The Nokia Tube is alluring, not iPhone killer


Last100 got their hands on a Nokia 5800 aka the Tube aka the one with the touchscreen and found it intuitive and responsive with plenty of media features. They were most excited about the new touch-enabled version S60, the phone’s Symbian-based OS.

Sadly, the touchscreen is still stuck in the Palm days simply because it uses a resistive method for sensing styli, not fingers.

Like HTC’s Touch Diamond, the 5800 employs a resistive rather than capacitive touchscreen designed primarily for stylus not finger input. The result is that finger presses needs to be more defined than feels natural (it’s works best when using a finger tip or finger nail). Instead, I’d much prefer a capacitive touchscreen as used by the iPhone.

This is probably the biggest beef I have with the so-called iPhone killers: styli aren’t 2008 technology. There is no reason for me to whip out a little pen if I want to write a quick note – RIM with their Blackberry taught us that – and it is possible to build interfaces that work wonderfully with our own blood-filled digits instead of a little piece of plastic.

As I mentioned earlier, the 5800 is good idea – it looks like a great music device, it will be popular in Europe, and it’s about damn time Nokia got into touch. But as a general rule, let’s try to move towards capacative, please?