Posts Tagged ‘xpressmusic’

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic for £15

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

Carphone Warehouse latest deal brings music to our ears, by tuning into Nokia’s latest music phone on just a £15 contract.

The 5800 XpressMusic arrives gratis on one of the most affordable tariffs around, on O2 with unlimited texts and 100 minutes allowance per month to any network and at anytime. Hurrah!

As compared with other offers around, it doesn’t appear to be for a time limited period only on a fixed number of months, although the contract duration is for 24 months. Then again, what do you really expect for a free handset that normally costs £249 – they have to make their money back somehow.

How other network tariffs measure up against each other for the 5800 is of distinct interest, which we found both to our delight and amusement. Starting from the highest cost; Orange’s own offering will be on a £35 contract we’ve been informed, O2 comes in at £30, T-Mobile also £30 (£20, for the first three months), Vodafone and Phones4U are at both £25.

How the others fair in their call allowance per months is also a tad interesting. With T-Mobile coming in with 700 minutes, Vodafone has 200minutes. The other networks are either not entirely upfront with their details, or even lack the complete acknowledgment the phone’s existence on their website.

The 5800, just in case you hadn’t already read the plethora of copy already on MIR has a reasonable 8GB internal memory for around 6000 tracks with instant access to Nokia’s music store. Coupled with a 3.3megapixal camera and Sat-Nav abilities, it’s a formidable beast.

More can be seen here, on the 5800 Carphone Warehouse deal.

We brought you news of the 5800 coming to Orange, way before anyone else on the planet in December last year. The handset was spotted at their partner camp in Florida by us, in which we wrote up the exclusive here.

Initially, Nokia had screamed foul at us for pre-empting such a thing arriving as the phone was only brought along to show case new mobiles. Seeing as it was ‘deliberately’ placed on the table of all the phones Orange sold, we rightly and ever so correctly, assumed it would be on their network soon.

Isn’t it great when we can predict the future.

UPDATE: It now appears, possibly in a gut reaction to the CPW announcement, Phones4U also now has a £15 deal for the Nokia 5800 on a T-Mobile contract. The plot thickens!

‘And a 3.5mm jack’ – Why isn’t this a standard?

Monday, January 26th, 2009

I was reading through a press release about the Nokia 5800 ‘Tube’ handset. Over a million of them shipped. Good news.

My issue?

Have a read of this sentence. I’ve bolded the problem line.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic offers a complete music experience and features a number of music and entertainment essentials, including a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks, support for all main digital music formats, and a 3.5mm jack. Built-in surround sound stereo speakers offer the industry’s most powerful sound.

AND a 3.5mm jack?

Now, I understand why the PR feel this needs to be included — because often many handsets ship with some dickhead adapter. For multiple reasons. This isn’t some historical quirk. The ‘open’ T-Mobile HTC G1, launched last quarter, doesn’t actually come with a 3.5mm jack. You need a USB extension.

The fact that Nokia’s PR felt they needed to stick in the ‘and a 3.5mm jack’ fact is indicative of just how rubbish this mobile industry really is.

Whyever would you make a handset that DOESN’T have a 3.5mm jack for your favourite headphones?

Well.

Multiple dickhead reasons are provided, all of them 100% invalid.

3.5mm is the standard, yes? Let’s move on. Nothing smaller, nothing bigger, no USB bollocks please.

Do you think we’ll EVER get to the point whereby we actually have to report that a phone has a 3.5mm jack? Will this finally become commonplace this year?

Or have I had far too much caffeine?

Exclusive: Nokia is not launching a handset next week

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

nokia-571

In what may not be the most exciting news of the week and may lead to more confusion than anything else, there will be no Nokia handset announced next week.

We had lunch of late with two senior people inside the Finnish fone makers, who mentioned in passing there will be a new handset unveiled worldwide next week. Only it’s come to light the launch has now been delayed until Mobile World Congress. Dang!

The rumour mill has been running overtime this week with the news of a new XpressMusic phone, in the form of the 5730 model appearing. Engadget mobile ran a piece this week, initially from the Russian site Mobile-Review heralding in its arrival and gave it a rather exhaustive preview.

On first impressions the phone, only apparently in its prototype stage at present does look a little like a crosspollination between the 5800 and the soon to be released N97.

From the basic specifications provided, the handset rocks up with a 2-inch QVGA display, with a full QWERTY keyboard and is capable of EDGE.

Is it just purely coincidental the phone’s been passed to that site for a preview, only days away from the scheduled worldwide announcement? Who are we to say.

Check back with us during Mobile World Congress , either way we’ll be able to say yay or nay.

New Firmware for Nokia’s 5800 XpressMusic shows up on the Updater

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

If you’re a 5800 owner who’s just woken up to a brand new day, sipping onto some steaming hot beverage or browsing through your RSS feeds, hear this one. The folks over at Nokia have dropped an update to the Firmware of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

The update bumps up your phone to Firmware v11.0.008 from the previous Firmware v10.0.010 and brings in overall stability of the phone’s OS. The update should be available through the Nokia Software Updater, but I’ve come across a couple of people who’re reporting no activity at their end. So if you’re lucky enough for the update to show up at your desktop, remember to back up your data before proceeding.

