are not familiar with so the 5800 is positioned really well as an affordable full-featured touchscreen phone.
For its features, I think the Nokia 5800 is still worthy to be priced at the 25k to 35k range but Nokia puts it at a very sweet spot of Php19,990. They did this to play catch with the rest and I believe they’d done a great job with marketing it as such. Nokia fans will surely love owning this little piece of history from Nokia.
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Huan22 says:
🥉 Bronze🏆1
You’re right, the 5800 xpress can be considered the middle ground in the touch-enabled smartphones. It has the features of a touch-enabled phone yet has an economical price.
Bruce says:
🥉 Rookie🏆1
Yes it’s not a bad little phone. I actually bought it for my girlfriend and have been struggling a bit installing all of her mp3 collection on it for her. The 5800 seems to be finicky with displaying album art. I used the Nokia Music Manager to embed the cover art in all of the mp3’s, and transfer them to the phone. But only around 75% of the tracks are actually displaying the album art on the phone (the album art is visible in Nokia Music Manager on the laptop for 100% of these mp3’s) . I noticed that there is a firmware update available so I guess I’ll try to research what is in that update before installing it (the firmware update).
I’m 50/50 on the touchscreen sensitivity & interface. Sometimes a single click will suffice to go into a menu option, sometimes you have to do a double click. It hasn’t come across as very intuitive yet.
The USB transfer speed doesn’t seem to approach full usb 2.0 speeds, but I don’t know how the speed compares to other n-series phones.
Wifi works great… have used it successfully on a variety of open & encrypted 802.11b & g connections.
GPS seems ok, not the fastest (compared to some garmin dedicated gps units) but this is the 1st time I’ve tried gps on a handset so the gps lock time might be typical for a phone.
3g/hsdpa speeds, haven’t tried a speedtest on it yet. I live around 100 meters from a Smart tower so I’m looking forward to trying it out. I don’t know if that particular tower is hsdpa enabled yet though, and will have to see about adding the APN info anyways.
Anyone else having mp3 cover art issues? What software are you guys using for mp3 transfers… microsoft media player or nokia music manager or ??
sting says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
thanks for the review bro.
I always though that the touchscreen hype in ANY phone could only drag prices up. But with 5800XM selling at 20k and flexible input, this could be my phone in December (hey, I still have to save some money).
PS. By the way, come to Iloilo. Dinagyang Na!!!
wh@ says:
🥇 Gold🏆1
wee this is really a great phone must have… i hope my parents can gave me this as my birthday gift. :)
edieboy says:
🥉 Bronze🏆1
I seen that nokia 5800 last time,walking around the mall of asia in all stores communicattion provider that cellphones i feel that was bored,but after reading the information above i was wonder with that cp.
http://cadztech.blogspot.com
seoulbox says:
🥈 Silver🏆1
It’s a great phone. But it would be greater if it has haptics.
I’ll check on this at ghills.:)
azhar ariff aka malaysian dude says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
thanks for the review, was thinking of getting one. At least i know what to look out for!
Obed says:
🥇 Gold🏆1
The only thing I like about 5800 is the price.
Jonathan says:
🥈 Silver🏆1
Nice review Yuga.
Unfortunately, we still won’t see the Nokia patent “Haptikos Technology” even on the upcoming N97. So lets see how Nokia plays with it perhaps with the N98.
Cheers =)
cArLo_AnGeLo says:
🥉 Bronze🏆1
The price went down. I went to a local Nokia Store here in Tacloban and the phone is now priced at PHP18,990.
xD
Unknown Soldier says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
I’ll wait for the china to clone this phone… that way, price will be cheaper :P (disposable too! LMAO =)))
Jeff says:
🥉 Rookie🏆1
you need one touch to select it, another to open the menu… that is how it works…!
Gene says:
🥉 Bronze🏆1
To Obed:
“The only thing I like about 5800 is the price.”
if that is so, then why? would you go for rotten tomatoes for half the price just because of the price?
For some reasons, your statement contradicts itself. You like the 5800 for the price because…? the price justifies the functionality of the phone, therefore, you like the phone that is why you like the price.
Don’t be a hypocrite.
Dexter | Tech At Hand Dot Net says:
🥉 Rookie🏆1
Nice Info Abe. and thanks for the review.
leu says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
I bought one yesterday.
I’m having a second thought of returning it though :D The back cover was so hard to open (just to remove the sim card) i’m afraid i’ll break it to pieces :D
Y didn’t they make the process of removing the sim card, the same with the way of removing the memory card. It could have been just fine for me but I am really irritated of the hussle in opening the back cover.
leu says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
i finally have the cover removed :D
one thing still :D , it seems smart and globe dont have yet a GPRS(WAP)/MMS settings support for this model. I guess i’ll have to wait still.
gonner says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
well yes touch touch touch it , have it!!!
RuFeLa says:
🥉 Rookie🏆1
can anyone tell me if secondary camera of 5800 can be used for picture taking just like the other nokia phones. if it does, pls teach me how… tnx(//_^)
Arnie says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
To Rufela:
It can’t be used as secondary cam, it can only be used as a cam when making a video call. By the way did you line for this unit at Global City?
