Isaiah's Tech

Just like the title says, the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is now available for pre-orders on their official US website here. The pre-orders are going for $289.99 USD, but we don't know when it will be shipping. If the rumours of Carphone Warehouse having a "six week exclusive" are correct then it should be available mid-September. That's definitely quite a lengthy wait time, so I hope you're patient. Keep in mind that it could arrive earlier.

Below is the Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition. You may notice it because it's just a variant of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and it has a silver chrome outline, which is identical to the Nokia XpressMusic that was in the retailer photo last week. On Nokia's official website, they have just stated that the 5800 Navigation Edition will be available in Q3 of this year for €285 ($405 USD).


The new phone is bundled with lifetime WALK navigation and voice-guided DRIVE licenses, and it also comes with the latest release of Ovi Maps (which includes high-res aerial images, weather service, terrain maps, and 3D landmarks for over 200 cities). The other features don’t differ from the ones of Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

Nokia 5530 XpressMusic: Phone Arena
Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition: Unwired View

According to the latest FCC filing, the Nokia 5800i has just been pushed through. It's not a direct upgrade from the regular 5800 XpressMusic, but there are a couple of differences. According to GSM Arena, the camera could be slightly upgraded, since the sensor may be a bit larger; another difference is that the 5800i doesn't look like it has WiFi support. I don't know if I'd trade WiFi for a slightly better camera, especially when it's only 3.2MP to begin with. We'll see if this gets a US / Canada launch.

Update: It looks like the 5800i that has just passed the FCC is headed to China and could be launched on China Unicom - according to Boy Genius.

[GSM Arena]

The Nokia N97 - that's overpriced in North America - is available on Vodafone UK for free, that's probably why it's Vodafone UK's top selling mobile phone of July - so far at least. In second is another Nokia handset, the 5800 XpressMusic. The Sony Ericsson W595, C510 CyberShot, and Samsung Jet round out the top 5 mobile phone sellers on Vodafone UK. The bottom five of the top 10 include (in the same order) the: Samsung Tocco Ultra Edition, Samsung Steel L810, Nokia 6300, BlackBerry Storm, and HTC Magic. I just though it was interesting to mention this since the Nokia N97 used to be one of my favourite mobile phones until I read all of the reviews. Top on my list now is the gorgeous and updated Samsung i8910 OmniaHD.

[Unwired View]

We heard word about this in early June, but the release date wasn't specified. Well, Rogers is now selling the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic for $199.99 CAD on a 3-year contract. The 5800 XpressMusic has been around for a while, so I'll recap its specs for you. It has: a 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen display with a 640 x 360 resolution, a 3.2MP AF camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and a dual-LED flash, 3.6Mbps HSDPA connectivity, a microSD slot, WiFi, and aGPS. With your purchase of the 5800, you will also find an 8GB microSD card in the box. I'd favour the HTC Magic over this handset, but just in case you're interested you can now scoop one up in Canada for $199.

[Boy Genius]

Rogers is getting everything and is hands-down the best carrier in Canada. According to this blurry picture, Rogers will be getting the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. It will sport the same resistive touchscreen, so that will be kind of sad - no Synaptics capacitive multi-touch display yet folks. I'd love to see people walking around with this because it will definitely look better than all of those Sony Ericsson phones that everyone has. Anyways, there has been no word on the availability or the price, but I just thought I'd mention that Rogers is getting another "first" with this handset.

[Boy Genius]

If this is true, this would be extremely great news for future Nokia touchscreen devices. Nokia is often criticized for using resistive touchscreens on both the 5800 and the N97, but it looks like the future will turn out much sweeter for some consumers. Rumour has it that Nokia could use Synaptics capacitive touchscreen technology in their future handsets. We could see this technology implemented as soon as Q3 of this year, so it's not too far away. "The first Nokia device to use a capacitive touchscreen are described as a 'high end handset and smartphone'." I hope that they use this in the Nokia N97, but that's just my wishful thinking - because it won't happen. I think that it could be implemented in those spinoff N97 devices, since it would be a good start. Looks like I will hold off from buying a phone until these devices are available. By the way, the above photo is just a concept photo made by Fabien Nauroy.

