Nokia 5800: the phone never quits

All said and done, Nokia has impressed me with their steadfast loyalty to their first ever touchscreen phone, my Nokia 5800. It has been close to three years since it's release, and over 2.5 years that I have owned it, and the company continues to roll out significant upgrades to the phone.

The latest upgrade puts the firmware version at v60.0.003.

A couple of differences with the present upgrade - this did not happen over the air (OTA) as most of the other upgrades, signifying that this is a pretty important change. Secondly, the notification of the upgrade went through the new Updates module, signifying another milestone for Nokia in having a deployment method that actually works.

The biggest change seems to be the browser. Called Anna - the latest browser has a much better UI compared to the previous one and seems more stable upon initial use. Memory management seems to have gotten better, as there is more free space available. And playing catch-up the current upgrade includes a “Slide to Unlock” option to unlock the screen.

Maybe the Nokia 5800 is the perfect test-bed to check new features on - extra large installed base that are conveniently segregated by Product Codes; a phone with a strong hardware spec that does not seem seriously dated three years in; and a group of customers that Nokia desperately wants to keep in the family and not lose to the iOS or Android camps. Whatever be the reason, the upgrades are rolling out and for that, we are thankful.

Nokia's near and distant future?

If you need a break from all the bad news that seems to be following Nokia everywhere, there are things afoot with the Finnish giant, suggesting all is not done with the company after their momentous decision to hitch their wagon to Microsoft Mobile.

The first one is a story of Lumia 800, a product of the above decision. Finally a focus on design, that GigaOm calls Nokia's iPhone moment.

The second is more esoteric. A phone that will probably never see the insides of a retail store, but as a concept is somewhere between intriguing and stunning. I cannot quite make up my mind on which it is.

For someone who grew up with the brand being synonymous with mobile phones, any sign of Nokia fighting, is a welcome sign indeed.

GDesk on the Nokia 5800: more details

GDesk is a work in progress. This is painfully obvious when you begin trying to configure or edit the existing UI.

Toggling the "edit" mode happens via the Design menu item. Once you toggle the edit mode, you are now able to modify the content and placement of the various icons on the interface.

What you can do though is severely limited. The first, and most glaring problem is the lack of an undo option. This puts you in a strangely tentative mode while editing. To add to it, there is no easy way to manage the z-index. So if you have overlapping elements, it seems like what ends up on top is something you have no control over. A couple of slips of the stylus and the only option is to Discard Changes and start right over. Saving frequently is probably the only approach to successfully making big changes.

That said, there is still a lot you can do. You can set up icons and links, change their sizes and use many of the active elements supplied by GDesk.

Editing is not the only thing that is half-baked. After using the interface for a while, it feels like I am ready to get back to the original UI. There are several reasons for that.

• First and most importantly, this is not a complete replacement of the UI. All applications still look exactly the same as under the original UI. This is merely an alternate home screen.
• While on the subjects of home screens, GDesk does not really replace it. Instead, it is full screen program, configured to jump in everytime you go to the home screen.
• Most elements on the UI are not configurable. It does seem to have a title-bar but no way to edit it's properties.
• GDesk is limited in terms of how much you can talk to the underlying phone, and how much the phone can talk to you. Notification is the key gap here. Each notification capability needs to be programmed separately, and right now the only notifications programmed are the SMS and battery. This means you cannot see if you have missed calls, emails or other alerts.
• The other capability I missed was the ability to choose the profile directly. This meant 5 or 6 taps to switch to and from silent; instead of the usual 2.

Overall GDesk is more a way to get some good eye candy and not really a replacement UI. But again, this was little more than a beta, and something Nokia never thought to run with.

GDesk to skin Nokia 5800

For all it's hardware prowess, and flexibility, the Nokia 5800's interface is little more than a hastily put together extension of the S60 3rd edition interface that runs on top of the Symbian OS. This makes the touch interface more of an after-thought, but importantly carries over several elements that were more suited for keyboard interaction than touch. Nokia never got around to fixing this gap, before it's well publicized surrender to Apple & Android by choosing to go with Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS.

Luckily there were several other attempts to make up for Nokia's nearsightedness.

One such attempt was GDesk, written first for S60 3rd edition, and subsequently ported to the 5th edition. GDesk is a flexible, extensible desktop framework, that has the capability to build entirely new UI from scratch.

