While not exactly an instant response to Apple’s game-changing iPhone, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is effectively Nokia’s first crack at the growing mainstream market for touchscreen-operated smartphones. It’s also the debut platform for Nokia’s S60 5th Edition user interface – a re-tooled version of S60 for touch-operated devices.

The 5800 XpressMusic is positioned as a music-majoring mobile rather than an Nseries handset, although its functionality is up-scale. As well as the standard model, it’s available in the UK in a version that supports Nokia’s Comes With Music unlimited music download service. It has a relatively modest 81MB of internal storage, though it does come with an 8GB MicroSD memory card in-box, and cards of up to 16GB are usable.

Wi-Fi and HSDPA support fast downloading of tracks and other content. Satellite location finding, using A-GPS technology and Nokia Maps software, can be found onboard, while it has plenty of multimedia features and online options. It has a mid-range main camera – a 3.2-megapixel shooter – plus a secondary front camera for video calling.

But the main focus is how well Nokia has implemented this touchscreen interpretation of the S60 platform, particularly in terms of usability compared to Apple’s baby. The 5800 XpressMusic’s display is a 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen rather than the sort of capacitive screen employed for the iPhone’s Multi Touch system. The size is ample for excellent quality video playback on the high quality 640x360 pixels resolution, 16 million-colour screen

However, the 5800 XpressMusic’s screen tapping action lacks the smooth swiping and effortlessly responsive stroking action of the iPhone. You can scroll around with a bit of finger dragging and moving, but it’s a less fluid type of touchscreen device. The screen provides haptic feedback when you dab it; some options require double tapping and some only one, which can feel odd at first. Usually the screen options are adequately sized for uncluttered fingering. However, sometimes more precision requires use of a small stylus, tucked away in the back panel (or, alternatively, you can use a supplied ‘plectrum’).

Not as stylish as the iPhone

It’s no iPhone-alike, the design being more distinctly Nseries-looking, with a phone-sized body (measuring 111(h) x 51.7(w) x 15.5(d)mm and weighing 109g). A thin lip around the edge of the fascia isn’t particularly stylish, though Nokia does restrict the physical buttonry on the front to a trio of thin keys (Call, End and Menu). On the side, there’s also a slider for locking/unlocking the screen.

The touchscreen user interface used on the 5800 XpressMusic hasn’t been developed fresh from the ground up. It’s obviously built on the legacy of Nokia’s S60 platform, so the control conventions and structure, once you delve into the menus and navigation system, are broadly similar. As such, any user with knowledge of Nokia’s other S60 smartphones won’t be fazed by a mostly familiar interface, albeit with touch control. The flip side of this familiarity, is that it means Nokia hasn’t moved its touchscreen game on particularly far with the S60 5th Edition – it feels like a stop-gap rather than a fully fledged iPhone battler.

Menus are familiar; the main menu is a 12-icon grid of functions, and a tap takes you through to further sub-menus. Virtual softkeys on screen do the job normal buttons would on a regular handset, and you tap to select from lists onscreen. A scroll bar allows for faster whizzing through long lists of options.

The homescreen set up is quite different from previous Nokias, though. A pair of touchscreen buttons on the bottom can propel you into the contacts list or pull up the numberpad. Tapping icons in the top area of the display gives fast access to feature settings, such as clock, calendar, profiles, plus Wi-Fi , Bluetooth and other connectivity status and switching options.

A Contacts bar can be set up with four of your favourite contacts displayed onscreen, with a thumbnail pic. Tapping on one pulls up a string of recent communications (messages and calls), plus up to two RSS feeds you want to allocate to them. The Contacts bar also provides one-button options for making a call or composing a message.

A drop-down shortcuts toolbar can be activated by pressing a small touch button above the screen. A column of five icons appears on the right of the display, for pulling up the music player, media gallery, video centre, web bookmarks and share online function - the latter for quick uploading of user content online to services such as Ovi, Flickr, and Vox.

