Nokia 5800 Xpress Music phone

It’s been a long time coming, but Nokia’s 5800 Xpress Music – or, to put it another way, their competitor to the iPhone – is finally here.

It’s not actually their first touchscreen mobile, just the first in recent years. Almost twice as thick as Apple’s phone, it has a solid feel and fits comfortably in a pocket. The screen has three buttons below it and a menu button that takes you to a menu screen that will be familiar to anyone who’s used a Nokia before.

The big difference is the touch-sensitive screen. Tap the clock on the home screen and you can set an alarm or change the time. Tap the network name to change profiles – and in all the menus, you can tap to change settings. When you do, the phone vibrates – though you can turn this off it does make it easier to be sure you’ve pressed something. On the whole it all works well, but in some places, like tabbed menus, those with chunky fingers may want to resort to the stylus that sits in the side of the case.

When it comes to entering messages, you can use a standard keypad on the screen, or a choice of small and full-screen keyboards. You can even use handwriting recognition, which we found worked pretty well.

Music and video playback were excellent, and the built in speakers very loud. The camera, though, disappointed us: it really needed good light to get a decent shot. There’s a reasonable email program built-in alongside the usual calendar and contacts tools – and you can even have your four most popular contacts on the home screen, with instant access to their calls and messages. And there’s a huge range of add-on software, though the touchscreen means versions for older Nokia models probably won’t work.

All in all, the 5800 Xpress Music is a good phone. If you like Nokia’s interface, you’ll get on fine with it. Battery life is good, and it has everything you’d expect, including the camera for video calls, and a replaceable battery. Not perhaps as slick as some of the competition, but a solid and pretty well-executed smartphone.