I have been using this phone for about 6 months now, and it has mostly been a positive experience.  Some people have described it as Nokia’s answer to the iPhone, which I think is overstating it somewhat!  It is neither as pricey nor as slick as the iPhone, but it does have some useful tricks up its sleeves.

The handset feels solid, and has stood up to daily abuse thus far (and my colleague who has the same handset has had no trouble, despite a history of killing phones through drowning and similar).  I invested the princely sum of 29p or something like on a screen protector (or for Blue Peter fans “sticky backed plastic”) to avoid scratching the screen, an investment I would always advise for a touch-screen phone.

This is my first touch screen phone, and I have managed to adapt to the keypad-free new world order fairly easily (though Susan, bless her, still curses it, being the Luddite of the family).  It is perhaps not as sensitive as an iPhone or Android handset, using different technology (look somewhere else if you want to understand the difference, I really can’t be bothered to investigate) but works fine for me in general use.

You can use a fingertip, or for more accurate (and less greasy) control the built-in stylus which slips into a handy slot on the side of the phone (amazingly I haven’t yet lost one, but you can buy a pack of 5 for next to nothing on Ebay).  It has built in handwriting recognition but I am too lazy to train it to recognise my scrawl (I can’t read my handwriting so what hope does a phone have?) instead using the mini on-screen keyboard most of the time.  This really requires the stylus unless you have tiny fingers or are hzappy  weriting gibbderish.  Try typing on your PC with your elbow and you’ll get the idea.  There is a full size on-screen keyboard available too, which makes for much easier typing without the stylus.

As is the way of the modern world you can download all manner of apps for the 5800.  The list of free apps is a bit sparse though, and Nokia’s Ovi Store where you download them is a bit rubbish.  That said, I have downloaded some fine applications and have even paid real money for one or two.

The phone has 3g and HSDPA capability (that’s fast mobile Internet in plain English) and also has Wi-Fi capability, so you can connect via a home or work Internet connection, or use “hotspots” in cafes, pubs etc.  It also has bluetooth to connect to PC, headsets etc.

The built in GPS was one of the key features for me.  The Nokia maps application comes free with the phone and includes full voice guided satellite navigation for driving or walking.  I am way to tight to buy a sat nav, but for occasional use this function is great.  You can download maps for large parts of the world to your phone directly or via your PC, which means they are available at all times whether you have a mobile Internet connection or not.  I have also used the GPS for tracking walking and cycling routes, and annoying people with pointless information on my whereabouts via Twitter.

The phone has a 2 mega-pixel camera, which takes perfectly adequate snapshots.  You can also set it to geotag the images using the GPS so you can identify where they were taken.

It’s called the Express Music for a reason, and it comes with a  capable music player, plus FM radio.  It has a standard mini-jack headphone socket, so you can use any headphones, not just the Nokia supplied ones.  Mine came with an 8GB mini SD card, so lots of space for MP3s too.  Quality is reasonable, and at a push you can run the music player and sat nav at the same time, though balancing volume can be tricky!  There is even a built in speaker, which doesn’t give fantastic sound, but it is passable if you need to share.

It supports email, and on the 3 network you can download a push email client, which works fairly well, though only handles text emails (no rich text or HTML).  I use email quite heavily on the phone and am overall quite happy.  Web browsing is through the slightly clunky Nokia browser, or you can download alternatives (I tend to use Opera mini).  You can view full web pages, but they tend to involve lots of scrolling around.  Still, handy for sites which don’t have mobile versions.

Battery life is much better than my last Nokia handset.  I can get a couple of days out of it with moderate use of Internet, GPS etc. If it spends a lot of time hunting for a signal due to poor transmitter coverage it can suck the life out of the battery fairly fast, and heavy GPS use will take its toll as well.  I tend to chareg it overnight every day, just to avoid any problems, and plug in via ciggy socket if using it with sat-nav in the car.

Overall I would happily have another , and crucially it has just passed the “would you recommend it to your boss?” test.

We are big fans of the iplayer and before that were great listen again-ers.  The problem is, often we (especially Susan) want to listen to radio programmes on the iplayer whilst in the kitchen.  No PC in the kitchen, nor room for one or desire to locate a computer here.  In our last house we had an extra pair of speakers cabled into the kitchen, and I thought about doing the same again, but the cable run would have been difficult and messy so I started looking for alternatives and hit on these.

