I am sorry for the long delay with this post, but I am currently very busy coding a really cool notes app for this phone. Stay tuned!
I have been a touchscreen device user since the days of the Palm IIIc, and have followed Palm to the Treo 680 in order to then make the switch to the XPERIA X1. My wife uses a Palm Centro for over a year (and is very happy with it). If this doesn’t make for a good first-impressions panel, what does – let’s dive right in!
I have handled the device in the past and was unimpressed with its usage of screen real estate (more here) – one immediately feels that the XM 5800 is targeted at novice users due to the card which ships inside of the battery compartment:
Strangely, the camera LED’s are not covered in any way once the battery cover is removed:
While the device does ship with a screen protector, it is completely useless due to the jagged lines all over the screen. The “speech bubble” wants to remind you of a hidden menu tool which can be accessed via an icon above the screen:
Powering the device on for the first time is an exercise in frustration – how for hell’s sake to I activate the keyboard to choose the country?
However: once the keyboard is up, it reveals a really nifty feature: unusable keys are blanked out. This behavior is standard and is made available via the S60 OS BTW, so expect to see it in other apps in the near future:
Entering the time isn’t too intuitive either:
Finally, here’s a shot of the device’s home screen – please note the loads of empty screen real estate (which will be filled by Tamoggemon shortly):
In the end, the XPressMusic 5800 can not verse established handheld platforms. If you currently use a Palm OS, PocketPC or even iPhone IOS-based device, do not switch to an S60 Touch device as it will literally make you crazy. Most actions take two to three times as many taps as on a Palm/PocketPC – while I will improve some of this shortly (give me three months), the devices are best left alone at the current state due to the insane operating system.
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