New gadget alert!
I finally decided to upgrade my mobile phone, my last one – a Sony Ericsson w800i, was well suited to me at the time I bought it, but with increasing dependence on an online existence, it was time for a change!
You’re probably wondering why I’m writing about a cellphone on a cycling blog, but some of the gadgetry in these devices has useful applications if you’re a cyclist. On some of my longer solo rides, I like to listen to music, podcasts or the radio but prefer not to use headphones or earbuds, so a decent speaker is a must. The Nokia 5800 (just like my w800i) has speakers, but these are stereo with a fuller sound. I find that with the phone in my breast pocket (or napolean pocket as some call them 
), with the zip slightly open you can follow podcasts and talk shows on the radio easy enough, but I’m on the lookout for an unobtrusive and tiny external speaker to attach to my arm or something.
So what other functionality is useful to a cyclist? Well, this unit has full Satnav capability, you can download the maps via your PC or have the unit seek out the maps as you go over a WLAN or 3G connection. I doubt if this will replace the Edge for me, but it’s useful to be able to interrogate the Nokia maps when you’re at rest stops.
In addition, and possibly the biggest threat to the Garmin Edge, is Nokia’s Sports Tracker, there isn’t an officially released client for the 5800 on Nokia’s site, but a beta has escaped and can be found on some sites. I haven’t fully tested it yet, but something tells me that Garmin Edge has this area of the market well sewn up, but we shall see – and I would honestly prefer to carry only one gadget on a ride, and one that can do it all is going to win for me.
For a more simple bicycle computer like funtion, the built in Positioning feature which will give rudimentary (compared to the Garmin Edge) speed, trip distance, average speed information. Not bad, and adequate if you only want to know how far and fast you’ve been – there is no data-logging though, so you won’t be able to import it into something like SportTracks!
The camera is competent, with 3.2 Mega Pixels, video and geo-tagging (uses the in-built GPS to tag the location of each picture). There is no native geo-tagging application in the 5800, but you can get it from Nokia here, they call it ‘Location Tagger’. The icing on the cake is a built in FlickR client so you can upload pictures at the press of a button, it really is so simple and quick.
Despite the fact that this is one of the most feature rich phones on the market, with touch screen and a large display, battery life is excellent. I made full use of the radio, camera, GPS and 3G yesterday on a ride and a full day of meddlling didn’t even knock the battery down a bar on the display.
Finally, I’ve got Google’s Latitude on there, too. This application, built into the downloadable Google Maps application, allows you to see geographically where your friends are. I can see this becoming very popular once people get over their initial suspicions over privacy.
More later.
can keep tabs on you so you get a nice cup of tea and a meal when you get back from a ride! It’s got to be better than continually calling to say how long you might be!