Invisible Shield for 5800

I have a habit tucking my phone inside my pocket with keys. As a normal right-handed person, I use my right hand more in my daily routine. I believe it more to reflex when most of the things I hold with my hand will go to my right-hand-side pocket instead of left-side. So, my pocket usually full with things from morning to night. My old phone end up with lots of scratched here and there so I don't want the same thing happen to my precious Tube.

5800 is a new launched phone so it lack of 3rd party accessories such as pouch and also silicon case. Actually, I hate silicon case as it make my phone bulky. I end up looking for a good screen protector. Among the screen protector I found were BestSkinEver and Zagg. Both of the brand claimed to be scratch proof because both use the same technology, but the later has higher price and come with life-time warranty.

From ZAGG website:

"The invisibleSHIELD™ is created from an ultra-tough, patented film that is exclusive to ZAGG for covering consumer electronics. Transparent and amazingly thin, the invisibleSHIELD™ is designed to precisely match the contours of every device, providing unbeatable scratch protection. ZAGG's invisibleSHIELD is the world's first and best solution of its kind, and the patent-pending application process will keep gadgets looking great."
With lifetime warranty, and the availability of the screen protector, I choose Zagg invisibleSHIELD™ with full body protector.

The Package

The invisibleSHIELD™ come in black-red book size box. It comes with install squeegee and SHIELDspray™. I received the SHIELDspray™ in bad shape as the liquid only leaft ¼ of the bottle. As I'm too eager to install and have no patient to wait for a replacement, I just continue to the installation.

Price
I bought it from local seller for RM60. In ZAGG website, the price is USD24.95 (RM92). But if you buy more than USD100, you'll get 30% discount. So if you buy 4 invisibleSHIELD™, they will cost you RM255.50 or RM64 each. The larger the quantity, the bigger discount you'll get. Sometime, ZAGG will give you 50% discount.

Installation
It took me almost 3 hours to install. Your thumbprint is your worst enemy! So apply SHIELDspray™ on your finger as much as you can .

Some tips:

1. Switch off your device.
   
2. Work in dust free environment. Some people suggest in bathroom where the humidity is high and less dust.
   
3. Wipe you phone with dust-free towel/cloth not tissue. I used tissue (although it claim dust free). The result, some of the tissue's dust manage to slip under the screen protector.
4. Don't peel off invisibleSHIELD™ from it paper completely, instead slowly peel and apply SHIELDspray™ and apply it on your phone. So, your will touch invisibleSHIELD™ less.
5. Reuse paper backing if you don't wear glove and you need to touch the adhensive side of the invisibleSHIELD™.
6. To hold your phone, you can use SHIELDspray™ hole in the box. It fix firmly.
7. To practice, apply back cover first.

Result



I installed front cover first, with lack of practice, so some dust from the tissue manage to slip under the shield. From the picture below, you can see that there also some bubbles but in due time, the bubbles will completely gone. What left is the dust.


After a few weeks

Dust easily attract to the edge of the shield. I believe this is normal for all screen protector. As long as it not go under the shield, it is okay. In the picture, this is my mistake as I touch this edge to peel off the shield from its paper backing. My advice, avoid touching with bare hand, use glove!

All the front protector were badly installed. Actually, this is the only part that I don't like the design. You can see from the picture bellow, my phone will be protect from scratch except the conner part. Plus, this is the only part that mostly will collect dust and it also made my phone ugly. Beside that, I feel my phone well protected by invisibleSHIELD™.


Conclusion
Albeit all the defect of the shield, I'm satisfy with it performance. No scratch so far and also the shield glued firmly with my phone. I believe, if I have a second package ready to install, the result will be much better.

For more picture, please visit my picasa photo album.

My precious… Nokia 5800 (Camera)

Camera Quality

My precious… Nokia 5800 (Applications/Games)

Applications
Symbian S60V5 is still a new OS. So, there are only a few application that work perfectly with S60V5. However, some S60V3 can be install and some have touch enable functions.

This is the list the of application that work on 5800:

Tested by me (100% working)

1. Nokia Handwriting calculator.
2. Talking Dictionary
3. Touch Piano
4. Touch Guitar
5. Touch Popper
6. Epocware Handy Series (Handy Weather, Shell, Converter, etc)
7. Avatar SMS
8. Kill Me
9. Buddycloud
10. ScreenSnap
11. Photoflow (Use
    
12. FX-602P (Calculator emulator)
13. Rotary Dialer (Dial to call app)
    

Working (Not 100%)

1. Bluetooth Remote Control (Virtual key pad is overlap by black bar)
   
2. Garmin XT
3. Virtual Key (V20 - Top Bar can't change)
4. The Pencil (Can't exit, have to use KillMe)
   

Games

1. Touch Card Match (V20 can't remove virtual keypad)
2. Touch Maneuver
3. Solitare
4. Sudoku Master
5. 3D Brick Breaker
   

My precious… Nokia 5800 (Intro 2)

Price
I got my phone at only RM1350, less than RRP. Some user even claimed the price can be as low as RM1280. With my budget, for a phone this price actually quite expensive (>RM1,000). However, for all the features, it is a good bargain.

