Apple iPhone vs Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

UPDATE: if you are reading this, you cannot miss the iPhone vs BlackBerry Bold comparison. Check it out!

Aside from my wedding anniversay (4th), yesterday was the Nokia “iPhone-killer” day. Nokia just announced in London the new and much awaited Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, the first Nokia phone provided with a touchscreen display.

Been labeled as 5800, it means that it’s a mass market phone and the price has been defined accordingly, that is $390 (in Europe should be around euros 290), unlocked. For a complete set of features, take a look at the official Nokia 5800 website, full of animations, videos and complete specifications.

It’s pretty clear that everyone is looking at it as the iPhone’s rival, even if I expect that all the next high-end Nokia phones will be touchscreen and much more feature-rich. This means that this comparison is, to me, a bit like apples and pears and it doesn’t make much sense, but in any case it ’s something people are looking for.

Who is gonna be the winner? Here are my opinions, broken down in 10 categories.

1) Display

Nokia 1 – Apple 1

The new Nokia phone is provided with a 3.2″, 16:9 – 640×360 nHD display with up to 16M colors. An accelerometer is included, so that the screen automatically rotates depending on the orientation of the phone.

The iPhone’s screen is a little bit bigger (3.5″) but the resolution is less, being 480×320. Not having tried the 5800 yet, I cannot tell you more, but I would say I would prefer a better resolution over a not much bigger screen.

2) Size

Nokia 1 – Apple 0

The iPhone is bigger, on average (a little bit longer 115mm vs 111mm,  thinner 12.3mm vs 15.5mm and larger), that means the Nokia is about 25g lighter. Not a big deal, both of them are portable and designed to fit well in your hands. Having a smaller width, the Nokia should be easier to operate with one hand only.

3) Memory

Nokia 1 – Apple 0

While the iPhone comes in two versions, 8GB and 16GB internal memory, the Nokia is offered with 8GB only through a micro SD card. The latter is definitely a more flexible solution since it’s very easy and relatively cheap upgrading to 16GB, something iPhone’s owners cannot do.

4) Network

Nokia 0 – Apple 0

Both phones are provided with a complete range of available voice and data networks, both GSM and 3G, and both phones come in two different versions for 3G (850/1900MHz and 900/2100 Mhz).

5) Input methods

Nokia 1 – Apple 1

Your finger for the iphone, finger, stylus or plectrum for the Nokia. Even if I prefer my finger for both, many will definitely like having more available options. Here  it’s only a metter of personal tastes. Unlike the iPhone, Nokia provides you with a traditional stylus – handwriting, much common to Windows mobile and Palm users.

6) Battery life

Nokia 1 – Apple 0

Daily usage with each of these phones is a different thing, of course, but according to the technical specifications, the Nokia 5800 is overall better either for voice, data and standby (about 15 to 30% more). In addition, Nokia claims up to 35h of music time against 24h of the Apple iPhone.

7) Camera

Nokia 1 – Apple 0

The Nokia is provided with a 3.2Mpix camera with Carl Zeiss Optics and dual flash. On the contrary, the iPhone mounts a very basic 2Mpix camera, no flash, no carl zeiss, far behind the Nokia’s one despite it is certainly not the top as the one mounted in the N95.

Video Recording

Nokia 1 – Apple 0

No native iPhone video recording yet, even if the iPhone is capable of playing various video formats. Services lik Qik works on jailbroken iPhones while it is pre installed in any Nokia 5800 phone. In addition you can record videos with the standard Nokia application and make video calls, something not yet possible on the iphone.

9) UI

Nokia 1 – Apple 1

Hard fight here. The iPhone UI is definitely cool and any customer loves it. The Nokia’s one is promising, with the new contact and  multimedia bar (familiar to N-series owners) but not having tried it yet, I cannot say more. What I bet is that Nokia’s interface will be much better in terms of basic features still missing on the iPhone, like the much requested cut & paste or a much better bluetooth integration, with the ability to send all kind of multimedia files trough bluetooth. I would say it’s a draw at this moment.

10) Music

Nokia 1 – Apple 1

To me, another draw here. Nokia is pushing this phone as a music phone tightly integrated with their new online music store. In addition, any XpressMusic phone will come with one year subscription which lets you download unlimited songs (with DRM). The winner? iTunes is certainly a big one to fight but Nokia is the #1 in the mobile phone market, that means a preferred way to push their services to customers and, with that package, easier to make them prefer their store over iTunes.

Being a long time user of Nokia phones and having access to an iPhone (kinda, my wife’s owns it) I’m not surprised by this result. There is much more to say, like audio quality during phone calls (I bet Nokia will be far superior), GPS as well as the internet browsing experience, I bet much better on the iPhone.

Anyway, right now it looks like the Nokia 5800 is a potential winner, more likely to become a mass market phone rather than the iPhone, the latter being much more expensive and not available without a contract in certain markets like the US. In any case, it’s more a metter of how you are going to use it most.

What do you think? How much market share will Nokia get against the iPhone? Please leave your comments doen here.

UPDATE: if you are reading this, you cannot miss the iPhone vs BlackBerry Bold comparison. Check it out!

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Tagged as: Apple, Apple iPhone, comparison, iphone, luca filigheddu, Nokia, Nokia 5800, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic