Nokia 5800 v iPhone 3G v Nokia e71

For me, weighing up all the variables, out of the Nokia 5800, Nokia E71 and Apple iPhone the clear loser is the Nokia 5800. The clear winner is less clear.

Dealing with the Nokia 5800 first, it loses hands down on build quality alone. I couldn't believe that the live product I had in my hand is a Nokia flagship - it felt plastic, cheap and just generally pretty crap - the back cover presses on and pulls off through brute force, which is quite easy since the whole thing is so flimsy.

The touchscreen interface of the 5800 is a relatively late, and belated, departure for Nokia but if it's a touchscreen phone you are after then the 5800 just isn't it - the screen's aesthetics or functionality doesn't come close to the iPhone although it does give the impression of being an poor impersonation of it.

Sticking to the point about build quality, both the iPhone and the Nokia e71 feel like serious pieces of kit. The iPhone is well known in this regard so I won't say anymore than, aesthetically, it is worth the hype.

With the Nokia e71, a lesser known business handset currently being pushed hard on the consumer market by Hutchinson's UK '3' network, the handset oozes quality in the same league as the iPhone. Its casing is mostly built from precision tooled metal and at £20 a month all in, it's also a lot cheaper than the iPhone, currently retailing solely with 02 at £99 up front and £35 a month thereafter (a saving of £369 for the e71, or around half the net price of the iPhone).

The e71 does everything that the iPhone does other than be an iPod, which I don't see as much of a problem since itunes is a rip off compared to Napster or Spotify. If you do want to use the phone as a music devive then the SD memory slot on the side means that you can store as much music on the e71 as you like, although its 2.5mm mini headphone jack is a pain in the arse.

However, whereas the iPhone is a consumer gadget that has branched out into business, the e71 is a business phone that one operator is pushing as a consumer item.

While the e71 does all the fun and interesting things that the iPhone does (gmail, maps, various applications etc), it just doesn't do it as well as the iPhone does, primarily because it is a qwerty keyboard device with a relatively small screen.

On the other hand, the qwerty keyboard is essential for typing any length of email and the phone works really well with email and mobile internet browsing.

So, as a consumer who doesn't intend to do much typing but consumes a lot of online media, the iPhone is aesthetically better despite annoyances such as not having a replaceable battery and generally being a pretty shit phone as opposed to a swish pocket computer. But how much are you willing to pay for that aesthetic edge?

I went for the e71 in the end and, while I sometimes regret it, overall I think I did the right thing; the £350 odd quid that I have saved, at zero loss of utility, can be better spent than lining the pockets of Steve Jobbs (Apple's smug CEO). As for the 5800, just don't bother - it's a poor man's iPhone and a pretty shit one at that.