We tipped you off on the rumored v31 firmware update earlier and now we have more substantial evidence to back up the rumors. How does Kinetic scrolling and a widgetized homescreen on the 5800 sound like?
J-Slade over at dailymobile.se forum had a chance to interact with the product manager of Nokia 5530 Xpress Music, a successor to 5800. During the meet, the Nokia official is believed to have verbally confirmed the firmware update (v31.*.* or some other v*.*.*) offering kinetic scrolling among other goodies to the 5800.
Going by the revelations of the aforementioned Nokia official, we are expecting the all new 5800 homescreen to look something like the homescreen on 5530′s Xpressmusic. As you may know, Nokia has partially incorporated kinetic scrolling into their 5530 along with the widgetized homescreen and homescreen contact-screen with support for 20 contacts (Check the video below for a glimpse of 5530).
By partial “incorporation of kinetic scrolling”, we mean the kinetic scrolling works only on contacts screen and the browser. This is kinda dampener as we were hoping for kinetic scrolling for the menu screen as well. With around 100 applications and games that we have installed on our 5800s, finding the right app/game is increasingly becoming difficult with the scroll bar.
Looks like our discomfort is going to last longer than we thought it would. The partial kinetic scrolling adds further to the inconsistency in s60 fifth edition as the flicks are opposing directions for kinetic scrolling and scroll bar. While we are happy to have kinetic scrolling in the firmware, we hate to see that scroll bar on our screens when on menu screen.
While the forum post, doesn’t provide any further details like the location and names of Nokia officials involved, going by the widget of “Star News”, a leading news daily in Malaysia and the accent of the phone user, we are speculating that this special preview of 5530 happened somewhere in Malaysia.
Did you notice the auto-shift from alphanumeric keypad in portrait mode to QWERTY keypad in the landscape mode? We think this is one of the most intuitive features of the 5530 firmware. We would love to have this feature on our 5800 as well.
Nokia is believed to be presently testing the new 5800 firmware and can be expected to hit the NSU servers once the 5530 Xpressmusic hits the markets, that means we have to wait atleast till the end of this quarter. Official launch date of 5530 and 5800 firmware update are not known as of now.
Tags: firmware update, firmware update for nokia 5800, firmware v31.0.0.15, homescreen, kinetic scrolling, widgets
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Don’t get your hopes up just yet folks! J-Slade added a footnote saying that, and I quote, “Nokia is NOT confirming of any enhanced homescreen and/or kinetic scrolling to be made available for the Nokia 5800″. Nevertheless, I hope they do implement a fully integrated kinetic scrolling and the N97 homescreen (A lot more useful than the 5530 one).
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
@Andrian- Yes mate, as we said its all in air for now. The guy got a call from Nokia to not disclose too much about anything he saw and discussed, so he is clarifying his post now. Lets wait for the “rumors” to come true.
Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 1:04 am
I want , better , I (as a loyal consumer ), demand
- Like S40, a recent contacts list in SMS app .
- Like Old Palm OS, categories in contacts
- Like Win Mobile, smart dialing
- Like SE, mark several items at easy
- Like Win Media Player, a mp3 player with cross-fading feature
Can you hear me Nokia ?
Am I asking too much ?
I dont give a penny for that kinetic scrolling !!! There are things more important !
Either your guys improve Symbian S60 or starting using another OS !!!
After using this very OS for long time since the 6600 I just cant bear those limits above no more…
Although I have plans to buy a 5800 very soon to make a pair with my N82…
Can you hear me Nokia ?
Am I asking that much ?
Cross the street and take some lessons from S40 developers staff…quickly…I dont want to shift my course to Windowsland or Android Street or WebOS Avenue..or….
Saturday, July 25th, 2009 at 6:21 am
i hate being skeptic…but with this news, Im 70% in doubt but 100% hopeful that it will happen!!! hahahaha
Saturday, July 25th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Omg, the dream comes true!
Sunday, July 26th, 2009 at 10:34 am
iphone…you die..!!!
wwakakakaakakakakaaaaa…
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
well guys i doubt it dat they wont bring it on for 5800 cause wats d point whn a cheaper phone has more sexy features thn there richer ones… rite admin…:P
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Because 5530 has powerful cpu equals the N97 that’s why enhance homescreen is possible at launch! 5800 has slow cpu, maybe enhance homescreen is too much to handle.
Why would nokia give the cheaper phone more faster cpu than 5800?
Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
this is just insane… they make the first touch screen and left out all the good features and put it on the “lower-end” version 5300xm. this is what i dont get with these manufacturers. why not just give d update to the 5800xm to enhance its features. don’t you (nokia) think you owe it to your consumers…
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
talib , I totally agree with you. It makes no sense at all to add those features to a lower-end version. If 5800 doesn’t get an update i’m thinking of buying an adroid phone.