Nokia 5800 Chrome Review

The surprise is that it’s taken Nokia so long to enter the touchscreen market. But maybe there’s a method to their madness: after all, Nokia mobile phones have set the standard for phones for so long that perhaps they wanted to wait until they could do it right.

But as a touchscreen phone, does the Nokia 5800 Chrome actually do it right? The answer is a qualified yes. It does have an awful lot going for it. It offers GPS using Nokia Maps, Wi-Fi, 3.5G, and even comes with music for those getting an Orange mobile phone contract.

Being a Nokia, the phone element is familiar and very solid and serviceable, better than most on the market. The camera could be a lot better, weighing in at just 3.2 megapixels, less than the company uses on other handsets (and it shows in the pictures).

A shame, too, that Nokia didn’t take the time to come up with a completely new interface for this phone. It’s been adapted from other Nokia smartphones, and somehow doesn’t work quite right with the touchscreen.

What about the touchscreen? After all, that’s the major innovation here. It does offer the option between using fingers or the bundled stylus, but perhaps that’s just because the screen really isn’t as responsive to fingers as it ideally should be, and certainly isn’t as responsive as some of the competition.

All in all, it’s an acceptable phone, but after waiting so long to jump into touchscreens, the expectation is that Nokia would have done a more thorough job of it.