New Nokia phone…

All of you probably realize that I have a bit of a Nokia phone fetish. What you may not realize is that I’m currently testing a new Nokia for work! Hooray for fun jobs!

The phone that’s in my hot little mitts right now is the Nokia 5700 Xpress Music. This is a wonderful Series 60 3rd Edition smartphone that doubles as a music player and 2.0 Megapixel still and video camera. Now, I know most mobile phones offer those features, but the 5700 is different. Instead of just dedicating software to the three specific functions, Nokia decided to use industrial design to impart the device with three distinct arrangements. By rotating the bottom half of the phone, I can instantly “call up” the camera, music player and, well, phone. It’s really rather enjoyable and makes for a much less muddled smartphone experience.

Plus, since the 5700 uses it’s own Texas Instruments music chip, you can use the phone with no bogging-down of performance while the music player operates in the background…or even the camera, for that matter. It eats through MPEG-4 video with no problems, even clips converted from much higher data rate QuickTime files, too. And by “eats through,” I mean it creates and plays back these videos.

I’ve upgraded my AT&T account to unlimited data and I’m glad I did so because this little monster has devoured 55 MB of digital “stuff” in two days time. I’ve been accumulating podcasts from Moscow to Mexico City, video clips from the British Rocketboom, indie music tracks, etc, etc, etc. With stereo speakers (that are actually REALLY good) and a 2.2,” 16 million colour display, the phone proves to be a multipurpose entertainment device that I actually want to use.

And, if we only lived in Europe, the 5700 offers a final surprise functionality. Rotate the camera towards yourself and you are placed in video call mode. Seeing as we use the wrong flavour of UMTS in the States (where we use it at all) this is rather useless. However, it does make for a nice position to prop the phone up for media viewing.

I couldn’t be happier with the way the Nokia 5700 Xpress Music functions, looks and performs. This is a really solid phone and not a bad deal at $350 unlocked. I may even pick up my own when Nancy or Brian decide that I’ve had enough fun with the new work gadget. 😛

P.S. All of the cat madness that follows was captured with the 5700. Thought you should know…