Inexplicably, or perhaps explained now in hindsight, Nokia did not jump on projects like this and try to integrate into their own interface efforts. There also has been limited development of GDesk in about 2 years. That however, did not stop folks from creating multiple themes and skins that can be used to create pretend interfaces.

Installing GDesk

Installing GDesk is pretty straightforward. The full package consists of the main GDesk .sis file, along with six other "plugins", giving you a total of seven installable files. The trickiest part is finding signed installable files so that you can install them on the Nokia 5800.

• Search for "gdesk 0.34 signed" and you should be able to find a copy that works
• Create a folder on your memory card, and copy all seven .sis files over
• Use the File Manager on the phone to locate the GDesk installer first and tap to install it, as shown above.
• Repeat with the rest of the plugins, and you are all ready to go.

Running GDesk

GDesk shows up as a regular application, double tap to run it. When it first runs, it is little more than an empty "desktop" with no distinguishing features at all. What you need is a GDesk desktop file, that contains a particular configuration. These are available as .gdd files.

• Google around for good desktop file. I got mine from here. It emulates HTC's interface. Download it and store it on your memory card.
• Tap anywhere on the desktop and select "Design". This switches GDesk into an editable mode.
• Tap anywhere on the screen again and select "Load Design". Browse to wherever you stored the .gdd file and hit Select.
• Wait, watch and enjoy.
• There are two settings that are not checked by default, that you may want to make sure to enable: Tap > Options > Full Screen and Tap > Options > Replace Main. The first one makes it full screen, and the second one allows GDesk to replace the main menu.

GDesk: A Preview

The first feeling after installing GDesk and running the HTC UI is frankly euphoric. The graphics are clean and vibrant, thanks to the 5800's beautiful screen. There are five screens that you can swipe to traverse. But very soon the lack of depth of the implementation comes through. But more on that in a later post.

To be clear, GDesk is by no means a full fledged user interface. When you run any application, what you see is the default 5th edition navigation buttons. However, when you get to the home screen, GDesk appears, overriding the default (after a perceptible delay).

All said, this is a surprisingly powerful way to create a new home screen for the 5800. Next post to be about what works and what doesn't along with my first attempt at modifying the UI.

While it goes without saying, you could brick your phone if you do not take care. And everything on this post is provided with absolutely no warranty.

Nokia 5800: Corrupt music library

My Nokia 5800, despite being a music phone, is horrendous with the management of its music library. For no reason its database decides to go corrupted; showing 0 songs available.

Turns out there are a lot of people facing this problem. After a fair bit of searching the interwebs, this is a method that seems to work. You need - your Nokia 5800, a USB cable, a PC (mine runs Windows XP) and the Nokia Ovi Suite installed on your PC.

1. Connect the phone to your PC. Select the mode "Mass Storage"
2. On my computer the phone shows up as F: drive. Open Windows Explorer to "F:\private folder" (see screenshot).
3. There are three sub-folders of interest here. The first two contain .dat files that need to be deleted. The third one contains the key database files for podcasts and mp3 files. They need to be deleted. The table below shows the folder, and what you need to do.
4. Under no circumstance should you delete the folder itself. If you are not entirely sure about deleting it, you could rename them or move them to a different folder on your PC.

Location	Files to delete
Private\101f8857\Cache\E	Delete all .dat files you can see in the folder.
Private\101ffca9	Delete the one .dat file you can see in this folder, called harvester_db.dat.
Private\10281e17	Delete the following [101ffc31]mpxv2_5.db (or .db file with mpx) [101ffc31]pcv6_1.db (or .db file with pc) [102830AB]thumbnail_v2.db (thumbnail DB) dummydb.dat and any files that end with .db-journal

5. At this point you have music on your phone and no library. Lets try to fix that. Disconnect your phone, and reconnect it in the "PC Suite" mode.
6. Using Ovi Suite, delete and restore music on your player. If you are using Sync capability, just delete the existing music and hit Sync. If you are doing this manually, you could copy music back to the PC and re-save it onto the phone.
7. Disconnect. Start the Music player. If it still insists of "Searching for Music" press Stop. Your music and playlists are already available on the player.

Note that any mucking around you do comes with risks. You could potentially a) invalidate your warranty b) corrupt something else or c) worse brick your phone.

