My recomandations for Symbian 5th edition

5800-red-0 Before you ask, no, I didn’t gave up my trusted E71. But my wife’s had it with her old 7610 so we upgraded her phone. After some deliberation, and her not liking the design of the e55 and e52 she finally settled for a Nokia 5800.

As you know that’s a 5th edition, touchscreen phone. I was a bit reticent because it’s never a good idea to get the first product from a series (that being the first Nokia touchscreen), still after reading a few reviews getting the 5800 seemed like a good idea. She doesn’t write that much and so missing a keyboard is no problem for her.

There are probably 1001 reviews online so I’m not getting into that, and there are enough top 10 freeware and top 10 shareware lists too. I’ll just list the software that I found useful for her and working on the 5800:

  • Fring - not using voip that much, but it’s great for consolidated IM-ing (yahoo, google talk and skype)
  • Facebook - the iphone interface works great. I tried Symabook but it’s slow and unstable
  • Garmin Mobile XT - wonderful on the wide screen. My wife travels a lot as a professional interpreter so a GPS application comes handy. Using nokia maps on a roaming connection is not really an option, and the Garmin maps seem the best around.
  • Accuweather applet - looks good, shows the weather.
  • FreeUnRar

Still to come:

  • Quickoffice.  I’ve been spoiled with the E series devices especially since the latest offer QuickOffice 6 is free.
  • Skyfire - still not working on 5th edition but it’s been promised for some time now.