Has your Nokia 5800 turned into a gibbering mass of electronic rubbish, useful only for hammering nails into walls and as a good looking paperweight?
MIR reader, Matt, has been suffering with his 5800 ever since he bought it. He even had to engineer is own fix for the battery involving some scissors and a piece of cardboard.
Have a read…
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Hi Ewan
You’ll have to excuse me here slightly as the exact dates are lost on me I’m afraid!
I purchased the 5800 from the Carphone Warehouse Store in Barrow-in-Furness late February, I suspect it will have been February 27th. I believe Gerry will have purchased his the very same day, or at most within 4 days afterwards.
My original handset developed a fault within 5 days, the handset was simply dead, turned itself off and then it decided it didn’t quite fancy turning back on again. The store agreed to switch the handset for a new one.
Within 2 months of owning the second handset I noticed the phone developed a habit of switching itself off. I realised that the battery had too much ‘give’ on the terminals, however sticking a small piece of card in the side of the battery cavity and the battery itself made the connection firm, more or less eliminating the problem.
Around May time I popped into the local Carphone Warehouse again to enquire for release dates for the N97. While I was there I started chatting to the salesman in there who I knew bought a 5800 on the same day as me. While we were speaking he pulled out his 5800, handed it to me and asked “Has yours done this?†The screen had completely broken up, with multicoloured horizontal lines across the screen. A couple of flicks of the key lock switch and the screen returned to normal. I was obviously thankful mine hadn’t had the same issue!
Spoke too soon…literally within one week it happened on the first occasion. I pulled my phone out my pocket to read a text and had the dreaded lines across the screen (these lines leave it completely unusable). As previously though, flicking the keylock a few times seemed to fix it.
This carried on for months on end, however I soon realised it was happening more and more often, and also taking longer and longer for it to return to normal. Flicking the keylock a few times no longer worked as before, it now seemed almost random.
At the end of July I replaced the handset with a HTC Hero, which I paid for in cash. I had reached a point where the handset had become unusable, at one point my screen did not work for over 14 hours, so I was now in desperate need of a new handset.
I then heard that Gerry had the same issue. Remembering about the salesman having exactly the same fault, I think it’s fairly safe to establish there was a serious fault with that early batch of the model, in fact a quick Google search of the subject matter reveals many people having the same fault, all of which were fairly early adopters. Nokia seem to have acknowledged a fault, and I have read that the fix is a new screen being fitted. Did those early screens all come with a fault?
Anything else you need Ewan, give me a shout.
Matt
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I think Nokia should simply replace Matt’s 5800. Do you agree? That’s simply ridiculous. Have you had the same kind of problem with your 5800?
Is your Nokia 5800 completely screwed too? http://snipr.com/s6zvi
Is your Nokia 5800 completely screwed too? http://snipr.com/s6zvi
Yup, mine does it at random periods; has been for a couple of months. I'm getting really fed up with it, so much so that I'm tempted to buy out my contract in January (got an 18 month one with this rubbish) and replace with an iPhone – a touchscreen phone that actually works!
Ewan, mine has been good as cold in terms of performance and battery life. The only thing wrong is that I can't upgrade the software over the air. The key difference between mine and Matt's is that mine was purchased in Hong Kong rather than the European model.
Europe seemd to get hit hard on this model with the defective earphone/mouthpiece and software problems.
Both myself and 'the wife' have had 5800's from launch, no problems or defects whatsoever.
And they're European models, Kip?
Yep 🙂 both are EURO2 codes I think..
First I I work for Nokia and as Ewan knows I've had five (four of which went out on loan) and the only issue I've had was sitting on the phone while it was on a chair with some keys on top of it. I've not heard of the battery issue but that can be caused by mechanical shock (drop = overstressed contacts) we did get a 'sticky' lock key in the batch but that was fixed pretty quickly at one of the Service Centre's, they are listed on nokia.com. In general any issue like this can be fixed by dropping into a service center and getting the phone fixed under warranty, at the end of the day as a company we want happy customers.
That's a good resolution — Matt, gonna see if you can do that?
I've got an NAM model, and it's fine. It's the only Nokia that works with motorcycle gloves!
There have been comments on screen problems in loads of forums (fora?) for ages! It is a faulty LCD screen, Nokia will change it for free provided that you repair it in the same region that it came from! If not they charge – it cost me 80 euro to fix and since then (about two months ago) all has been fine! Mine was bought on line from Asia and as I live in Europe I had to pay, but it was worth it!
I've got two 5800s, a Euro and a NAM unit, neither of which have shown either the battery issue or the screen lines described here. In fact, I've used the NAM as my primary device for a combined several months, so it's gotten plenty of usage. Definitely sounds like perhaps a bad batch. That said, Nokia should, without question, replace the unit of those having issues.
I bought mine around May this year and its perfectly normal. I think you need to update the firmware. Hopefully, mine will not end up like that
I have owned a 5800XM since APR09. It has functioned quite well and battery life is relatively good. Make sure to get a screen protector and silicon case…definitely has kept mine in pristine shape…even after a few drops. Firmware makes big difference in speed/screen sensitivity. Great phone for money. 0575887: 5800 Switzerland CV CH R
Oh wow! I really thought i was the only one until i googled this thing.
My phone did that to me today and there's absolutely nothing i can do about it. The internal GPS app has about 60 anchors on it that i need for work! What am i supposed to do now?