If all else fails, do a soft reset (not just a factory restore). There are a lot of articles that can walk you through how to do this. But remember, you will lose your data while doing a soft reset.

Nokia 5800 v52.0.007

Almost on a whim, I checked for updates on my 5800 yesterday, turns out Nokia continues to be very generous (and partial) to its first ever phone on the v5 platform. The latest update gets the version up to 52.

The partiality of course comes from the fact that not all Product codes, even though they are otherwise identical, seem to get the love. If I had not changed my product code, I would probably still be stuck in the v30s myself.

A changelog from Nokia, as usual, is missing. However, it does feel quick and responsive to the touch and during rotation. Cannot confirm the other unofficial claims of better photos and video - they pretty much feel the same.

The question of course is this - how long will this last? Is Nokia 5800 the Nexus One of Symbian v5? Or is this just the test bed that gets updates more often because Nokia needs feedback on them in the wild before they get professionally rolled up into its ^3 devices? And, does it even matter?

Swype on, Symbian

Woo Hoo!

Nokia Beta Labs, has just announced the availability of Swype for the S60 5th Edition phones - including the Nokia 5800.

Not that this gets the S60 5th platform in line with Android, or gives me much respite from phone-envy, But it is a pretty darn good step in the right direction.

Just installed it on my phone and can confirm that it is indeed working. Swyped my first text message out. What struck me though was the broken UI in trying to download the beta directly onto the phone. Beta labs, on my phone, has a sign-on link that doesn't work. Nokia Ovi, defaulted to a mobile interface that does not have a link to sign-in. The quickest way seemed to be to go to https://account.nokia.com, force a log in and then go onto Beta Labs.

Despite the pain to get to it - Swype does work now.

5800 firmly upgrading

Yay - this makes me feel like a kid entering a candy store - giddy with anticipation. My phone's firmware is upgrading again - to v.51.0.006. The phone is downloading the firmware as I type, that is available as an OTA release. The official changelog includes:

• Improved Mail for Exchange
• Improved video calls
• Improved browser
• Performance improvements

Does not sound like a lot, but folks have reported other minor benefits as well.

This of course would not have happened, had I not changed my product code from 0575586 (which, despite being an early adopter of the phone, does not get any love from Nokia) to 0559961. But that is the topic for another post.

Nokia 5800 - free space on C drive

If you are like me, capacity constraints have a tendency of sneaking up on you. And when they do, suddenly everything you do is hamstrung by the capacity limit you never even knew existed. Ignorance in this case, seldom is bliss. The same happened with my Nokia 5800, which led to this post.

The Nokia 5800 comes with two storage options - the C drive (Phone memory) and the E drive (Memory card). The Memory card is the bigger storage, and Nokia bundles in an 8GB card with the phone. The problem however is the C drive or the phone memory. A fresh install will give you a tad more than 80MB, but you seldom get that in actual usage. Which is what makes it crucial to maximize the amount of phone memory you have to ensure the device does not let you down when you need it the most. Here are a few things you could do to make sure you have the most memory available on the phone.

