Nokia 5800: non-review of a roach hotel phone

I don't especially like writing mobile phone reviews,  because it means taking the SIM card out of my working phone (a Nokia N-95) and putting it in a strange device. This sometimes has some unexpected consequences. One phone I tried was able to handle only half of the contacts on my SIM. Enough said that this was a bother.

So when I was offered to test the latest, touch-sensitive Nokia 5800 Xpress Music phone, I took up the offer but gave it to my 13-year old youngest son, who has been writing reviews of XBox 360 games on a Latvian website. 

For various reasons (school work and teenage laziness -- you figure out the relative proportions) the kid didn't get around to writing anything (I was going to post it on my Latvian language blog) by the time the PR agency wanted the phone back.

So now, in a last minute move, I have tried to pack the phone for return and discovered 1) that the side slot SIM card (unlike most Nokia phones to date) is a roach hotel. That is, like in the American TV commercial, the SIM card "checks in, but doesn't check out". (The real roach hotel is a little box with holes in its side, filled with poisonous bait so that real roaches go in, eat, die and never get out). 

I have not been able to extract my son's SIM card from the side slot of Nokia 5800 and I hope that a colleague who also tested an identical phone will be able to help. It turns out that the test phone I got came with two manuals, both in Russian. Great!

Finally, the packaging contains some useless cardboard thing that I cannot fold so that it fits into the box again. What purpose it serves and how it was folded before we opened the box is a a mystery. It is simply a wasted 1/ 1000 of a tree. Maybe look to Apple who has been cutting down on packaging waste?

Anyway, this is not a review of the merits of the Nokia 5800. It is probably a very good phone. My oldest son, 23, whom I met while in Stockholm, says he is considering buying one (he probably wants to carry his music on it, etc.) So there must be good buzz about it among 20-somethings. Meanwhile, I still hope my youngest will write something for the Latvian blog once he gets past whatever was delaying him for the two weeks or so that he had the phone.