Last year's iPhone hype aided the rapid popularization of the touchphone concept, infecting a lot of telecom market analysts. Apple just took another ride of fame, releasing a 3G version of the device. It was hardly in any way different from the original, save for a minor change in materials and the availability of 3G and GPS support). Nokia was second to try their talents on the touchphone field of opportunities. Nokia Tube, officially dubbed 5800 XtremeMusic, is another rising star pumped forward by its unique position of Nokia's very first S60-powered touchscreen smartphone and sporting a collection of features combined with a democratic price. The Tube invades the market smashing opponents in the way, but still failing to rank as something ultimate or godlike just a really good invention that you can buy for a surprisingly sane price. Unfortunately, its rich hi-tech stuffed is balanced out by a very plain design and poor assembly. Another miracle failed, as all of them do in real life.
The WM-powered Diamond PDA tailored by HTC looks a meek wallflower fading into the background while Tube and iPhone have the floor. Ironically, the very concept of a touchphone originated with this platform, long before iPhone and Tube were ever born in the designer's imagination. The segment's leading company HTC announced the groundbreaking (at least for the WM platform) Diamond PDA this summer, equipping it with a brand new TouchFLO 3D graphical user shell. So we thought it would stand to reason to make this handset a third entry on the list of contestants. A few simple polls taken across the office revealed that people tend to admire the appearance of Diamond more than that of the two remaining contestants. It was praised for its compactness, making it look a bit like a conventional handset.
Video, part I
Diamond and iPhone come with comparable sets of accessories, in either case looking rather reserved in number and quality. 5800 is apparently better in this sense, bundled with a mediator, a desktop holder, a 8 Gb flash card, a variety of cables including a TV cable, etc. Apple looks a bit ridiculous against this sort of background, saving every possible bit of wire the only way to charge iPhone is to plug it into a powered USB slot using the data cable, or use the bundled adapter to stick it into a regular wall outlet this looks a bit too Spartan, but not in the epic sense of the word. HTC would also have been doing much better if they had included a 3.5 mm adapter. Oh, I just forgot to mention that with Tube, you get a remote control set for the music player, the thing merged into a single piece with the headset the good old trinket that never changed since the days of N81.
Apple is the absolute leader on the aesthetical front, assaulting the enemy lines with metal, glass and a large screen diagonal. Even the ambitiously looking Diamond grows bleak and pale pitted against the Tube on a runway, let alone the redneck-flavored, run-of-the-mill looking Tube (but no gadget would ever want to mess with it if you ask about functionality, so appearance is often deceptive!). Some people dislike the roughly faceted surface of Diamond, but that's supposed to be a specialty feature and has already won an equally numerous cult of followers, so this sort of arguments is more appealing to the personal taste than to reason. On the practical side, these crazy facets prove a poor solution: the edges quickly become worn out, scratched and shabby. Out of the three pieces in question, Diamond's casing is the most vulnerable to fingerprints and grease marks, iPhone coming in second place. The soft-touch back panel of 5800 gives it a huge practical advantage in this aspect.
Nokia has the best ergonomics, but that's not the impression you get at first sight the handset is rather thick but, in a surprising fashion, this makes no obstacle and doesn't annoy you even in the slightest way. The casing's dimensions are very well-balanced. A mediator and a stylus are included into the sales package, offering you alternate options for touch control. Diamond and iPhone share second place. The latter doesn't even have any dedicated call buttons, the former lacks a standard 3.5 mm audio out and blocking slider. As for the suspicious presence of a stylus in the sales box of 5800, don't get anxious you'll likely need it once in a blue moon. The full-screen QWERTY keyboard makes text input faster and easier than with iPhone, even though the latter has a substantially larger screen.
The Nokia touchphone scores the highest mark in the overall functionality competition. It has the best camera out of the three contestants (its video recording capabilities easily beat certain 8 Mp cameraphones), the longest battery life (exceeding a day's continuous mp3 playback), a full-fledged connectivity pack (including Share Online support), a hot-swappable memory slot the latter is something totally missing from Diamond and iPhone. HTC comes second in this test, iPhone lagging behind the two it can't even record videos or get a Bluetooth headset working with it. Oh well, it can't send any files via Bluetooth, too.