• Install new applications on the Memory card: Fairly obvious, but as you get and install new applications on the phone, choose "E: Memory card" during installation. There are of course some applications (mostly from Nokia) that don't play nice and do not let you choose. Nothing much you can do there, other than to see if you can live without them.
• Remove any applications installed on Phone memory: Go to the application manager in the phone settings at Settings > Application mgr. > Installed apps. Applications installed on the Phone do not have SD card icon next to the application. Make sure you have the installable of the application handy before you uninstall it by choosing Options > Uninstall > Yes. Of course, there will always be some applications and components that need to be installed directly on the Phone and cannot be installed on the memory card.
• Delete the emails content from the Messaging client: If you are using the standard messaging client (The one that does both SMS and email) for email, then deleting the emails (and attachments) will free up some memory. Go to any of the email folders setup in the phone and do Options > Delete > Phone Only > OK. This will leave the headers in the phone but delete the email content to free up space.
• Delete unused mailboxes from Messaging: If there are email accounts setup that you do not want to use anymore, delete them by going to the Messaging application and Options > Settings > Email > Mailboxes, select the Mailbox you want to delete and click Options > Delete > Yes.
• Change default Messaging drive: You can also configure the standard messaging client to store data on the memory card instead of the phone memory. To do this go to the Message client and do Options > Settings > Other > Memory In Use, and select "E: Memory card".
• Reconfigure mailboxes on Nokia Messaging: You can reconfigure your mailboxes to manage the amount of data in the phone. Go to email.nokia.com, to choose which folders are synced with the phone. In the section "My email addresses" click on the link "Edit settings". In the section " Mail folders to sync" un-check the folders you do not want to access from your phone. To make sure that the phone is updated, open the Nokia Messaging application (This is different from the regular Messaging application with an icon that looks like the @ sign). Go to Options > Tools > Settings, and click the General Tab > Reset data. This re-loads all data in the email, but without the folders you have un-checked previously. Of course be warned that this make take a while.
• Configure Ovi Store to install on the Memory card: You can configure Ovi Store to install directly to the Memory card. Open the application and go to Options > Account > Settings > Installation Preferences, to set it to the Memory card.
• Clear downloads folder: Your download folders is probably set up on the memory card. Then it is not going to impact your Phone memory, but in the event that is not the case, make it a practice to delete the downloads as soon as you are done using them. Go to the standard File Mgr and go to C: Phone memory > download, select the downloaded files and delete them.
• Delete temporary & cache folders: You will need to download & install an alternate file manager like the Y-browser to do this. Once you have it installed you should be able to see and delete the following folders. C:\System\cache (This is the browser caches), C:\System\dmgr (This is where temporary files are stored by the browser). Both folders will be recreated the next time you start the phone browser. Next drop into the two temporary file locations C:\System\temp & C:\temp and delete any files you see in there.
• Clear Google Maps cache: Google maps downloads and stores a bit of data on your phone, depending on how much you use it. To reset the data cache in Google maps, start the application and go to Options > Tools > Reset, to get back some of that.
• Do a hard reset of the phone: This is a drastic step, probably not something you want to do unless the situation is dire and none of the steps above have helped. The site allaboutsymbian.com has a guide to perform a hard reset - follow it and good luck.

And that hopefully should get you some space back on your Phone memory, as it did mine.

Nokia 5800 Free Applications

I discovered this new awesome javascript library called the jQuery. And that helped me put together something I had wanted to do for a long time. Check out the list of ~43 applications all of which are free for the Nokia 5800.

What did jQuery do? Well, check out the neat plugin for jQuery, that allows you to sort tables on the fly.

My 5800 - Top 10 faults

Nokia has done a very good job with the hardware requirements of the 5800. As noted in my earlier posts here and here, there are a number of things to love about the phone. But, as with anything else, there are always room for improvement, and here are some key opportunities. You will see that a number of examples are more interface and software related that could be modified in the future with an upgrade, which only speaks to the solidity of its specifications.