AC says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
i’ll be buying 5800 later… but based from your comments i’m having second thoughts… what do you think i’ll buy this one for cheaper price or samsung omnia nlang para matibay….
Sam says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
dba may 8g memory card ung phone?? so…does it come with a software CD and a USB cable?
kent says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
i’m really curious about GPS. Will i be charged for using my GPS? my telco’s Globe btw. I dont wanna spend a lot for a phone but I would want a GPS navigation for my car.. So I’m looking forward to buy this phone this weekend.
Thanks
Alphonse says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
The review of the camera’s photo quality is useless if you don’t provide the readers with the full resolution images taken by the phone’s camera. It’s probably a bandwidth eater, but your review becomes less credible to other people.
You also didn’t review the video recording/capturing of the camera, which is pretty decent given the specs on paper. 640×480 @ 30 fps similar to the N93, N95, and most of Nokia’s high-end line up for the past two years.
I’ve watched several YouTube videos of different phones using their respective web browsers and roughly comparing rendering speeds. The 5800 apparently beats the crap out of the iPhone and older WinMo smartphones when it comes to rendering speed, and considering the videos of the 5800 rendering pages with full flash support, it’s a no-brainer. I’ve got friends with iPhones and the official Yahoo page takes roughly 15-20 seconds to load (did it over Wifi to make sure that connection speed wasn’t an issue). It didn’t even have flash enabled yet I see a bunch of videos on YouTube of the 5800 loading size similar to Yahoo’s main page in terms of content and with FULL flash too, and it took them roughly 10 seconds to load. I even saw videos of the 5800 rendering the main YouTube page, not some watered-down, mobile version, on the 5800 with apparently no problems. It’s absurd! I’d say the speed problems with the general UI is a matter of needed optimization. The Qualcomm MSM7201A in my friend’s Samsung Omnia actually felt slower when it came to web browsing. The Yahoo main page took as long as the iPhone to load.
Comparing the 5800’s 640×360 screen to the Xperia’s 800×480 isn’t fair. But we can’t really blame you if you’ve got nothing else for comparison. It would have been better if it was compared to ones with a 640×480 screen such as the HTC Touch Diamond.
This review is mediocre at best. So far the most comprehensive reviews of the Nokia 5800 can be found on GSMArena and MobileBurn.
I’m holding myself out on the Nokia 5800 for now despite the incredibly tempting price. It’s got one of the best price-to-performance/feature ratios among handsets available but the fact that not much touchscreen Symbian apps are available right now is what turns me off. Also, the camera that takes incredibly crappy stills also turn me off. The video recording is decent (GSMArena has samples and can be downloaded), but the stills are just horrible. I’ve checked a ton of review sites and it’s true, it sucks. The stills taken by the older SE K800i and Samsung D900 3.2 mp cam phones eat the Nokia 5800 alive. But Nokia have almost always sucked at the camera department, even more ironic is that the Nokias I’ve owned or tried with Carl Zeiss lenses had worse picture quality compared to the non-Carl Zeiss ones. When zoomed and inspected, the picture looks as if it was painted with crappy brush strokes. Too much noise too and loss of sharpness.
I’m holding out for the N97 or at least a newer Nokia touchscreen phone. I want a better camera (the one on the N95 was exceptional during its release and still impresses up to now) with Xenon flash. More touchscreen optimized S60 apps (the Symbian has a strong indie developer following because they’re open, which means I don’t have to kill my warranty *coughjailbreakingiphonecough*). And a much smoother UI, though I think it’s okay to forgive them for now because transitioning from a traditional input OS to a fully-touch driven one is difficult. The development was not from the ground up, like the case of the iPhone and the LG Cookie which provide a wonderful and seamless UI experience.
kevin says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
i really like the review that you did.. im planning to buy this phone as a gift to myself.. ^____^ i really appreciate that review.. it really helped me a lot..
Luckyluis says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
Pros: Responsive Tactile Feedback, Light Weight, Compact, Powerful, Very Impressive Sound Quality, Vibrant Screen, Good Battery Life, User Friendly, a Total All In One Package for a Very Low Price.
Cons: Not a single one :p
Summary: Compared to the iPhone this has better specs:
It has Video Recording, Way Way Better Speakers, A Far Better Camera, A Memory Card Slot, Message Forwarding Capability, HSDPA, Optimized One Hand Use, A Front Camera for Video Calls and a Better Battery Life.
This is my latest toy and i like it so much! It replaces my phone, iTouch and PDA. It gives me all that i need and more. :p
RuFeLa says:
🥉 Rookie🏆1
To Gravatar icon:
yes…im one of those who fall in line @ B3 ika 103 po ako…ive learned from the forums ive read n i can use secondary camera in taking picture if i would update my unit to the latest firmware v2o.
RuFeLa says:
🥉 Rookie🏆1
i have not updated my unit yet…i dont know how…
anybody here could help me? i tried checking update on my unit but it just says no available updates…
its also the same when i tried the nokia software updater
RuFeLa says:
🥉 Rookie🏆1
To arnie pala he3 mali…sorry…
flanx says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
Hi there,
I would like to know about the GPS.. is it really applicable here in Pinas?
