Well its been a while in coming and I was hoping to find loads of new and innovative applications on there, you know like the Apple store on the iPhone. Erm no, there was virtually nothing new and very little of it was free.

If you look on forums and sites regularly looking out for new applications for your 5800 then you will have or have seen most of what is on the Nokia store already. That is if you can cope with the fact that you need to register yourself (best done on a PC / Mac) and accept a load of warnings that you are going to download something and are you sure, this is almost as bad as using Vista.

Lets just say that I hope it improves in leaps and bounds because at the moment there isn’t much to make me visit it again and again. Maybe they need to add an app that can keep your password and make the whole experience that little bit more slick. I’d give it a 4/10 at the moment but surely things must improve rapidly. With Samsung and now SonyEricsson coming out with Symbian S60 Series 5 handsets the market is only set to grow, come on Nokia lets try and do something slick and user friendly hey.

Link – Nokia Ovi Store

A few weeks later than the unbranded phones but the Nokia 5800 on T-mobile has now got the V21 firmware. Can’t see that much different on the surface but it seems a fair bit has actually been fixed. I’ve not tried the bluetooth yet and if it works with my BMW, but I live in hope but not ‘that’ much hope.

A quick try of the browser it seems to be much quicker than before and everything is generally a bit more slick. No impovements to the camera yet unfortunately buts maybe on the next release.  There are new features like a breathing menu button to alert you of missed calls or a text. The partial list of the wait for it, 225 fixes are listed below.  Seems they are pushing to make S60 v5 as good as they can which can only be a good thing hey.

V21.0.025 Change Log

Following BUGS are fixed,
* Lock code does not work after FOTA update
* Logs: Info cannot be seen in missed calls if name includes special characters
* The envelope icon doesn’t open after reading the sms
* Autolock requested via MfE but not activated
* MPX harvester server crach with DRM files
* Oper. menu application icon missing after NSU update
* CDP Displays: CDP Clock and Data Have To Be Transmitted 2 Frames Before Sleep Out (SLPOUT 11h) Command
* “Program closed: Idle” after Restoring factory settings
* Video telephone: Phone reboots after tap call button several times when answer an incoming video call
* Music Player crashes when user tries to refresh Real audio into Music library
* Dialer: The cursor is not displayed in dialer panel
* Audio disappears after playing music long time with BT
* Music player the album art in Now Playing view is downscaled
* Access point password is not provisionable
* Voice commands application crashes after language change
* Synchronization cannot be done using PC Suite Sync application
* FL3.0: Inline Text editing from browser plugin is not successful
* Browser does not show some MIME-types of type image correctly
* Browser: Not possible to move the cursor when typing in a <textarea> field
* Browser: Page scroll wobbles if user scrolls with flash while page is in scroll motion
* Browser: Page does not scroll if drag is started from the edge of flash window
* Browser: Page scroll does not work after stopping going to new page opened via flash banner
* Bluetooth causing extra current consumption when activated
* Predictive search not working properly in country selection
* Music Player application crashes if album art is selected to be changed
* Duplicate contacts after restore
* Music Player: White screen displayed if change orientation between landscape and portable mode
* MO/MT calls will not work when restoring backup from old phone to more recent version

NEW FEATURES AND APPLICATIONS

* Notification Lights according to Nokia Design specification
* Touch usability improvements:
* Finger touch support for Special Character Table
* Size of arrows (tab pane & navi pane) in touch UI
* Arrows in forms, date & time selection, touch UI
* Profile, date area in touch UI
* Calendar Finger usability: change single row list items in day view wider

Why is it that the little things that you need to work on a phone don’t. Well guess what Symbian S60v5 is as bad as S60v3 in connecting to BMW bluetooth. After having maybe 10 Nokia’s I decided to get a Sony Ericsson because I’d read about problems with Nokia bluetooth when I got my new motor, yes a BMW.

Fast forward a few years and I see a nice new Nokia, this time the 5800 and I get it, but I forgot to check if it worked with my e90 BMW 3 series, the iDrive can see it but. Guess what, it doesn’t work……….

It connects sometimes for 10 minutes and then dies, or it might fail to connect the next time and it certainly won’t transfer the phone book to the car. I’ve tried everything to fix it, upgraded to the latest v20 firmware and I think things have got worse not better. Tried the Nokia phone book transfer software for the 810 and that doesn’t make any difference. Hidden, un-hidden to connections, remove all other connections, try it after the phone switches on the lot.

The Sony Ericsson k810i was faultless, it just worked, I could even get into the car after it was started with the phone and it paired, I could transfer calls whilst still active, easy peasy. But the Nokia 5800 S60v5 can’t do a thing right.

If anyone has a fix or any ideas what the problem is or if they have had any success please let me know. If it wasn’t for this problem it really is a great phone, one of the best I’ve had, good screen, battery life the lot, but BMW and Nokia bluetooth issues are taking the shine away…….

OK so I’ve  haven’t written a full review of the 5800 yet but that will be coming soon. However I have as of yesterday been able to update to the latest firmware v20.0.0.12 using the Nokia PC Suite, it didn’t want to play via FOTA.

Its a good improvement, there are new features about and its certainly quicker than it was before. And with it I’ve been able to get loads of new applications and games that wouldn’t work before.

Changelog

• “Faster touch-screen input” (the phone is generally more responsive)
• “Faster internet data download times”
• Geotagging information now available in Camera (finally), plus photo taking now possible with the front (secondary) camera.
• Dictionary application added, with support for multiple languages (as first seen on E66 and E71).
• “Improved e-mail experience” (this includes improved scheduled email retreival)
• App. update application added (as first seen on N85 and N79) – this is used to update individual Nokia applications outside of firmware updates.
• General operation seems smoother, better performance is various applications, including Gallery, plus screen rotations are faster.
• Playing back Flash/FLVvideos had less hiccups, especially on YouTube, where Web on the 5800 now becomes almost as good as a dedicated YouTube client, there’s an article on this coming from Steve shortly…
• ‘Search’ on the standby screen now searches phone content as well as on the Internet
• Cosmetic effects added, especially in Gallery when switching orientation
• Support for OMA DRM, enabling BBC iPlayer programme downloads and other future applications
• The usual litany of small bug fixes.

View on the Nokia 5800 and getting applications

If you want a good place to get some S60v5 software for the phone give Daily Mobile a click. There are also loads of good new themes for the phone as well.

As for the phone itself I’m really impressed so far, battery life is brilliant even with bluetooth left on all the time. Surfing on the phone is very fast and the screen excellent. The software is starting to come and with it being the same as the N97that’s only set to accelerate, the future of the phone and the format is looking very positive indeed.