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Nokia 5800 ‘The Tube’ Launch Event

As promised, James and I braved the rain on Friday to attend the launch event for Nokia’s first Symbian touch-driven device, the Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic – also often still known by its pre-launch name ‘The Tube’.  Available exclusively via Nokia’s two flagship stores in London’s Regent Street and Heathrow Terminal 5 plus the Nokia online store (at least that’s what the press release says – the online store is still only offering a ‘pre-order’ option right now), it will also be available from all of the major UK network operators (with the exception of Three) starting Friday 30th.

Priced at £249 SIM-free, it’s expected to be free with contract on most tariffs and – we’re all agreed – is pretty exceptional value, although some are dissappointed it’s not a ‘Comes With Music‘ handset yet.  Nokia shifted 500,000 of these things in 30 days of sales, with over a million sold even before the UK launch.

At the event James reprised his ‘normob walkabout’ role in the queue of eager first-customers, we spoke to Mark Loughran (Managing Director, Nokia UK and Ireland), got a demo of the device and even managed to get ten minutes with friend-of-the-show Rafe Blandford from the excellent AllAboutSymbian.com.

A 5 minute extract of the Mark Loughran is available on YouTube or the full show is embedded below and hitting the podcast feeds right now.  Take a look:


Nokia 5800 ‘Tube’ Launch at Nokia’s Regent St flagship store from Ben Smith on Vimeo.

‘Just for fun’ there’s also a brief outtakes reel for the people who have drunkenly told me ‘they were the best bit’.  Feel free to ignore it if you’re a sensible person…


Nokia 5800 Launch – Out Takes from Ben Smith on Vimeo.

45 COMMENTS

  1. sure, let me watch the video again and take notes:

    It takes 10 seconds before you even see James. Show the MIR logo and then cut straight to James, have a banner on the bottom overlaid on top of the video saying you're at the Nokia 5800 Launch. No need to say where the store is via text, James is saying it.

    Guy at 34 seconds likes touch, that's great.

    Second guy with the 20 EUR fone, why does he get so much time?

    Third guy, great. Short, switch.

    Demo with Chris: Could use some tighter editing, bit long. Hardware is cool and all, people want to see what makes the 5800 compete with the iPhone, and that's software.

    Interview with Mark: Sorry Mark, but you sound like a marketing guy, James had too much coffee (shakes!). I would not have given him that much time. MIR is you, James, Dan and Ewan talking about the industry, not giving companies a platform to market their communications optimized message.

    CWM interview: Good insights, liked the bit.

    Interview with Rafe: Should have asked him about some impressions of the device since he has been reviewing it forever! The unboxing could have been another video, 1-2 minutes long, called “Unboxing of the 5800 at the Launch!” and that would have been a good teaser to drive traffic to the site.

    Disclaimer: I'm not a media executive, professional, creative person in the slightest sense.

  2. I can't believe only one person commented about Mark's intervew. It was painful to watch, not because of the lenght (I'm good with it) but because he's just reciting marketing BS.

  3. I can't believe only one person commented about Mark's intervew. It was painful to watch, not because of the lenght (I'm good with it) but because he's just reciting marketing BS.

  4. i think given the audience of MIR, industry members and people who generally know a bit about the industry, i'd have hoped to be spoken to like adults 🙂

    instead he reads a press release that we could play PR bingo with and avoids the interesting questions you ask about such things as the business model of comes with music.

    he used the word desire a few too many times. people were not camped out like at an apple store, get over it..

    to be honest, i'm not sure why people would go to a nokia shop, can you buy phones there with a subsidised price? or are people buying full price, sim free phones?

    the thing is, nokia are very strong in the market place. they have a great part of the business, and they serve many demographics well. but middle management, and sales teams, aren't aware of the strategy and so are left to fend for themselves when talking to press such as you guys. this makes them look stupid, and overall doesn't help nokia either.

    both him and the product expert told and showed us less than we could pick up on websites that have been reviewing the phones for weeks. for general public i guess that's ok. for now.

