Media Pass

Nokia XpressMusic 5800 Press Release

Singapore – Nokia announced today that the highly anticipated Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is finally in Singapore and will be sold as a Comes With Music device at Nokia Branded Retail stores and local operator stores from tomorrow, February 28, 2009.

The latest in Nokia’s XpressMusic range of devices, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic delivers an affordable music device with a touch screen interface to the mass market.

Consumers in Singapore will be the first in the world to get their hands on the device when it hits the stores and wow local music lovers with its promise to deliver good music into the hands of millions. The Nokia 5800 Comes With Music in red and blue will be available from tomorrow, Saturday, Feb 28 at the recommended retail price of S$798. The silver-black version will be sold from mid-March onwards.

“People all over the world want a music device that offers a great music experience and still works really well as a mobile phone without sacrificing any features. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is all these in a very attractive package, and what’s more, in Singapore it will be shipped with our industry-leading Comes With Music service, and this makes it a truly must-have device for music lovers and youth in Singapore”, said Vlasta Berka, General Manager, Nokia Singapore, Malaysia & Brunei.

Nokia also announced today that the Comes With Music service is now ‘live’ and Singapore is the first market in Asia to enjoy this. For the cost of a Comes With Music device, people will be able to download millions of free tracks from the Nokia Music Store catalogue over a year. Best of all, they will get to keep all their downloaded music after the service period is up.

Bringing music loud and clear to youth and music lovers all over the island, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic offers all the music essentials including a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks and support for all main digital music formats, and a 3.5mm jack. Built-in surround sound stereo speakers offer the industry’s most powerful sound to pump up the volume of your music.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic delivers easy and fast access to all music, video and photos through a one-touch ‘Mediabar’ drop down menu. The Media Bar also offers a direct link to the Web and to online sharing. Because the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic supports Flash content, individuals can surf the entire world wide web. The innovative ‘Contacts Bar’ lets people highlight four favorite contacts on their home-screen and, through a single touch, track a digital history of recent text messages, emails, phone logs, photos and blog updates.

For the best screen resolution available on a mobile phone, the 3.2″ widescreen display brings photos, video clips and web content to life in vibrant color and true clarity. With a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and 30 frames-per-second playback and recording, the device is ideal for VGA quality video recording and playback. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic also features a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and, with a single touch, images or videos can be shared via a favorite online community, such as OviShare, Flickr, or Facebook.

Ensuring a seamless music experience, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic also provides easy access to browse and purchase tracks from the Nokia Music Store, while the newly updated Nokia Music PC software allows for easy drag-and-drop transfer of songs and management of any music collection.

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic supports 60 languages worldwide and offers a variety of input methods including a virtual alphanumeric keypad, a virtual computer-style QWERTY keyboard, a pen stylus — and for true music enthusiasts, a guitar plectrum — are all available.

Nokia’s first mass market touch screen device, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is already selling in other markets worldwide and as of January 23, 2009, Nokia announced that it has already shipped its millionth Nokia 5800 XpressMusic device.

Nokia Comes With Music Press Release

Singapore – Nokia today announced that its Comes With Music service is now live in Singapore, making it the first market in Asia where it will be available, after the service was launched in the United Kingdom last October.

Local music lovers will now be able to enjoy unlimited downloads* of million of free tracks from Nokia’s online music store for the cost of a Comes With Music enabled device over a year. The most revolutionary part of this offer is that people get to keep all their downloaded songs, even after the service period is over, and enjoy a truly dynamic and seamless music experience on both their PC and mobile devices, as they can download music from their PC or directly to their devices.

People can choose from an estimated four million tracks on the local Nokia Music Store catalogue, comprising a diverse range of major and independent labels carrying both international and local content across genres from jazz to blues, to hip hop, soul, funk, pop, indie, grunge and even kids and soundtracks from movies.

Comes With Music is widely supported by international labels such as, EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music, as well as Asian independent labels such as Ocean Butterflies and Rock Records.

Asian music from artists such as Sing Shi (石欣卉), Huang Jing Lun (黄靖伦), Liang Wen Ying (梁文音), Rainie Yang (杨丞琳), Da Mouth (大嘴巴), Khalil Fong (方大同) are available with Comes With Music, among many more.

In Singapore, consumers will be the first in the world to get their hands on the Nokia 5800 Comes With Music available in red and blue which will be available from tomorrow, Saturday, Feb 28 at the recommended retail price of S$798. The silver-black version will be sold from mid-March onwards.