• Video Acceleration: For all its capabilities, the phone definitely misses that zip 'on the toes' feel factor. It is not so much with the running of an application, as it is apparent with any screen changes. It could be games, switching orientation, changing between applications. There is a nasty delay, not bad enough for you to realize upfront, but just enough to slowly eat away at the quality of your interaction with the phone. What makes it worse is that that whole UI seems to be riddled with hacks to compensate, making interacting with the phone a bit of a hit-and-miss affair. Cramming in just that additional video acceleration, could have freed up resources just enough to make the phone feel a whole lot zippier.
• Uncomfortable SIM slot: The Nokia 5800 has a unique SIM slot, that involves a notch that needs to be opened and the card slid in. However, to take an existing SIM out, there is no easy way. The back needs to come off, and the SIM forced out using one's nail or the stylus. For anyone who travels with the phone - it is definitely a major annoyance.
• Thick-headed approach to text input: This is one of the biggest annoyances with the phone. There are a total of four different means to enter text into the phone - QWERTY (landscape), mini-QWERTY (portrait), T9 predictive and handwriting. And you can choose one and only one - changing orientation does not automatically choose an appropriate keyboard. Which means no matter how you are using the phone, when it comes to entering text, you need to change orientation to the method you had set before, and use the keyboard. Here are some potential alternatives - allow preferences for the portrait mode. Switch to a full QWERTY mode for landscape orientation and the preferred mode for portrait. And here is taking it further, be aware of the stylus being pulled out, and maybe switch to the handwriting mode.
• Contacts bar: Of the two standby screens, one is a contacts bar. Really useful and comprehensive bringing in calls, SMS and email into one location. But, you can only have four friends. And everyone needs to have a picture. And if they have more than one numbers, hard luck - no way to specify (other than setting a default in contacts) which number you want to reach them at. So if your contact does not answer their mobile, tough luck. To try their apartment number, go rummaging through contacts, just like any other contact - rendering the contacts bar useless.
• No predictive input for QWERTY: Soft keyboards are inaccurate. The Nokia soft full keyboards do not offer any predictive correction of near miss key strokes. They already have T9, this just has to be a different sort of one to many mapping, and having no support at all is a big miss.
• Large buttons in landscape mode: The phone interface looks comical in landscape. The entire right side of the screen it taken up by big bulky soft keys, creating space for five buttons when applications typically have need for only two. Taking up twice the space required for buttons in the landscape mode is a egregious waste of the gorgeous screen real estate.
• Browser: In spite of the intermittent tantrums of the bundled browser (where the program just shuts down in a huff), it does a reasonable job rendering the pages. However, the interface definitely needs a lot of tweaking before it is anywhere close to being done. Here are a few examples, there is a full screen browsing mode with no back button. The browser supports tabbed browsing, but you cannot open a second tab unless the website opens a new window. Copy paste doesn't work on web pages. Try to copy the address of your current page - you wouldn't believe the hacks required. This gives you a flavor of the idiosyncrasies of the browser.
• Applications: S60 V5 breaks compatibility with S60 V3 which in itself has the FP1 and FP2 variants. What this means is that all applications need to be redone for compatibility, and there just aren't enough applications around the 5800 even 5 months after its launch. Scrounging for new applications seems to be the main activity of the blogger groups built around the phone. Nokia did put out some applications and is working on an app store, but they seriously run the risk of alienating developers for mobile platforms by fragmenting their development platforms this way.
• Soft key for Menu: Every thing on the Nokia 5800 can be done via the touch-screen, except for one and only one thing. Opening the menu, which for some strange reason can only be accessed by using the white menu key. This wouldn't seem that much of an annoyance till you realize that the screen is designed for single-handed use, till the need to use this button makes it impossible. Not to mention, it fully breaks the UI consistency.
• Clunky inconsistent UI design: Which brings us to the last point - the overall theme of many of the points above. More examples. Contacts uses a good-idea-in-theory-but-bad-in-practice interface where the buttons change based on your contacts and the previously pressed buttons. Something like the NeverLost interface on Hertz cars. That probably never went through a consistency and usability tollgate. Or consider the interface to add contacts on the contacts bar - looks suspiciously iPhoneque, while nothing else on the phone does. I am sure that never went through a consistency tollgate either. Overall the UI design looks like it has been built by engineers to demonstrate touch on the phone as opposed to a consistent user experience. That probably sums up what I think is the biggest fault with the phone.

There you go! That should serve as a good list for now. On the whole, the phone is not bad. But if this going to be the future of the touch platform for Nokia, then the platform needs a lot of work. And platform is not just on the phone (i.e., the user interface and the touch enabled S60 V5), but also the community and application universe developed around the application. By all accounts, the buzz around the 5800 has been phenomenal. Now the ball is in Nokia's court.

My 5800 - 12 reasons it's awesome

I have had my new Nokia 5800 for about 3 months now, having bought it in January 2009. During the period, it has gone through two firmware upgrades - first from v11.0.08 to v20.0.012, and the second one from v20.0.012 to v21.0.025. The first updated clocked in at about 133 MB and was available only via their NSU (Nokia Software Update) service the second one weighed in at only 4 MB and was available OTA (Over the Air).

Of the two, the second one seemed to have worked its magic on the phone, really making the interface more responsive, while the first one delivered the bulk of the enhancements. With two major upgrades in less than 3 months, it is ample proof that Nokia is indeed looking to the Nokia 5800 as a testbed to iron out any and all problems with its touch platform, before it start rolling out the big guns - the E series and the N series. That said, back to the question at hand - what really works with this phone.