I purchased mine somewhere in the end of Spring 2009 on newegg.
hi i have only had my nokia 5800 for a few weeks
and i just went to charge it up a couple of days ago and the screen keeps flickering and wont let me go beyond the homepage. it also wont let me unlock the screen it just keeps sayiing use keyguard switch to unlock screen. i have taken the battery and sim card out loads of times and there makes no difference. i also need my contacts which some havent saved onto my sim. but i cant get them because the screeen wont unlock even if i turn the phone on and off. before i send my phone off for repair how can i retrieve my contacts. please help x katie
Ack, spoke to soon, screen is starting to glitch.
So I sent my phone to Nokia's facility in Alabama (it's easy to do, just go to the Support page on Nokia's website). They kept it for a day and sent it back to me, and it works! Now, they haven't changed any of the hardware, nor sent me a new unit which was fine with me as long as my handheld worked. They did flash it though, so try to backup yours before you mail it. And take the battery, sim card, memory card and back cover out, don't mail t to them, otherwise you might not get it back.
Same problem for me, I did the same thing for the battery problem but now sometime the screend get mad and I can't use it. I think I am gonna send it back as it is still covered by warranty!
So I sent my phone to Nokia's facility in Alabama (it's easy to do, just go to the Support page on Nokia's website). They kept it for a day and sent it back to me, and it works! Now, they haven't changed any of the hardware, nor sent me a new unit which was fine with me as long as my handheld worked. They did flash it though, so try to backup yours before you mail it. And take the battery, sim card, memory card and back cover out, don't mail t to them, otherwise you might not get it back.
Same problem for me, I did the same thing for the battery problem but now sometime the screend get mad and I can't use it. I think I am gonna send it back as it is still covered by warranty!
Hi there..It looks like Matt and me have a lot of things in common. To be specific, our phones. I bought a 5800 on january 3rd 2009 on the launch day.
On january 9th, I was at nokia care centre. My phone's speaker started losing sound while in calls. Almost all phones had that problem. They fixed it.
On january 16 or 17th, I was again at nokia care, because just like that salesman had, my phones screen started showing horizontal colours. It use to appear every now and then. Nokia sent it to their main office 3000km away. Took 10days. And finally came back after fix.
On february 1st week, phone started frequent restarts and that kept on happening on and on.
on feb 17
on feb28th
on april
on may
on july
etc etc i kept on going to nokia care. They have a plenty of job sheets for my phone. the phone also went to headoffice again (the one 3000kms away) 3 times. So it was almost a month away from in total
then in september they replaced my phone after one month custody of my phone. so total 2months completely my first phone was with nokia people. and i was phoneless 2 months
fially on september 25th new phone came. It had a small scratch on the screen. I didnt care it. i was phoneless for a whole month u know. but then when i reached home, i found the had local vga cam. it took good pictures but videos were blurry n not at all clear. u know how well nokia 5800 records video.
i even settled myself on that too.
a week later, the display started showing horizontal colours n all that stuff like other phones. gave again to nokia care. luckily in 3days they returned it. got a new lcd on the phone.
within a few days it started restarting. and it still is. iam not taking to nokia care again. Fed Up. I will sell it and i will buy an iphone or htc hero. Its good bye to nokia forever.
phone bought on launch day for $475
The same thing happen to my 5800. If u leave the phone on until the battery runs out, when u put it on charge and turn it on, the keypad should be unlocked
Nokia 5800 is a superbly easy phone to use with great user interface. The Nokia 5800 has a screen dial-pad which is large enough to use with fingers. The 5800 has a large touch-screen interface which ideal for web browsing and one-touch web-surfing.
The Nokia 5800 is designed to handle fast download speed and can easily beats the iPhone when it comes to speed and interface mobility. 5800 also comes with WiFi compatible, so you can get super fast data transfer speeds in the vicinity of a WLAN network or a WiFi Hotspot anywhere in the globe where you can find Wi-Fi hotspots.
The Nokia 5800 now available in the UK on payasyougo mobile phones purchase plan or some network providers are offering it for free on pay monthly contract
Source:
pay as you go mobile phones reviews and compare 100 of mobile phones from all major networks.
I have a similar problem with my Nokia 5800. It completely shuts down when it's cold. In the beginning it just turned itself back on when it got warmer, than I had to manually turn it on after it shut down by itself.. The last time it turned itself off was today, and for the last hour or so I've been trying to turn it on, and it starts to turn on but then freezes on the first 'NOKIA' logo u see and just stays like that.. I have to take the baterry out to shut it down because none of the buttons seem to work :/
Need help, anyone got the same problem, any ideas?
I have a similar problem with my Nokia 5800. It completely shuts down when it's cold. In the beginning it just turned itself back on when it got warmer, than I had to manually turn it on after it shut down by itself.. The last time it turned itself off was today, and for the last hour or so I've been trying to turn it on, and it starts to turn on but then freezes on the first 'NOKIA' logo u see and just stays like that.. I have to take the baterry out to shut it down because none of the buttons seem to work :/
Need help, anyone got the same problem, any ideas?
5 repairs through no fault of my own. 1st fault within 20 days. CW refused to replace it. Lousy operating system (last time I use Symbian with it's outdated feel). Rushed to the market and it shows.