Comes With Music editions of the Nokia N96 in black (RRP S$1238), Nokia N85 in cherry black (RRP S$938), and Nokia N79 in petrol black (RRP S$858) multimedia computers, as well as the Nokia 5320 XpressMusic in grey (RRP S$618) and Nokia 5220 XpressMusic in titanium (RRP S$558) will also be sold at all Nokia Branded Retail stores from tomorrow.

“We are very excited to bring this music offer to Singaporeans on so many device models to suit different consumer segments across various price points. Particularly in these trying economic times, Comes With Music delivers exceptional value to music lovers who can stay connected to the music they like, yet no longer worry about the cost of purchasing music by single tracks or album. The freedom and simplicity of the service is unparalleled. What’s more, the music is legal and is yours to keep,” said Vlasta Berka, General Manager, Nokia Singapore, Malaysia & Brunei.

Pictures From The Event

Official Site: Nokia Comes With Music (Singapore)
Official Site: Nokia XpressMusic 5800

What is Nokia Comes With Music?
Taken from the press release:

“Comes With Music sets a precedent for consumer value and convenience that the rest of the digital entertainment industry is already copying,” said Andrew Connell, Head of Entertainment & Communities Category Management, Nokia. “The freedom and simplicity of the service is unparalleled. Comes With Music gives you unlimited access to the millions of tracks in the Nokia Music Store and the music is all yours to keep – because its not a revolution unless you get to keep your music.”

Nokia plans to roll out the commercial Comes With Music service in Singapore and Australia in Q1 2009. These markets follow after the United Kingdom which will be the first Comes With Music market with sales starting this month.

EMI Group has joined as the latest major label to support Comes With Music, in addition to Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. In Singapore, Comes With Music will be supported by prominent Asian independent labels, Ocean Butterflies Music and Rock Records Singapore. “We are very pleased to also have leading Asian labels as part of our Comes With Music offering for Singapore consumers. This will allow our consumers to enjoy even more localized music as long as they want, anytime anywhere”, said Grant McBeath, General Manager for Singapore.

Comes With Music offers one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue and customers can keep all the music that they have downloaded at the end of the year to continue enjoying their music collection. Comes with Music will be available across a range of Nokia devices, including the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N95 8GB and Nokia 5310 XpressMusic.

Summary, taken and updated from previous blog post:

• It is a pre-paid service that is bundled to Nokia mobile phones. Currently available on the 5310 XpressMusic, N95 8GB and 5800 XpressMusic
• You need to pay a little bit more for the bundled phones
• Prices for Singapore is still unknown at the moment
• You get 1 year of unlimited music downloads through Nokia Music Store
• The music you downloaded, you get to keep it after the 1 year
• It is DRMed and hence the format is in WMA
• Music is sync between your computer and mobile phone and hence only one registered computer AND one registered mobile phone is allowed
• Deactivation of laptops/mobile phones is allowed to a maximum of 4 times per year
• Currently they have 5 million tracks
• Over the air downloading of music tracks is allowed on your mobile phone using WiFi or 3G network

Recap Blog Posts

• Nokia XpressMusic 5800 “Tube” (Exclusive)
• Nokia Remix 2008 Singapore Party
• Nokia Remix 2008 Singapore

Press Release: Nokia Amps Up Music Offering with the debut of Comes With Music and the New Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Facebook Gallery: Nokia Singapore Office

This is the 2nd and final part to the Nokia Remix 2008 event. The party starts at 7pm and is held at Red Dot Design Museum. I was there with Li Xiang. We have a blogger meeting at Pacific Coffee also at 7pm where we get to play with the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 for quite a long time. I took a video of the Internet surfing experience and the gaming experience using accelerometer and will be uploading to YouTube.

About 8pm, we proceed on for the buffet dinner and followed by the Music Performance. By the way, the food catered by Nokia is as usual very good. Thumbs up for that.

There are a total of 4 music performances namely, Plain Sunset, Astreal, Andrew Macdonald and Lifehouse. The first 2 bands are from Singapore, the Andrew Macdonald is from Australia and the last band Lifehouse need no further introduction. And of course it is Lifehouse which gets the party going and I think Lifehouse has put up the best performance of the night. They will be performing at St James Power Station later on in the day (it has past 12mn). The MCs for the day is The Muttons featuring Justin Ang and Vernon A from 987FM. I think they did a great job at hosting the event and their jokes are awesome! Thumbs up!

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Internet Surfing/Browsing:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Gaming:

Here are some of the pictures that I took:

My Media Pass

I have finally got the chance to take a video of the user interface of the XpressMusic 5800 and I have uploaded it to YouTube. Nothing is new here, for more information, you can check out the post below this or check the specifications at http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/5800_XpressMusic.

