The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a touchscreen phone that is still receiving regular updates despite being two years old. It’s being touted as a music player alternative, and with easy drag-and-drop clicking, along with 8GB internal memory, it serves quite well as a basic MP3 player. Unfortunately, for some people who aren’t blessed with non-branded phones, updates aren’t available with certain RM type models. This is up to the operator who decides to release the update for the specific RM. Hacking the phone can get you similar versions of the new firmware, however, which circumvents this branding issue. Try this at your own discretion, and start with Google. With regards to those who have non-branded phones, this new firmware update can be attained through NSU (Nokia Software Updater) or OTA (Over-The-Air). They’re both the same, just that one requires an internet WiFi connection, while the other needs the connect PC to be connected to the internet.
The new firmware update brings a whole list of changes:
- Browser 7.2
- Lifecasting (with Maps 3.0T SR3.0)
- Flash Video Phase-3 – Flashlite 3.1.7.x
- Gimlet Touch 2.2
- Kinetic scrolling in Appshell (Menu grid)
- OVI Sync 2.0
- Hurriganes Music Player
- Enable Side lock Key functionality during Swipe UI (Calendar/Clock alarm)
- Windows 7 Device Stage Support
- OVI store 1.5.6
- Quick Office v4.2
- OVI Music
- Cherry v2.1
- Rihanna service launcher
- OVI contacts 1.50.8
- Workaround for Niagara (SMD) display module for DFS52.50 based products
Practically, you’re only going to notice two main parts: the music player upgrade, and the kinetic scrolling. The kinetic scrolling used to apply only in certain areas (e.g not in the main application, which made it rather redundant), but now it’s kinetically everywhere that has a scroll bar. It’s a great feature to have atheistically, which is a very nice touch. It’s one step to modernizing this phone’s rapid descent into the past. The music player has been revamped for easier and smoother song access, which is nice.
Despite these useful additions, if you’re on at least firmware v30, the update isn’t going to change much, so it’s not necessary for your Nokia. The browser is still finnicky (use something else if you want to access the net), it’s still somewhat slow, and no multi-touch (a huge flaw, if you ask me, but updates aren’t going to change that). If you’re unfortunately stuck on a firmware with v20, I would highly recommend you find a way to hack the Nokia to a newer version past v30.