A quick glimpse at the spec:

• 3.2-inch touchscreen display with 16 Million colors
• 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus
• Quad-band (850/900/1800/1900Mhz) GSM/EDGE radio
• 3G UMTS/HSDPA
• Bluetooth 2.0
• WiFi
• GPS
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• TV-out port
• 81MB internal memory (expandable to 16Gb with mciroSD)
• 111 x 51.5 x 15.5 mm
• Video Support : H.263, Flash Video, H.264/AVC, MPEG-4, RealVideo 7,8,9/10, WMV 9
• Audio Support : AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, MP3, MP4, M4A, WMA, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, Mobile XMF, SP-MIDI, MIDI, RealAudio 7,8,10, True tones, WAV
  

For more details, visit this link.

3.2" Touchscreen
The screen is superb. Although this is my first touch phone, I have no problem navigate with one hand and the screen is responsive. I still get confuse to touch once or twice to open or run a program or shortcut but I found it much faster to navigate in touchscreen environment if compare with non-touchscreen (key pad). (The response is much faster in V20)

Another thing about the screen is it 640x360 resolution or known as nHD screen. With it supports of MPEG4, I can watch video smoothly with my Tube. However, all video must be converted to 5800 compatible format.

High memory capacity
Last time I thought 2Gb is enough. But now 16Gb? 5800 comes with 8Gb microSD memory card but it also can support up to 16Gb microSD. So, it means more musics and videos can be cramp into the phone. I tried storing mp3 and .mp4 file to 90% of the 8Gb microSD. The first time refreshing in Music Payer it takes around 4-5 minutes to read all the new sound files. After that, it takes only a few seconds to open. So far, I have never faced any "hang" when accessing the memory card.

The Built
5800 place firmly in my hand. The size is suitable for my daily usage and easier to carry around (not bulky). However, the front cover look like from low quality plastic. It squeak when I pressed the front cover and at night, a can see small gap with light leaking.

However the back cover is secure tightly and hard to open which is good for me. But I don't like the camera cover design. As you can see in the picture, no swipe/slip cover like N73me. The plastic cover, I believe, may reduce the amount of light penetrate through the lens, so with lower light. the higher the noise in the picture.


Interface
The interface is same like any other S60 phone. Because last time I own a N73Me, so I rearrange the shortcut to be similar like N73 interface. I use Shortcut Bar instead of Contact Bar. I just hope that the calendar in the home screen can reflect the exact date.

My precious… Nokia 5800 (Intro)

I heard about 5800 a.k.a Tube since May 2008. From the rumored pictures, what really fascinated me was the 3.2" touch screen. The screen is bigger than any other Nokia N-series. Other than that, the phone looks like ordinary candy bar phone.

The phone claimed to be Nokia's first touch S60 device. Because I was happy with my old N73ME , I didn't really care about all the hype. I assumed with all the rumored features include in this Tube, the price will be beyond my limit (>RM1.5k). I even think that 2Gb is enough for my daily use phone. Or is it?

In December 2008, I read that 5800 already available in Malaysia although it was not officially launched. What surprise me, the Recommended Retails Price is RM1499, below than my early assumption by RM1 (ha..ha... actually, I thought it will be RM1700-RM2000). The rumored features are throught. This phone really packed nice features like 3G, Wifi, MPEG4 and many other standard N-Series functions. So, starting from that, I was planning to get 5800 for my birthday present.

Now, it is already a month since I own the Tube. So here is my experience with my precious one.

(Note: I already upgraded to V20)

Quick Sneak

Pros

1. Large 3.2" Screen with 640x360 resolution (nHD)
2. Touchscreen.
   
3. Support MPEG4 with 640x360 resolution
4. Come with 8Gb microSD memory card.
5. Faster response (compare to N73).
6. Fix firmly in my hand (not too big and not too small)
7. Full screen wallpaper.
8. Nice lock key
9. Good loud speaker
   
10. Price
11. Nice search function in Home Screen(v20)
    

Cons

1. Low quality built for front cover.
2. Using none standard usb port.
3. No slip-cover for camera.
4. Sim card hard to remove, need to remove battery
   
5. Images quality from camera is low.
6. No volume bar in Music Player (probably firmware problem).
7. No pencil button.
8. Can't turn off camera sound (some region can disable the sound)
9. Lack of office suite.
10. H264 not fully supported

Please continue reading for more details.