ViewRanger On Nokia 5800 Review

Having used Viewranger on a Nokia E61i with a bluetooth GPS receiver for over 18 months I chose the 5800 as a replacement mainly because of the 640*360 display: I haven't been disappointed.

Also I can now have the whole of GB present on the phone at once: at 1:50000 the whole of GB requires 2.72GB of space on the memory card; the E61 could only use a 2GB card so I was always having to choose which bits of the country I didn't need. The 5800 comes with a 8GB card so there's no problem having the lot.

for use on bike see my review at:

http://website.lineone.net/~maultby/Nokia%20Navigator%20&%20Viewranger%20Review.htm

I've used VR and 6110 for nearly 2 years with the boxit case. Its all utterly brilliant.

it really is tremendous software. the authors keep it upgraded regularly and are very receptive to suggestions (for example the phone's green button zoom-in/zoom-out) was my suggestion for when phone is in waterproof case.

Question for the users of 5800. What sort of battery life are you getting when using viewranger with bluetooth disabled and not using 3G (this can save lots battery) with VR set to 20 secs display timeout?

Can't really help you, Jeff, cos I only use the GPS and VR if I want to pick up a quick position. But compared with my normal use (phone, txt, music player) the GPS eats battery life even faster than surfing the web does. I bought a second battery btw, it's made in Hungary and not as good as the Korean original.

Since I was pointed towards some usable guidance (the 'user manual' being utterly risible), the phone has exceeded my expectations.

Hi all,

My SE W715 has proved a bit of a disaster in terms of using a poor signal (earlier thread refers and I have had two phones, both of which have been back for 'repair' at least twice) and Voda have agreed to replace it with an alternative.  This includes the Nokia 6210, 6730 and 5800.  The 6210 has a poor battery life so it's a toss-up between the 5800 and the 6730.  Both have similar battery life but the 6730 is much lighter.  I have never used a touch screen mobile before.

Questions (please):  1)  Can anyone say what these two phones are like in remote areas with weak signal strength?  2)  What is the 5800 like to use?  3)  I imagine the GPS on both does not work if you are out of signal, but from Jon's review of the VR software, at least the 5800 will work if you are out of signal.  5)  Any other observations?

Many thanks,  Rob

Oh - shoul clarify re use in weak signal areas - I mean does the phone work as well as others?  I have had to take my old Nokia 6300 with me to remote areas, which has enabled me to make calls/send texts when the SE W715 would not work.  I actually had to swap SIM cards around on the summit of Lladhar Bheinn last month, unable to use the SE.  The Nokia was fine.  And this 6300 was the worst of 4 phones using the same network in N Norway last year, so it shows how bad the W715 is.  My suspicion is that they try to cram too much in now, into smaller and lighter phones, at the expense of actual effectiveness as a phone(!).

Thanks again.

re. 3) GPS on the 5800 is satellite based, not phone reception based. I'm well impressed with the accuracy of the GPS. Can take a few minutes to pick up the satellites, esp. if you've moved the phone whilst switched off, but that happens with my dedicated Geko GPS (which is now sadly pretty much redundant).

I've never used a touch screen mobile before. In fact I've never used anything beyond a very basic bottom of the range mobile before. I was worried about its toughness, but managed to knock it off a low table onto a paved stone floor a few days after buying it and it's survived with only a couple of small scratches on the plastic casing. I stuff it in a small Aloksak in the small pocket of my rucksack when I'm out on the hill and forget about it. I prefer to use the pokey-pokey thing to navigate through the phone but others happily stab it with their fingers.

A disappointing number of my friends also have this phone (I thought I'd have a new toy to wow them with...), but TBW has had problems with hers turning itself off of its own accord.

Apart from TBW's phone turning off problem, I've not heard any complaints from my friends who have them. Most seem very happy.

re texting. I can touch-type, so move around a qwerty keyboard very quickly. I never understood even the basics of predictive text so texting on the old mobile was time consuming. I use the pokey-pokey to type out my text messages on the 5800, and it's way quicker than my fumbling stabbing of buttons 1-9 on the old phone.

Did I hear my name............

Unfortunately I have not had enough time to get to grips with all that the 5800 can do due to it switching itself off. It's now gone back to Carphone Warehouse for the third time and I have reported it to Trading Standards as CPW wont give me a new phone

Rob - where did you see the reports about the phone switching itself off as CPW are saying that its not a fault they have had reported to them 

Before the problem started I really liked the phone with only one or two minor niggles in the functionality which other phones seem to handle better. The fact that I could potentially get rid of the GPS and even have back up map was quite appealling though that wasn't the main reason for the purchase.  Reception has been OK for me too. Like any new phone it takes a while to get used to it

Just wish I could get one that works..............

You can use Google Maps, both maps and aerial images AND the traffic overlays for major roads in England: the info is scraped off the traffic england web site run by the Highways Agency and they DO mean England.

You can also use Ovi Maps from Nokia which has the advantage of being able to preload the maps onto the phone instead of them being sent to the phone on the fly as Google does: potentially saving huge data bills.

I have both of these as well as Viewranger; they all have their uses.

BTW Metric Kate: the GPS in the 5800 is A-GPS (assisted GPS) which uses information gathered by triangulating from the mobile base stations to provide a rough fix which speeds up the acquisition of the GPS fix from the satellites, assuming you have a mobile signal, which is not guaranteed in the nicer parts of the British Isles.