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 User Interface:

As usual, sorry for the out of focus digital camera video recording, but I don’t mind a sponsor for a dedicated HD video recording camcorder, any takers?

“Nokia Come With Music” service is also announced. Let me summarize it in points so that it is easier to digest.

• It is a pre-paid service that is bundled to Nokia mobile phones. Currently on the 5310 XpressMusic, N95 8GB and 5800 XpressMusic.
• You need to pay a little bit more for the bundled phone. Price for Singapore is still unknown at the moment.
• You get 1 year of unlimited music downloads through Nokia Music Store. 18 months option are coming in 2009.
• The music you downloaded, you get to keep it after the 1 year. Nokia spokesperson keep emphasising this.
• Like it or not it is DRMed.
• If I am not wrong, the format is WMA and not MP3.

Personally, I am not in favour of DRM and WMA. I don’t mind paying a little more for non-DRM and MP3.

Here are some of the pictures that I took:

The press release conference will happen later on at 9am and followed by a party at night at 7pm where I will be going with Li Xiang.

There will be 3 parts to this post, I will post the brief details about the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 which is in the PowerPoint presentation (full specifications will be out later), followed by my 1st impressions after playing it and lastly the pictures I taken at the pre-media briefing using my Canon iXUS 860IS.

Nokia XpressMusic 5800 “Tube” Press Shot

Brief Details on Nokia XpressMusic 5800

• Incredible Big Sound experience: High performance built-in stereo surround speakers
• Superb 30fps VGA quality video recording and playback on 3.2″ 16:9 nHD widescreen display (640×360, 16 million colors)
• Great music experience: 8GB MicroSD included, 35 hours playback, FM RDS Radio, OTA Podcasts
• Freedom of choice: 3.5mm audio jack, support for the leading digital music formats (MP3, eAAC+, WMA, M4A)
• Easy to side-load (USB) and download (OTA) using the new Nokia Music PC Client or the new Nokia Music Store user interface
• Key device for “Comes With Music” Service
• Direct Access: One-click media bar for quick and easy access to all your media
• TV-Out
• GPS with A-GPS
• Multiple input methods:
  • Stylus, plectrum, finger
  • Handwriting recognition
  • One-handed portrait usage (ITU-T)
  • Two-handed landscape usage (full QWERTY)
  • Tactile Feedback (vibra)
  • Copy/Paste functionality
• Automatic screen rotation using Accelerometer
• Running on Symbian OS 9.4 S60 5.0 aka S60 5th Edition
• RRP: €279 = SGD$558.20 (before subsidiaries and taxes)
• 3G version to be available in 4th Quarter 2008, GSM850/2G version to be available in 1st Quarter 2009
• Sales Package:
  • Nokia XpressMusic 5800
  • Extra Stylus
  • Stylus Plectrum in Wrist Strip
  • Protective Carrying Case
  • Portable Stand
  • MicroUSB Cable
  • TV-Out Cable
  • Charger
  • 8GB MicroSD Card
  • Battery
  • Stereo Headset with Remote Control
• For the full specifications, check it out here, http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/5800_XpressMusic

1st Impressions

• THICK! Due to the built-in high quality speakers.
• No Multi-Touch. Due to different technology being used.
• Tactile feedback is something innovative and I kinda like it. Beats touching on a normal screen.
• VERY RESPONSIVE. Even though it is just a prototype that I am playing with, it is more responsive than the Apple iPhone and definitely much more than the Samsung Omnia.
• Love the “One-click Media Bar” that can be accessed by pressing the button on top of the screen (NOT phone)
• The main screen will allow you to add 4 favorite contacts where you can see your history calls, SMSes, etc to him. Think of it as Facebook friend feeds.
• I love the multiple inputs that this device can handle ranging from T9 keypad to full QWERTY.
• 3 buttons at the bottom, Call, Menu and End Call respectively.
• I love the sales package, lots of stuffs inside there especially the cool “Stylus Plectrum in Wrist Strip” and the nice looking “Carrying Case”
• The buttons are generally big and easy to press on, accidental press on other buttons have not happen to me yet.
• I would love to see how Nokia can evolve their touch technology next year. Perhaps a new Tseries?
• Symbian S60 5th Edition is used, 4th edition is skipped because Chinese believed that 4 is an unlucky number. S40 OS and S60 3rd Edition will still be maintained.
• Applications and games built for S60 3rd Edition is backward compatible on the S60 OS 5.0 although it may not be optimal because of the screen size.

Exclusive Pictures/Videos

Here is a video of the video playback on the XpressMusic 5800:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 User Interface:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Internet Surfing/Browsing:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Gaming:

PS: The video recording is a little blur due to my digital camera focusing. I apologized for that.