  5. i think given the audience of MIR, industry members and people who generally know a bit about the industry, i'd have hoped to be spoken to like adults 🙂

    instead he reads a press release that we could play PR bingo with and avoids the interesting questions you ask about such things as the business model of comes with music.

    he used the word desire a few too many times. people were not camped out like at an apple store, get over it..

    to be honest, i'm not sure why people would go to a nokia shop, can you buy phones there with a subsidised price? or are people buying full price, sim free phones?

    the thing is, nokia are very strong in the market place. they have a great part of the business, and they serve many demographics well. but middle management, and sales teams, aren't aware of the strategy and so are left to fend for themselves when talking to press such as you guys. this makes them look stupid, and overall doesn't help nokia either.

    both him and the product expert told and showed us less than we could pick up on websites that have been reviewing the phones for weeks. for general public i guess that's ok. for now.

  6. yeah that is what i expect, from other companies too, including apple, just so you know i'm not backing apple on this one 🙂

    interesting that it's that cheap sim free, that's pretty surprising, and pretty cool. but are they making money on that, or is it like a games console, subsidise the hardware, make profit on software.. if so, where's the money coming in?

    that's what apple have got right. they created an ecosystem. it started with itunes, went through the ipod, (maybe you can include .mac/me), got interesting at the iphone, but is now very solid with the app store. there going to take it a long way. user lock-in is what everyone wants. people like sony and nokia are trying to do it with things like proprietary memory format or drm music. apple is doing it by actually giving you reasons to *want* to stay, rather than the others where they are trying to *force* you to stay. you are technically locked-in rather than emotionally. huge difference.

    anyhoo, i'll finish this thread of thought in a post 🙂

  7. I challenge any normob to get video onto a 5800 – its not the easiest phone to put video on.

    The one MP4 file i tried – failed to play.
    encoding another at the moment. wish me luck!

  8. If I wanted it, this is one of the few handsets I'd go for SIM-free… it's
    £249 which is an excellent price IMO.
    The Nokia retail store does appear to do subsidised handsets on contract
    (only one or two operators though… O2 and Voda? Forgot to take a note),
    but the customers pictured _had_ all queued in the rain to get it SIM free.
    Some big numbers were thrown around, but I'd say about 100 people
    were queuing before the store opened and there was stock left when they had
    been dealt with, so very far from an iPhone-esque frenzy.

    I agree with you re: the marketing BS, but like I said 'what do you expect?'
    Even on Apple launches all we get is the party line… It would be nice /
    more useful to all concerned if they had a bit more to say, but in their
    defence I didn't feel it was any better / worse than any other company
    except (possibly) INQ who are making a deliberate effort to break the mould
    in a number of areas.

    2009/1/27 Disqus <>

  9. i think given the audience of MIR, industry members and people who generally know a bit about the industry, i'd have hoped to be spoken to like adults 🙂

    instead he reads a press release that we could play PR bingo with and avoids the interesting questions you ask about such things as the business model of comes with music.

    he used the word desire a few too many times. people were not camped out like at an apple store, get over it..

    to be honest, i'm not sure why people would go to a nokia shop, can you buy phones there with a subsidised price? or are people buying full price, sim free phones?

    the thing is, nokia are very strong in the market place. they have a great part of the business, and they serve many demographics well. but middle management, and sales teams, aren't aware of the strategy and so are left to fend for themselves when talking to press such as you guys. this makes them look stupid, and overall doesn't help nokia either.

    both him and the product expert told and showed us less than we could pick up on websites that have been reviewing the phones for weeks. for general public i guess that's ok. for now.

  10. yeah that is what i expect, from other companies too, including apple, just so you know i'm not backing apple on this one 🙂

    interesting that it's that cheap sim free, that's pretty surprising, and pretty cool. but are they making money on that, or is it like a games console, subsidise the hardware, make profit on software.. if so, where's the money coming in?

    that's what apple have got right. they created an ecosystem. it started with itunes, went through the ipod, (maybe you can include .mac/me), got interesting at the iphone, but is now very solid with the app store. there going to take it a long way. user lock-in is what everyone wants. people like sony and nokia are trying to do it with things like proprietary memory format or drm music. apple is doing it by actually giving you reasons to *want* to stay, rather than the others where they are trying to *force* you to stay. you are technically locked-in rather than emotionally. huge difference.

    anyhoo, i'll finish this thread of thought in a post 🙂

  11. I challenge any normob to get video onto a 5800 – its not the easiest phone to put video on.

    The one MP4 file i tried – failed to play.
    encoding another at the moment. wish me luck!

    UPDATE – a mixed bag – one played fine, the other no go, re-encoded via the nokia internet table converter and its ok. still a bit of an arse.

    http://hello5800.tumblr.com

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