[Slash Gear]

I've never even heard of this company until we heard about them receiving the white Nokia E71 two months ago. Well, it looks like they will also be receiving another hot phone. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be coming to Cincinnati Bell for $149.99 USD on a 2-year contract. They will also be offering the phone with no strings attached for $349.99 USD which is $50 less than what Nokia wants for it. This phone looks pretty nice, but keep in mind that it does sport the resistive touchscreen - which is a turn-off for me.

[Engadget]

About a month ago, we saw the XpressMusic 5730, 5330 and the 5030 from Nokia. The latest rumour has it that a recently unknown handset, the XpressMusic 5530, will be dropping this fall. The model number, obviously, falls in between the 5730 and 5330 and would actually join the 5800 XpressMusic as a full-touchscreen music-oriented phone. This could be because it drops the full QWERTY keyboard of the 5730 and swaps it for a 2.9-inch touchscreen display. Other specs include: a 3.2MP camera, a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, WiFi, FM radio. The handset will be running on Symbian S60 5th Edition and is supposedly due out this September which is right around the time where the other 3 XpressMusic devices will land.

[Boy Genius]

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic looks like it will be making its way to North America soon. This is the first phone that uses Nokia's S60 5th Edition. It was released in pretty much everywhere except for North America. Looks like Nokia is deciding to finally release this phone in North America for $399 USD around a scheduled February 26 date. Nokia fans, rejoice!

Someone from the Android team has revealed a secret about their touchscreen capabilities. Apparently, Apple asked Google not to use multi-touch on their T-Mobile G1 phone. It looks like Google didn't want their bond with Apple to break-up, so they agreed. I think that they [Apple] might have even asked Palm not to use multi-touch, but they [Palm] disagreed. Could this be the real reason why Apple may sue Palm for their multi-touch?

Sony Ericsson continues it's boring Walkman-branded phones. They will be releasing the (silver) W395 Walkman in Q1 of this year. The W395 will not have 3G and will have a 1GB memory card, along with a 2MP camera. Amazing. This is why Sony Ericsson is in 5th place in the mobile world. They will also be releasing the (red) C903 Cybershot afterwards. The C903 will have a much more impressive 5MP camera with face detection and all that mumbo-jumbo. The C903 will also have 3G capabilities when it releases in Q2. These phones will only sell in Canada because they all come with cheap deals, thanks to Rogers. During class, i was touching my N81's phone's screen and someone thought my phone was touchscreen. I laughed on the inside because my N81 doesn't have touchscreen capabilities. It's easy to fool little kids.

The Acer Aspire One sporting the new Atom N280 chip is now official in the United States. If you do decide to get these 10-inches of beauty, Engadget wants to remind you to "just make sure you score the good battery." I can briefly go through some of the specs for you, just in case you are too lazy to go elsewhere. It will have a 1.6GHz Intel Atom (N280) CPU, 1GB of RAM (Good enough for Windows 7), optional 3G and 3 USB ports. I guess this can be categorized as a 'netbook'.

The 12.1-inch Dell Latitude XT2 tablet notebook with multi-touch capabilities was released earlier today. It's about 3.8 pounds and has a 6-cell 11-hour battery. Keep in mind that this is 11-hours under the best conditions possible so, in reality, it's about 9.5 hours. It's got DDR3 memory on-board, so you can upgrade it to 5GB whenever you feel like. You will also be able to choose between a 1.2 or 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and an 80/120GB HDD or even a 64GB SSD. The starting price is at $2,399 USD though, so it's quite expensive.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/09/nokia-5800-launching-in-north-american-flavor-this-month-for-39/
Did Apple Ask Google Not To Use Multi-Touch?: http://www.macrumors.com/2009/02/10/apple-asked-google-not-to-use-multi-touch-in-android/
Sony Ericsson W395 and C903 Walkman (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/sony-ericsson-bring-more-of-the-usual-w395-walkman-and-c903-cyb/
Acer Aspire One (and picture): http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/10-inch-acer-aspire-one-now-official-in-the-us/
Acer Aspire One Specifications: http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/rumor-10-inch-acer-aspire-one-to-replace-8-9-incher/
Dell Latitude XT2 (and picture): http://i.gizmodo.com/5150288/12+inch-multitouch-tablet-convertible-dell-latitude-xt2-now-out