Nokia
5800 XpressMusic

The 5800 XpressMusic was Nokia’s first touch-screen device on the Symbian S60 platform. It arrived 19 months after the iPhone and was a long overdue addition to the Nokia line-up given the growing moment around touch-screen devices. Two previous devices — the 7700 (which did not ship) and the 7710 (which sold in small quantities) — were produced using the (by-then) defunct Series 90 platform. Nokia's other efforts in touch-screen devices had centred on its Linux-powered Internet Tablet products like the N810. Nokia had announced its intention to offer a mass-market touch-screen device 14 months earlier. After endless leaks, extremely low expectations had been set for the device — something that helped Nokia once the 5800 XpressMusic was launched. Despite Nokia's desire to position the 5800 XpressMusic in a different segment of the market to the iPhone, comparisons were immediately made. The sad reality was that the 5800 was completely incapable of competing with the iPhone and any comparisons were some-what irrelevant. In terms of hardware design, the 5800 XpressMusic had a low-quality finish that lacked the finesse of the iPhone's high-quality materials. This reflected the 5800’s relatively low retail price of €279 before subsidy and taxes. The biggest challenge for Nokia had been morphing S60 from a user interface designed for a single-handed keypad to a fully accessible touch-screen platform. The company made a few compromises, such as enlarging icons to make them easily accessible when pressed with a finger, but the core principles remained similar. Anyone who had used an S60 phone would find the user interface familiar. However, the user experience was poor, the touch interface proved buggy and lacked multi-touch controls available on the iPhone. Nokia's Download application was also very weak compared with Apple's App Store. This made the platform considerably less attractive to developers. Other shortcomings were the Music player which had a poor interface and lacked album art in list views and had no equivalent to Apple's Cover Flow. Similarly, the (photo) Gallery application also lacked the finesse of Apple's implementation. The 5800 XpressMusic featured a dedicated hardware button on the top right corner of the device. Pressing it overlaid a drop-down menu on the home screen, giving quick access to primary media functions — music, images, Ovi (Nokia’s content platform), videos and Web access. Despite all these shortcomings, the 5800 XpressMusic sold 8 million units in the year after its release. Notably, a prototype version of the Nokia 5800 appeared in the trailer for the Batman movie, The Dark Knight and this generated a lot of interest from the tech media before the device was even announced. It also went on to appear in numerous music video from artists including Britney Spears (Womanizer), Christina Aguilera (Keeps Getting’ Better), The Pussycat Dolls (Jai Ho!) and Katy Perry (Waking up in Vegas).