Im planning to buy this unit this weekend using Globe network.
:)
rap says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
“version 20” firmware update will be available here in the phils next week according to nokia phils.
i called them a few minutes ago.
cheers!!
kokiztoroyale says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
hi, i bought a nokia 5800 recently, but facing problems with the voice, i.e., wen i receive calls, the voice from the other side, becomes very feeble, difficult to here, and becomes loud again,have you encountered this dilemma? can any one suggest a solution?
mark says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
im expecting nokia phils to get that firmware version 20 available asap because a lot of users are already complaining bout this phone and its supposedly nice features. Hope that they can also make lots of free downloadable applications for s60v5. =)
mark says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
guys i’ve heard that they’ve pulled out the latest firmware update v20.0.010 because it still has some bugs. next update will be released march, is this true?
dhani says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
mantap’s mantap’s mantap’s
jum’at ini saya beli
symo says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
jum’at ini saya beli nokia 5800 sekalian q pengen merid dan q kasih tao istri q
Dionaldo says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
I got nokia 5800, do you know how to innstall vlc to the phone?
Pinoy Gamers says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
I’m aiming for this phone, I’m a fan of the XpressMusic of Nokia.
dido jove says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
i had this swapped with my HTC Touch Pro :-)
Slymedia says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
Please, please, please Mr. Yuga! update us if mayroon ng firmware update available dito sa Pinas. Available na kasi firmware update V20.*** in other countries why isn’t it available yet here sa Pinas?
Thanks!
dawgtag says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
here in Isabela the price went down to Php 18,500 (nokia store),some store sells it for Php 17,400
adi says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
i just bought my Nokia 5800 2 days back here in Dubai. I like the price value for just only 1,400.00 Dirhams without compromising the specs. This is the iPhone killer model of Nokia. The mobile that understand not only the user also the economy. Great phone of Nokia as of now.. I hope they will release their next smartphone edition after 5 years, to keep my phone new ahahhaha!!!:)
adi says:
🥉 Bronze🏆1
saan ba at pano makakuha ang firmware version20? gusto ko kasi ma use ung videocall cam to take pictures or gawing salamin heheheh!!!
adi says:
🥉 Bronze🏆1
I updated my software to firmware20.. the problem is, the “search:internet or myfile” on the screen is not functioning, everytime u press it says “system error”… please advice.. anybody…. Thanks!
tatik04 says:
🥉 Rookie🏆1
v20 is still not available for the APAC or asian region. But I updated mine yesterday using the JAF application. Basically, when you try to update using NSU, nokia looks for the prduct key (thats the number on the sticker under your battery, usually starts with 05). halit tong product key na to..it is responsible for preventing us from getting the update..grrrrrr..I suggest you guys try downloading the JAF application (it’s completeley hamrless, wag nga lng kalimutang ibalik yung original na product key pagkatapos mag update), change the product key to any European pdroduct key, try updating via NSU (wag mag OTA, wlang kwenta yan) and your done! magagamit mo na yung front cam, bibilis yung operations and fewer hang-ups..=D
*btw, adi..antayin mo muna..bgo lng yan..eventually after 30 mins OK na yan..nangyari din yan saken..=D
Online tutorials? YM nyo ako..add me up “tatik04”
ric says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
iPhone and iTunes killer!
tatik04 says:
🥉 Rookie🏆1
I updated my software to firmware20.. the problem is, the “search:internet or myfile†on the screen is not functioning, everytime u press it says “system errorâ€â€¦ please advice.. anybody…. Thanks!
*tangalin mo muna memory card den balik mo..try opening it agen..=D
jetzuz says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
bruce esti vai morti tei =))) nici sa scrii nu stii
adi says:
🥉 Bronze🏆1
oks na tatik04.. i reset my mobile then whala!!! oks na ung search ko.. i just forgot to backup my files kaya natanggal yung phonebook ko na naka store sa phone memory.. lolz!!!
Ask again scratch free ba yung screen?
Gene says:
🥉 Bronze🏆1
adi,
mine used to be scratch-free pero after 2 weeks it gets scratched! so di na sya scratch-free.
do you mean scratch resistant? nasagot na hehehe
Flores says:
🌱 Noobs🏆1
I update my Nokia 2 weeks ago.
If you want to update to firmware v20, you have to download file “NokiaSoftwareUpdaterSetup_en” in Nokia website.
Install this software onto your computer. Then restart your computer and connect your Nokia into computer using USB.
Then run the program “Nokia Software Updater” you just installed to update your Nokia 5800 firmware.
It will update about 117 MB of date and programs.
it takes time to update and perhaps you will find problem such as the phone is off, cannot be turn on or off. In this case the updater will ask you to remove the battery and insert again and connect again, It will be normal again.
Perhaps after updated, you will have a problem with search menu in main page.
To solve this problem, I setup again my phone into default and during this process I have insert pin number and create a in number. After that search menu working well.
In my case, after the update, my nokia runs faster, very responsive.
God bless you all!