A prototype called Nokia 5800 and naive Test Subjects called Indians

Randomed by Rituraj / at 6:52 AM / /

When Nokia 5800 hit the Indian markets it soared to the most selling cellphone of the year within a flash. It was a the dream come true for many. For the techno-geeks like myself it had a totally new OS - version 5.0 of Symbian for fully touch screen phones. For dumb phone users who listen to songs on a phone speaker it had a decent speaker quality and lots of song storage space. For cheap phone seekers...well...it had all the features and a nominal price. It all sounded too good to be true. Well, it WAS too good to be true. For little did Indians know that the phone was a mere prototype to test the response of Indian subjects to a Nokia touchscreen phone and also to test the new version of OS. Nokia wanted the model to be tested on as many subjects as possible so they managed to keep the price low for this total feature packed phone. However, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The low price comes with a price. The hardware used for this phone is of inferior quality. Almost 40% of the phones experience a distorted LCD screen which appears randomly and appears even after replacing the screen. It is the result of cheap design which comes with the price of a display that can go garbled any time and having to renew the phone warranty every year. But the screen is not just it. If Lady 'Un'Forutuna decides to smile on you then there's a whole range of other problems that are awaiting you to experience them. For me, after I got the damaged screen replaces and the firmware upgraded to v40 the camera does not focus any longer, the phone battery dies out in 4 hours and the phone gets heated up till the extent that maybe the camera lens expands due to the heat and loses focus. At first I thought it was the doing of the notorious Nokia Care Executives but now, after realizing how this prototype was slyly slipped into the Indian markets by Nokia, I feel the problem is the result of poor design.

I have been trying day and night to figure out a pattern in the problem just like I tried to look for a pattern in the distorted screen appearing and disappearing. But all this in vain. My last resort is trying a different/new battery. If that does not work then my 18000 rupees have essentially gone down the drain.