![Post image for Nokia 5800 Review: Camera and Media Capabilities](https://i0.wp.com/www.nokiamobiletalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/9.jpg)
Even though it’s branded with Carl Zeiss optics, the camera module equipped on the 5800 is slightly above average at best. It takes great pictures in adequate sunlight but fails miserably in low light conditions. The lack of a proper xenon flash makes things worse (the dual LED light included isn’t much help, really). Pictures are washed out and extremely noisy on the default automatic settings in low light (blame the tiny sensor), and the auto White Balance is a little off most of the time even with sufficient light.
Quite simply put, the advanced post-processing algorithms found in the N95/N73/ (insert your N-series here are) are just not there. We do not know if this is by design or otherwise, but we suspect that Nokia didn’t want their mid-tier performer to eat up into the sales of their more Camera-oriented, higher placed offerings.
The video side of the camera is also equally above average, being capable of recording 640X480 30FPS movies (or 640X352 for widescreen fans) for as long as you would want (and as long as the SD card can hold) in MP4 format. The video quality itself is a bit on the noisy side as well.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.nokiamobiletalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/15.jpg)
Bottom line, as a daily performer the camera’s fine; just don’t expect miracles from it.
Or use it at night.
As an XpressMusic mobile, one would expect the music playing capabilities of the 5800 to be up to par – and on this front it generally delivers. Capable of playing most of the more common audio file format (MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+/AAC), the audio player interface is again standard S60 fare, slightly optimised for touch navigation. Most of the normal niceties of a modern mobile-based music player are present (playlist creation, sorting by genre/artist/name, album art display, and customizable equaliser presets); although the album art display implementation is a bit messed up and requires some extensive user intervention.
The bundled headphones were not bad as earbuds go (surprisingly), but I’m an in-ear person so I quickly substituted if for my old Sony Ericcson HPM-70s earbuds – which was easy as the bundled HS-41 controller had a dandy 3.5’ jack.
And then there are the stereo speakers, which are loud, clear and remarkably bassy for its size; albeit with slightly quirky positioning (along the left side / bottom while in landscape mode). Nokia’s justification for this seems to be the fact that bouncing the speaker output on any hard surface will increase the apparent volume of the speaker. The only problem with this reasoning is that the 5800 won’t be put on a hard surface ALL the time.
In terms of sound quality (through headphones), the 5800 does quite well, being amongst the best of Nokia’s current offerings (as per tests at Mobile-Burn.com and Mobile-Review.com), although it can’t match the Samsung Innov8’s superior sound quality. Having hardware decoding does make it slightly more superior to competitors that rely on software decoding of audio files, and to my relatively untrained ears it sounds excellent, provided that you are game on playing around with the EQ settings.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.nokiamobiletalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/17.jpg)
With its’ gorgeous screen, one would expect that it would do well as a mobile Video player. This it does, despite the limited video format support (Xvid or H264 MP4, WMV, RM, 3GP – no native AVI/MKV support here folks). It plays video files converted to its’ full screen resolution (640×360, Xvid, 23FPS, Superb quality VBR setting) smoothly enough, probably due to the integrated co-processor handling Video encoding and decoding. Other than this, the player is very spartan at best, not even having playlist support of any kind (bad, Nokia, bad).
Next, would be the storage media provided and Nokia is absolutely spot on here by providing, right in the box, a 8GB Class-6 microSD card. For its price point, that in itself is a killer selling point right there, with other makers opting for puny 2GB or 4GB memory cards for similarly priced music oriented phones.
On the gaming side, the bundled games are playable, if not a little laggy. The touchscreen opens up a huge new opportunity for S60 developers though, something that I would want to cover in detail later in a more extensive article.
Now, if there’s one main problem with the 5800 that I cannot overlook, it’s the fact that it LACKS ANY HARDWARE PLAYBACK BUTTONS OF ANY KIND. Sorry, but I cannot stress how much a problem this is. Yes, the 5800 has a full touch interface, but is that reason to skimp on the hardware buttons? Imagine what will happen when you ditch the bundled headphones AND the controller for your shiny audiophile headphones, you WILL have to bring it out of your pocket to change songs and this is simply unacceptable in some situations.
Adding a play/pause button and remapping a long hold of the volume buttons to track change would have been a good solution to this issue (ala the old Sony Ericsson Walkmans), the latter of which COULD still be implemented through a firmware update.
THREE MONTHS LATER: The V20 firmware update added Geotagging, which is awesome. General image quality in light deprived areas are still bad though, seems V21 will take care of that. On the music front, new third party IEMs are sounding great on the 5800, but are making general deficiencies with the default EQ more apparent (the general flatness and lack of bass). EQed to compensate, but using a third party IEM is making the lack of hardware playback buttons even more apparent.
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