Video, part II
All the three contestants sport a touch interface, but each has this in a very special way different from the others. Apple iPhone stands out for a perfectly drawn user shell. The comfort and looks hit the top notch of our scale, boosted by a large screen. The only thing about its screen that can be seen as challengeable is the text input speed, on multiple occasions proving slower than what you get with the Tube. In all other aspects, iPhone's screen and interface score a clear win. The thing we liked the best was the stylishly looking and handy media player. On top of this all, you get the multi-touch feature, giving you much more fun and less mess with things like image scaling.
Once it comes down to the software side, Nokia becomes the leader. Its sensory version of the S60 software platform retains the full strength of the previous, non-sensory revisions, offering a nearly full compatibility with the existing applications fitted for use with a regular hardware keyboard. A special compatibility mode is even included, reserved for the most problematic cases, which are in fact so rare that you will hardly ever stumble upon one. The new software features include the Contact Panel alternative desktop mode, allowing you too keep your closest friends and associates' always at hand and instantly track their blogs. Another great addition is the quick launch bar helping you to make a quick work of your media tasks. Just tap on the touchpad seated above the screen and get an instant access to any media application.
In the third place comes the PDA crafted by HTC. The company offers the platform's best existing launcher, the exclusive TouchFLO 3D ivory mask pulled onto the plain face of Windows Mobile. Ironically, it fixes little besides the looks. Any existing incarnation of Windows Mobile is in multiple senses problematic, nuisances surfacing especially often when it comes to harnessing the user interface; sad, but nevertheless a fact. A full WM boot cycle lasts longer than the boot cycles of the two competitors put together.
The price is the third but not the least important aspect we're about to spotlight now. Nokia 5800 will set off onto the market with a price tag asking for 279 euros. The next entry in the line, yet unannounced, will cost even less, so the design simplifications have a pronouncedly beneficial effect on the price and competitive ability. As for the snowy Russian plains, iPhone remains outrageously overpriced in our country. The 8 Gb version retails for 660 euros, which is not the worst case after all be prepared to shell out a shocking 770 euros for the 16 Gb variant. In Moscow, a smuggled 'gray' iPhone in its original non-3G, metal-backed incarnation is offered for roughly 400 euros. The price for Diamond has been revised and pulled down to a same level, revolving around 450 euros. If we shut the eyes to the gadget's official price and substitute it with the black market one, all the three devices fall into the same price bracket. The 3G version sells rather poorly across the Russian Federation, so far scoring only 30,000 sold copies (the initial black market shipments included, though there weren't many before iPhone's official entry into Russia) The most viable product of these three touchscreens is, obviously, Nokia 5800, playing a winning combination of A-class brand, handy touchscreen and affordable price.
Our final judgment sounds as plain as any copybook maxim anything born in this imperfect world will never stand up to its counterpart from the world of ideals swarming in the creators head. Once off the concept paper and finally in full flesh, the device is just as good as the sum of its actual strengths, but doesn't score above this earthly bar, the beauty still confined inside the eye of the beholder and expectations trapped inside his mind. This phenomenon is what helped to propel iPhone up the charts, its hyped image looking more alive to the mesmerized consumer than the real-world thing. The same works perfectly for the Tube, but no known psychic power can fix the device's bumps and downs in a way other than tricking you into thinking they aren't were. The best thing about Tube is that it's above mimicking and plagiarism, playing on a field with very little, if any, common ground with iPhone's domain. Instead of a boring clone schemed to topple the competitor with more computing power, shine and fancy features, we get a self-sufficient, perky and smart gadget bound to please those who haven't found iPhone their cup of tea and wishing for an alternative vision of the concept. The Tube, just as anything mundane, comes with flaws. The quality of materials and assembly isn't great; as for visual impact, the handset doesn't look anything special, its features ranking somewhere between 'dull' and 'vapid'. Apple iPhone takes the full advantage of this breech in the enemy lines on the aesthetical front, easily defeating Tube with its famed style and feel that have long been fueling the iPhone hype and still serve as ever-returning trumps in the hands of Apple's marketroids. Crazed iPhone fans will never notice its backward functionality, the too plain camera being a typical instance. The WM-powered HTC handset feels awkward in the competition, - Microsoft's mobile platform scores an epic fail in all ergonomics-focused comparisons with the competitive products. The only reason to buy a WM-powered smartphone is a long preceding experience with WM products that puts habit in the first place, setting the urge of common sense back. HTC did their best to polish down the most annoying bumps, but WM on the whole is far from shaping into a diamond, stuck amid its carbon stage.
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