Music playback is a strength

While text messaging is a drag on many touchscreen mobiles, the 5800 XpressMusic does reasonably well. There’s plenty of finger room on the virtual numberpad, which has a conventional layout and it is adequately responsive. A full sized onscreen Qwerty keyboard can be popped up in landscape orientation, which is fairly roomy, or you can opt for a mini-Qwerty that requires stylus intervention. A handwriting recognition option provides another alternative.

Touchscreen apart, music is the headline act – and it delivers an excellent audio performance. The touch music player user interface is not a great deal different from other S60 phones, with the usual variety of options and track categories listed. Tunes are selected in a regular way, with no new iPhone-style presentation flair. No-nonsense touch controls onscreen are straightforward to operate.

The in-box earphones have an average music phone range, but sound quality is acceptable. However, you can easily plug in better headphones to ramp up the quality, thanks to a standard 3.5mm socket on the top of the device.

With our decent Sennheiser ear-wear in place, the music sounded exceptional, with a lovely rich sound and big bass where required. External stereo speakers are better than most mobiles, but are still lacking in lower frequency response.

As well as sideloading tracks in the usual way from a PC, or downloading from network services, Nokia Music Store provides a direct way to purchase tracks. Alternatively, on the Comes With Music version of the 5800 XpressMusic, unlimited downloads you can play on your phone and PC are available. It also has a tidy FM radio for free entertainment.

Imaging is reasonable on this device, the 3.2-megapixel Carl Zeiss lens-equipped camera doing an effective job at producing decent pictures for this grade of shooter. Its autfocus system works efficiently and you can get sharp and detailed images. Colour reproduction is usually okay, though it can occasionally look a touch over saturated in certain conditions.

Video shooting is better than average for a mobile, with VGA resolution captured at up to 30 frames per second. Playback looks smooth on the large display, or when pumped out to a TV using the in-box TV-Out cable. RealPlayer software does an excellent job of maximising the full screen impact of sideloaded or downloaded video content. Nokia includes its Video Centre app too, so you can quickly find mobile-optimised download and streaming content from numerous online services. The BBC iPlayer mobile app is also available on UK models.

A-GPS satellite positioning is well implemented in this device too. It fires up quickly, locking on to satellites in next to no time, and working effectively as you move around. Nokia Maps has been adapted for touchscreen with tap-to-zoom ‘+’ and ‘–‘ buttons onscreen. The phone package comes with maps for the whole of the UK and Ireland pre-loaded on to the MicroSD card, so it works quickly at finding locations and bringing back routing info. Maps can be viewed in 2D, 3D or as satellite images.

The S60 5th Edition browser experience has been improved by touch, as it enables a more intuitive way of moving around pages and selecting links. It even has a drag-to-zoom bar. Once again it’s not as elegantly smooth as the iPhone's Mobile Safari, but then what is?

Nokia quotes impressive best-case battery figures of up to 400 hours standby or 5 hours talktime on 3G networks (406.2 hours and 8.8 hours, respectively, in GSM-only coverage). The music player can keep playing for up to 35 hours between charges. In reality users will be mixing and matching their gadgetry usage on this multi-talented device, so individual experiences could be very different.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has plenty of neat high-end features, generous helpings of onboard apps, and delivers a superb music performance. But with this first mainstream touchscreen device from Nokia hasn’t come out all guns blazing to better the iPhone’s elegant interface and usability. The S60 5th Edition UI is unmistakeably evolutionary rather than revolutionary, with plenty of familiar S60 conventions and characteristics simply converted into a touchscreen environment. As such, it’s far from radical and operation feels limited compared to the iPhone and other recent devices.

Its control system operates well enough as a touch version of an S60 phone, and even looks Nseries-like. But some may have expected the world’s number one phone maker to deliver much a more innovative and slick first touchscreen response to the iPhone. Still, this is a decent smartphone for the price with plenty of functionality onboard – if not exactly a genuine iPhone botherer.