The Veho mimi is a wireless USB speaker system.  It comes in 2 parts, a USB “dongle” which simply plugs into a free USB port on your PC and a wireless speaker (actually a stereo pair in one case).  The dongle is about the size of a large memory stick or wireless network adaptor, while the speaker is about three-quarters the size of a typical mug.  Controls are minimal, the dongle just has a channel up/down button (it transmits on standard wi-fi frequencies so you can adjust to avoid interference with other devices) while the speaker has three buttons, power, volume+ and volume-.  All in all it doesn’t take much figuring out!  The speaker is quite light but feels solidly built.  The dongle feels a bit flimsy and it sticks out quite a long way so you have to be careful not to knock it if sticking out of the front of your PC.

Sound quality really impressed me for the size and price.  It is not the fullest sound, with precious little bass, but it is clear with no distortion and a pleasantly clean sound.  You’re not going to generate enough noise to annoy the neighbours, but we can hear it over the washing machine on full-tilt supersonic spin.

The speaker has a built in rechargeable battery, and can be charged via a mini-usb port.  This means you can charge it from your PC or a suitable mains adapter.  It has a fairly long battery life (haven’t measured it) but no low battery warning, the sound simply starts breaking up.  You can use the speaker while it’s charging.

The USB dongle overrides the PCs sound card and speakers, so you can’t listen via the sound card and Mimi at the same time, and you have to plug the dongle in before you start whatever you plan on listening to.  Actually, that’s not quite true, you can listen via the sound card at the same time, just not to the same thing.  If you start playing music on windows media player for example, then plug in the dongle and start of the iplayer, the music will keep playing through the sound card and the iplayer through the Mimi.  Weird the first time it happens accidentally, but could be used to play different things in different rooms (fiddly though!)

Range is fairly good, it will work from the bottom to the top of our three storey house, but it struggles to get much distance into the garden.  This is fairly typical of wifi signals which struggle with solid walls.

Overall this was a great investment and gets used on a daily basis.

Veho VSS-002w Mimi Qube 2.4 GHz WiFi Speaker System Including Transmitting Dongle on Amazon.co.uk

At Random Reviews we are real Scrooges.  We don’t like spending money on stuff, and hate replacing something that still works.  However, our old 28″ CRT TV we were given some months ago just wasn’t working for us.  It was too big for the room, and our main viewing source has become the PC, which we were feeding in via a PC-TV box which was, well rubbish really.  So, we decided to buy a new TV.

I am somewhat hard of seeing, so like a nice big screen.  However, Susan would ideally like a TV you can’t see at all when it is turned off, and would quite happily watch a  little portable screen.  Our budget was limited, we were looking for something that would cost about £220 or less.  PC input was key, HD capability important for future proofing.  Scart or composite inputs were needed for the Wii.  The ability to watch live TV was of no consequence to us, as we have just ditched the TV licence.

Various PC monitors were considered, but few had the inputs we needed for the Wii.  Various TVs were available, including some dubious 26″ own-brands from Currys et. al. and some nice looking branded 22″ screens.  After much dithering I was almost set on going for a higher quality brand and smaller screen, when I came across the unusually sized 25″ offering from Hannspree.  I have bought six or seven Hanns monitors over the years (the first one I bought is still in use on our main PC at home, various others are dotted around the office at work) and have always been impressed with the quality:price ratio.

The TV has not disappointed.  It cost £211 including delivery – substantially cheaper than almost any 26″ screen TV.  I’m sure the picture quality is not the best on the market but I find to to be quite a pleasing picture overall, bright, good colour representation.  Blacks are maybe not as black as a much more expensive set would manage, and the illumination is a little uneven with some bright spots top and bottom of the screen (only visible in very dark scenes or when the screen goes black) but it is more than acceptable for the price point, and looks much better than other cheap LCD panels I have seen.  Sound quality likewise will not set the world on fire, but it is much less tinny sounding than many TVs and provides a perfectly passable and sufficiently loud sound for us, and I am quite intolerant of poor sound.  Clearly if you want the full cinema experience you are going to need some extra speakers, but for day to day viewing this television is fine.

The TV has full HD capability (particularly unusual at this price point) coping with resolutions up to 1920×1080.

It looks quite smart too, glossy black with a  fairly thin bezel around the screen.  The only thing I find annoying is that the name Hannspreee at the bottom lights up when in use, which strikes me as quite unnecessary.  Ok, grumpy old man fit over.

Connectivity is good, with VGA and jack for PC sound in), 2 HDMI, Scart, component video, composite video (and phono inputs for sound)  and an antenna in.

Oh yes, it has a TV tuner built in!  We don’t use it though so can’t comment on how good it is.

Overall this set comes highly recommended for the money, and my experience of previous equipment from the same manufacturer is that while they don’t compete head on with the top line products from high end brands they are much better quality then the own-brands and no-brands.