Ever since Steve Jobs rolled out the iPhone in Jan’07 MacWorld, mobile phone manufacturers were highly uncomfortable of missing the touch screen bandwagon.
The Finnish mobile giant is now armouring its artillery with Nokia 5800 a touch screen gizmo code named “tube”.With just three physical buttons and equipped with 8GB microSD memory card it can be further expanded up to 16GB. Unlike the iPhone the 5800 will not zoom out at the finger touch on the screen.
The 5800 boasts of handwriting recognition, built in 3.2 MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens, a backward facing camera to support video calling, GSM Quad band, Dual band 3G, GPS, Wi-Fi for Internet, HTML Web browser, Flash Lite 3 (a feature not there in Iphone). Alas the iPhone does have a 2 MP camera and that too without a flash or video recording facility.
The features that are available in 5800 and missing in iPhone are syncing facility with stereo Bluetooth or in-car Bluetooth handsfree, message forwarding handicap, voice recognition facility, expandable memory, replaceable batteries (which might be possible in the iPhone 3g)
In India the iPhone comes only on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone networks. So, Nokia 5800 seems all set to give a tough competition to Apple iPhone which now retails at Rs 31,000 for 8GB and Rs 36,000 for 16GB in India.
Text input in 5800 can be done through handwriting with the stylus on the QWERTY or through alphanumeric keypad.
Nokia phones come unlocked and users are used to swapping SIMs often and the locked carrier model will be nothing but a big failure in India. This is mainly due to poor coverage of operators in certain parts of the country and very few operators have nationwide coverage.
The iPhone has demonstrated the power of Touchscreen to the masses but the cost is not affordable. So Nokia might capitalize on that.
Will iPhone lower its price when the 5800 hits the market ?
Only time will tell … Until then Im cursing myself for not having a iPhone 3G