A complete list of changes, courtesy of S60Inside.com:

  • Homepage is not defined for Vodafone Live!
  • Last word disappears when selecting receiver in SMS
  • My Nokia: phone displays “#” in front of Application name.
  • During Back-Up & Restore operation, calendar entries are not restored
  • Operator menu link within Welcome application
  • Invalid message pops up before playing the file received via Bluetooth.
  • Input Method, VKB just display number when selecting a WLAN access point which contains a password.
  • Chinese box HWR control buttons and FS HWR control bar are too small.
  • Unable to add image to Contact bar from Gallery when there is about 5 GB of data in memory card
  • In Arabic UI, in calendar, the arrows on the top are reversed in week view and day view
  • UI-rotation is too sensitive
  • Search: Google search service is missing in Search.
  • Contact could not display when switch numbers in Singtel 2-in-1 SIM card
  • Maps: Wrong layout of the strings in the Maps search and favorites views
  • Could not send new email if user name and password is not pre-defined
  • Phone drops from service when both A5/3 +GEA3 used simultaneously with WLAN
  • The Messaging application crashes a lot specially when replying or trying to send SMS you have to remove battery to be able to use the device again
  • License Manager for Maps is not integrated to SW
  • 5.0 Touch: Phonebook crashing when adding detail: Birthday, Anniversary
  • Web screen is messed up
  • Non stop Music Player “Library update”
  • Clock, Alarm is inactive when phone is power off.
  • APN Configuration Settings Update to be used for the Setting Wizard
  • Ex-Factory settings are wrong
  • UE unable to open Setting Wizard
  • StartUpSettings version updated.
  • Phone lost correct time during power off
  • USSD – “Call Control Send USSD” command
  • UE drops from 3G, then cannot sync to 3G cells
  • Browser: Flash objects causes problems while browsing

[Via MobileBurn]

Nokia’s 5800 XpressMusic for China to lack 3G and Wi-Fi

Friday, October 10th, 2008

If the iPhone without 3G or Wi-Fi was bad enough, here’s some more bad news for the mobile users in China. 

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, which has been more widely referred to as the “Tube” is all set to hit China, albeit without 3G or Wi-Fi. The lack of 3G may be due to the lack of coverage in China, but there’s hardly any reason to negate the W-Fi on the phone. 

No 3G and no Wi-Fi on a phone running Symbian S60 5th Edition with a full touchscreen front, makes it what, a hollow “Tube” ?

Nokia’s 5800 XpressMusic “Tube” announced

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

 

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Tube

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Tube

It’s here, folks. Nokia has finally unveiled the first touchscreen Symbian S60 powered music phone, which has been majorly successful to draw all the attention towards it over the past few months, being dubbed simply as the “Tube” throughout its development cycle and even making a quick cameo in ‘The Dark Knight’.

This touchscreen beauty has been launched under the XpressMusic sub-brand of Nokia phones and the company has thoughtfully avoided the N-series branding to it. The phone comes equipped with an astonishing 3.2 inch resistive touchscreen display that does 640 x 360 pixels. At the core, the phone is powered by the Symbian S60 5th Edition. There’s a 3.2 MegaPixel autofocus camera with Carl-Zeiss Optics, something that has now become a standard in most Nokia phones. It also features Bluetooth with A2DP, GPS, Wi-Fi, a microSD card slot with support for 16GB cards and a 3.5mm earphone jack to be used with any ordinary headphones. There might even be a proximity sensor, built on the grounds of Apple’s iPhone.

The phone apparently will be priced around 218 GBP (around $390), unlocked, and will come in shades of black, red and blue. There’s even a complimentary 8GB microSD card thrown in. Expect it to be available somewhere in Q4 2008 with a ‘ComesWithMusic’ edition to be rolled out in 2009.

Nokia ‘Comes with Music’ set to change the marketplace?

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

Lots of people I’ve been meeting have been talking in hushed voices about this.

“Comes with Music” — that’s the new offensive from Nokia and it’s got a lot — a LOT — of people quaking with concern.

When a company such as Nokia — routinely knocking out millions of handsets in a given day — decides to give away unlimited music with a handset, you need to start panicking if you’ve got anything whatsoever to do with this field.

How does it work?

Well, it does-what-it-says-on-the-tin. Buy the phone and you get access to an unlimited amount of music.

Ok. Not unlimited. Think iTunes. Think MusicStation. A *good* amount of tracks. You’ll find stuff that you like, at least.

It’s the Nokia 5300 series handsets that are to get this first. Specifically, the 5310 XpressMusic. Fair enough. No bother. I’m an iTunes man myself. Start knocking out Nokia N-Series handsets with this and I’ll certainly reconsider this position.

There’s certainly a lot of questions to answer.

Carphone Warehouse are the exclusive UK pre-pay channel for the device. If you want ‘Comes-with-Music’, you need to get it from them, this Christmas. You can, if you’re extra-specially interested, get yourself on the pre-order list at CarphoneWarehouse.com.

We should get a look at the device and answer a heckuvalot of questions this evening at the Carphone Warehouse Christmas Preview.

‘Til then, I leave you with some excited bullish statements from some of the key players:

Tero Ojanpera, executive vice president and head of the Nokia Entertainment and Communities business, said: “We believe that Comes With Music will transform the way people enjoy music. With unlimited music access for a year, you can enjoy your favorite artists or delve into new genres without having to worry about individual track or album purchases.”

Simon Ainslie, Nokia UK Managing Director, said: “Comes With Music is the most compelling digital music offer ever introduced to the UK. You get a fantastic Nokia device with unlimited access for a year to a huge catalog of music. We’re thrilled to be working with Carphone Warehouse to bring Comes With Music to the UK.”

Andrew Harrison, UK CEO, The Carphone Warehouse, said: “We expect the Nokia 5310 Comes With Music to be the gift for Christmas and at the top of all shopping lists. We know how much our customers love music and we hope to make music millionaires of people everywhere.”

For a little while, expect a negative reaction when you try and buy one of these from Vodafone or any other operator with its own music sales channels.


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