Today I had a meet and greet session with a Nokia Product Manager and got a sneak peek of the Nokia 5530 in my country.






Key Features Noted:
1) Enhanced homescreen (contacts bar + applications/widget shortcut)
2) Kinetic Scrolling (which is only available for web browsing, home screen and contacts scrolling)
3) Has everything the Nokia 5800 have to offer except 3G and GPS.
4) The built quality is not as sturdy as the Nokia 5800. It is even more plasticky than the Nokia 5800 especially the back cover. It is however much slimmer in form factor.
5) Rear camera does not have any 'scratch protection' when placed flat on the table. In fact the prototype had many scratches on the camera glass.
6) Screen more vibrant in colours compared to Nokia 5800. Apparently there are more pixel count on the screen.
7) Comes in 2 colours. Red and Blue. The Red version comes in complete black with red lining. While the Blue version comes with a 'chrome' front bezel and a white backplate.
Please pardon my english... lolz... I just casually playing with it and didn't plan for a proper review.
Anyway to the good stuff.
The purpose of the meet and greet session was actually to get feedback from Nokia 5800 users. Kind of like a focus group. There were about 10+ of us there during the event and we expressed all our unhappiness about the phone. So here is what I got. Apparently Nokia is aware of the new firmware update we are looking for. So v31 (or whatever it is going to be called) is confirmed coming. Right now they are in the process of testing the enhanced homescreen and kinetic scrolling on the Nokia 5800 amongst other things like camera improvements, response time, frequent crash.. etc. But like I said, its still in the testing process. Bear in mind, the Nokia 5530 does have a faster processor than the Nokia 5800 and also certain hardware inside is different. When asked what is the rough date of the firmware release, Nokia is not able to give a date because they are still a long way in the testing. From the looks of it, its not coming anytime this quarter of the year. Reason? They'd have to release the Nokia 5530 first before anything else. Also, of course it makes sense because the N97 was recently released and they have to let that simmer in a while. But hey guys, chill out! At least Nokia is aware of what we need....
Hope you guys enjoy the photos!
J-Slade
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Okay guys, believe it or not my thread here in dailymobile.se has spread to virtually hundreds of websites/blogs on the internet that are spreading rumours that Nokia is confirmed bring the kinetic scrolling and enhanced homescreen to the Nokia 5800. Today, I actually received a phone call (yes they actually managed to contact me) to pass this message to me which I would like to send the message here as well. I am clarifying that Nokia is NOT confirming of any enhanced homescreen and/or kinetic scrolling to be made available for the Nokia 5800. You guys got to understand that Nokia does not make empty promises and in this situation, they are unable to confirm whether or not it will happen. But like I said, they are well aware we want these features even before I met them and now that me and a few users expressed our opinions about the phone, they have listened to us and given the feedback to Nokia. And like what the product manager told us, if the hardware is similar and since they do have the same OS, i don't see a reason why they wouldn't want to try to integrate these features. But once again, like I said, whether or not it will happen, we still cannot confirm it. For those of you who read my post here and understood it, you guys are already on the right mindset. For those of you who read it elsewhere on other sites that 'exaggerated' what I said, then I hope I didn't get your hopes too high. I hope what I wrote did not mislead you guys. I'm sorry if I did but anyway its clearer now. Cheers!