Is the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic the best handset Nokia has ever launched?

GLOBAL – The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is arguably an unlikely candidate for such a bold question, especially when mentioned in the same breath as milestone mobiles of the past few years including the N95 and E71. But could Nokia’s first touchscreen caller actually be the best handset Nokia has ever released?

Read on to examine the evidence (and gut feelings), and to lay down your opinions.

This question has manifested itself as a result of a number of curious colliding factors. For starters, no matter who I’ve been speaking to of late (both within and outside of Nokia) the 5800 XpressMusic is consistently and unreservedly being championed along the lines of an ‘instant icon’ or ‘the best handset Nokia has released in years’. Likewise, one friend went into Carphone Warehouse here in the UK, and was told by the guy behind the counter that all they were selling was 5800s. Of course that doesn’t earn the 5800 this particular gold star of all-time greatness. Nonetheless, there’s my personal exhibit A.

Moving onto exhibit B, 1 million of these devices were shipped within the first two months of it going on sale, proof of its instant popularity.

Other evidence rears its head in the sheer amount of content that has been created by folks online surrounding the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic – in a little over 3 months almost 10 million search entries have appeared on Google relating to Nokia’s touchscreen music device. Compare that to the N95, which has attracted almost 34 million search results pages in over two years, and it becomes clear that the 5800 is a talking point on a serious scale.

Plus, we recently ran a poll to find out which new Nokia music phone was your favourite, which saw the 5800 XpressMusic go up against the newer 5730 XpressMusic, the Nokia 5630 XpressMusic, the Nokia 5330 XpressMusic and the Nokia 5030. Now it didn’t just win this poll, it annihilated its rivals to stomp into the top slot, capturing 56 per cent of the vote, more than double that of the 5730 XpressMusic. To win so convincingly was interesting. Of course, this was a poll of only a few recent handsets, yet it says something doesn’t it?

So is the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic the best handset Nokia has ever launched?

Source: Nokia, Nokia 5800 Best Tips& Tricks