• Screen: This is probably the most gorgeous feature of the phone, that you see as soon as you switch the phone on. With a width the same as VGA and a height only a third short of VGA, the resolution is great. And there is no better way to experience this than by playing one of the bundled videos. (You may end up trying out the bundled Dark Knight trailer.)
• Sound: The other think you will notice when you play the aforementioned trailer, is the sound. For a tiny set of speakers on a palm-sized phone, the sound is remarkably good. You can actually make out the different frequencies, and including, a very solid handling of base without the expected crackle.
• Basic phone functions: The Nokia 5800 does a good job at doing what it is supposed to do - act like a phone. It is surprising how many smartphones are so choc-a-bloc with features, that somehow the basic functions of a phone take a back seat. Not with the 5800. Calling, maintaining connectivity, the speakerphone, contact management etc are all exactly as expected. Not having to sacrifice a phone to get a smartphone is a terrific feature of the 5800.
• Size and Weight: At 109 grams, the phone is surprisingly light. And it fits beautifully in your palm, without being too wide or too narrow in depth. For me, the form factor of an iPhone did not seem as comfortable. The small details, like the recessed edge of the touch-screen, for example, adds a lot to handle of the phone. The build of the phone is pretty solid too. Even though it is built of plastic, there is very little of the plastic-y creaking during operation.
• Storage: The 5800 comes bundled with a hot swappable 8GB Micro SD card. The hot swap means you do not need to switch the phone off to remove or add the card. Nokia, by bundling in a decent sized card, adds a lot to the bottom line of the deal.
• Variety of Input methods: One of the advantages of a resistive touch-screen is that you can have input methods other than just the finger. A capacitive screen depends on the capacitive effect of the human finger to register a touch. So, it fails with a gloved hand, or a stylus. The 5800 on the other hand, comes with a stylus, a pluck (ex-guitar pick), finger, finger-nail etc. And taking the flexibility further, the phone comes with a variety of methods to input text - a full QWERTY keyboard, a mini-QWERTY, a T9 style touch input and even a stylus driven hand-writing recognition method.
• Battery: One of the surprising aspects of the phone is its long battery life. One the days I ignore it, with just a couple of calls, the battery seems to last and last. With a little more strenuous usage, the phone easily lasts a couple of days on a single charge. Of course, no amount of batter-life is enough, but what the phone brings definitely counts as a plus.

• Multi-tasking: A smart phone is supposed to do more than one thing, at the same time. With one of the three dedicated buttons dedicated to multitasking, it is not an after-thought. That said, the phone does struggle once a number of large applications are running in the background. But as long as you don't treat it like a laptop, it does a pretty good job.
• Proximity & ambient light sensors: Small capabilities like this get lost sometimes. But the ability of the phone to set screen brightness automatically, switch off when held to the ear all add up to a solid user experience.
• Other hardware capabilities: From a capabilities perspective, the Nokia 5800 is stuffed. In addition to everything else it comes with an FM Radio and twin cameras including front-facing camera for video calling. The primary camera comes with a short range flash, not for a room, but definitely great for those pub snapshots.
• S60 platform experience: The Nokia 5800 is built on top of the S60 platform, version 5. The version 5 is the new touch enabled operating software, that includes sensor frameworks to deal with the other hardware capabilities of the phone. Having the legacy of the S60 platform, means the the basics are already in place. Phone, contacts, copy-paste, application control, basic UI characteristics are all tried and tested. Applications too follow a well established method to interact with the end users. While the 5800 sometimes feels like a clunky touch interface, the core of the system is in place and works like a charm.
• Price: Has to be one of the best features of the phone. Retailing for under $400 (unlocked and unsubsidized) it is almost half the price of the iPhone and the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1. Not having to jail-break anything or break warranty for flexibility is one of the best features of the phone.

In short, the biggest positives of the phone are its capabilities - the sheer hardware capabilities and the underlying S60 software. Which leaves the interface components and applications. Coming up in the next post - where the Nokia 5800 definitely needs a little help.

My Nokia 5800

The Nokia 5800 has been my primary phone for the last three months or so. My earlier phone, the Sony Ericsson T610, was getting old and was in need of a massive update (retirement). Being a Sony Ericsson user, the idea of switching to Nokia seemed pretty unimaginable to me at the time. But try as I might, there wasn't a SE phone that seemed to fit the bill. Having delayed my purchase of a smartphone, my list of requirements seemed to be growing all the time.

When I started looking for a phone in late 2007, my list of requirements was driven by the phones at the time, particularly, the iPhone. On a number of levels, the iPhone was almost a no-no from the beginning. I never saw myself buying an Apple product - I adore them, just don't agree with the approach and philosophy of the company. Anyways, driven partly by the iPhone and the other phones at the time, this was a list of parameters I had come up with for my first smartphone.

• Touch screen: This was a must have for me. The way I saw it, the touch interface was going to be the standard interface philosophy soon, especially in mobile interfaces. Not to say the keyboard would be redundant, but the ability to interact with on-screen elements (for certain activities), without need for surrogates like cursors and element focus seemed to be the natural progression. And I wanted in on that. And for me, the physical keyboard was completely optional. Also, I was not sold on either the capacitive or the resistive touch screens. And so did not have particular loyalties to either camp.


• Other sensors:Proximity, light and orientation sensors was definitely high on the list. I figured, I will have to carry a second device, that was more focused on communication and email - so why not focus on the fun factor with my personal phone. Lack of an orientation sensor was almost a definite deal-breaker. For a fun phone, that definitely had a big cool factor.


• WLAN(WiFi): Was another must have. My plan was to have that as the primary means of getting data in and out of the phone. That would also save me a data-plan with my mobile carrier, which were not cheap to come by.


• 3G: Was optional for me. The way I saw it, the 3G network wasn't ubiquitous enough to base my purchase on being able to use it. Especially given that I would be traveling and therefore not necessarily have 3G coverage all the time. The other side effect of this decision was that I did not have to worry about the NAM and Rest of the world 3G variants before I got my paws on my phone of choice.


• Quad band: That said about 3G, it definitely had to be Quad band phone. Given, the same traveling nature - I did not want to get stuck with a phone that would not work in all my locations. My SE T610 did not do 850 MHz, and I had done my share of blaming the network (ATT) in public, secretly knowing that my phone was really to blame.


• Flexibility and Freedom: This was one of the most important requirements. In two ways - firstly I did not want a branded and locked phone. I wanted the flexibility to be able to change SIM cards across different locations. (See need for traveling above). And secondly, I wanted to be able to install and uninstall applications the any way possible. I did not want either my carrier or my phone manufacturer to determine what I did with my phone. The other piece of freedom - access to the file system of the phone, without the need to install a clunky proprietary program.


• Screen: QVGA (320 x 240) or better. Why? Coz the iPhone did QVGA.


• Battery: At least 1200 mAh. Again, that did not really mean anything without a strong support from the device itself. I hoped for a regular usage of 2 to 3 days, and heavy use of a day before having to recharge.


• Application ecosystem: Given that Apple was the only viable option dictated that this was not a necessity. But, as long as I was able to get a system that was open enough - It was a matter of time before people started trying to replicate the App Store.


• Camera: This surprisingly was not really high on my list. Primarily because, I was yet to see a phone that did a tenth as good a job as my SLR. And there were physical reasons to it - a camera phone had the sensor the size of my pinky toenail. I did not expect to do any serious photography on my phone. On the off chance that I was to witness a UFO landing, I just hoped to have a video mode to create a grainy, shaky, unrecognizable account of the event.


• Other connectivity (Physical & Bluetooth): Bluetooth was an expected minimum. Physical connectivity was not that important, as long as I had my WLAN access.


• Browser with Flash: The browser had to be a full fledged web browser, running javascript and hopefully some form of Flash lite. Again, I was sick of my piddly little text-ey browser on my T610.


• Memory: Expected a few gigs, but more importantly hope for one with an external card, which could be upgraded as and when I ran out of space on the phone itself. I have a tendency to run out of space - rather quickly.

The phones I was reviewing, at the time, were a wide variety. But they boiled down the the following:

• HTC Touch


• Sony Ericsson XPeria X1


• HTC Touch Diamond


• Samsung Omnia

It was neck and neck between these phones (though the Omnia went to the bottom of the pile pretty early) and it seemed just a matter of which price point I was comfortable with. As time went by, the Diamond seemed to slowly but surely rise to the top. XPeria was priced too high, and the screen of the Diamond beat that of the Touch hands down. Until the Nokia 5800 came along. If you look back at the list of requirements I had, you can see how well the 5800 stacks up. Next post - what I love about my 5800.