Another deal comes to us from Dell, but this time, it’s the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic at $224.99 + Free Shipping after $30 off Coupon Code: 9K78JTP99FW1FP. This deal will expire on 10/14. All you need to do is go to Dell Small Business and look for item #: A2489032 and use the coupon code above.

If  the 5800 isn’t broken, don’t fix it, right? If you’re Nokia, you change it just a bit and add a lot to the package, enough to sell a lot more. You could say Nokia just re-released the 5800 in the shape of 5800 Navigation Edition.

By small changes we mean a Chrome bezel and pre-loaded lifetime of voice-guided Drive and Walk navigation licenses for your region, while the rest remains basically unchanged. They did add a lot to the overall package however, included are a car charger and Nokia car kit. All of this for about $30-35 dollars more than the current 5800 XpressMusic, which is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

By not completely changing the 5800, it clearly shows that they believe that it’s doing just fine as it is (not a far-fetched idea considering the millions of units sold) and that the true changes will come later on in the form of firmware upgrades that bring will bring it up to par with other the other 5th edition devices such as the N97 and 5530.

By now we know that the Nokia N97 support page is up, indicating that N97 has begun shipping. In typical Nokia tradition, this should make the N97 available in about 2-3 weeks. In some cases it will even pop-up in some random town much earlier than this.

But what’s ahead? If Nokia’s latest press release  is to be believed, we can expect a few extras for the N97. It says that: “The beauty of this Nokia device is that taking it out of the box is just the beginning. As with any computer, people can constantly improve and refresh their Nokia N97 with new features, functions and fixes so they can do even more with the device.” We can safely bet that they are talking about the familiar firmware upgrade that fixes bugs, improves performance and adds new features. Nothing new there.

But the press release goes on saying that: “An exciting roadmap of new features and functions is planned to roll out in the second half of 2009.” Are they talking about new features and services for all devices or something specifically for the N97? Considering the fact that it was a N97 press release it looks like Nokia could be planning some new features and functions for the N97. Apparently these won’t ship with the device, but should roll out in the second half of 2009 as some kind of a “feature pack.”

All of this makes sense as Nokia has been actively updating their devices with firmware updates and even using alternative ways to do this, just look at the recent Flash lite 3.1 update for the 5800 XpressMusic. This could just be taking it to the next level! One reason for the release in the second half of 2009 could be that they were already pushing the N97 towards a strict deadline and bringing these updates at a later time would help them meet this deadline.

But the question question is: what new features could they add to the N97?

Confirmed: An entire set of new features are coming for the N97, including built-in Skype integration. We’ve also received information about built-in support for several social networks.

Do you own a Nvidia CUDA-enabled graphics card? The entire list of supported cards can be found here. If so, there’s a much quicker way to encode your video into a format that’s suitable for playback on your Nokia devices, especially the 5800 XpressMusic and N97 with those large screens.

Up until now, most of the power of a graphics card has been used for gaming. As it turns out, modern graphics cards (GPUs) with their parallel multi-core architecture can in some cases perform certain task faster than even the fastest CPU! Enter the guys from Elemental Technologies with their CUDA-enabled application called Badaboom.  Badaboom uses the general purpose parallel computing architecture found in modern Nvidia GPUs to encode video at an accelerated pace, in many cases beating even the CPU!

If you’re familiar with video encoding, you’d know that it can be long process, that uses most of the CPU’s power, slowing down overall performance on even the fastest CPUs. By using the GPU, the encoding process is not only done in a shorter amount of time, but also it frees the CPU for other tasks.

Encoding the video

Before performing any tests, it’s important to know that the Nokia 5800 accepts video in:

-MPEG4-SP, 30fps, VGA

-MPEG4-SP, 30 fps, nHD

-MPEG4-AVC, 30fps, QVGA

-WMV9, 30fps, QVGA

Badaboom comes with a few device presets like PSP, Zune or iPod, but  you can also customize the video output settings. Although there’s no Nokia preset, any device preset that has a QVGA output like the iPod Classic, Nano and Zune should work just fine with the 5800 XpressMusic. I also tried a customized video output at nHD and VGA resolutions without any luck. This makes sense since Badaboom uses MPEG4-AVC and with this format the 5800 is only capable of playing back at QVGA resolution. Badaboom does work as advertised: video is encoding is done shockingly quicker, with my CPU usage never going above 20%! This meant that I could perform other task without noticing any system slowdown.

Would I recommend Badaboom for 5800 and N97 owners? It depends. If you don’t have CUDA-enabled Nvidia GPUs you are of course out of luck here. Those that  just want to do the occasional video encoding should look elsewhere, like the free SUPER video encoder. But if you plan on encoding lots and lots of video and you own one of these GPUs than Badaboom is a must!

In an effort to save energy as part of being environmentally friendly, Nokia has added a feature to newer devices like the 5800 XpressMusic, where the device instructs the user to “unplug charger from power supply to save energy.” Our tip of the day is a simple and Green one: unplug your charger from the wall outlet when your device is fully charged. This also counts for older device where you don’t get this message.  It seems that when leaving the charger plugged in (not connected to the phone), it will still consume some energy, consequently energy is being wasted. As we all know, when it comes to the environment every bit helps!

I think that when updating the firmware of these devices, Nokia should not only add new features/fix bugs, but also add these “green” feature. Comments are welcome

Firing the built-in App. Update on the 5800 XpressMusic will come up with a mysterious Flash Lite 3.1 Update. Mysterious in the sense that this is the first time I see Flash Lite, a core part of the OS, being updated outside the regular firmware update. Usually this kind of stuff is imbedded in the new firmware. Could this be  a start to quicker and more frequent updates to Flash Lite and or other components? We’ll be reporting soon if and when we see notable changes.

Update: According to the Adobe Flash Lite site, version 3.1 brings the following changes:

Update 2: Using the 5800 XpressMusic to watch the Desktop version of Youtube via the S60 browser, reveals much smoother video and quicker transition from standard to fullscreen view. But the biggest improvement comes to the Youtube seek bar: before the update it was most of the time difficult or impossible to use the seek bar, now it works perfectly.

Device info: EURO 5800 XpressMusic with latest v.21.0.025 firmware

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As we’ve come to expect, Mobile-review review Nokia’s latest and greatest a bit ahead of the actual release and in typical Mobile-review fashion, the review is long and detailed, revealing some pretty interesting facts about the N97.

Here are a few interesting little details on the N97:

-Being microSDHC, the N97 supports 32GB cards right out of the box, no firmware updates necessary

-The N97 will include a USB-drive-shaped stylus (a bit more manly than the red plectrum, that many confuse with a hart)

-It will be available in White and Dark Brown (And not Black as I originally thought)

-The hinge is made of plastic and not metal.

-The N97 is able to charge via USB and has a light indicator next to the USB port to indicate that it’s charging.

-Just like the 5800 XpressMusic, the N97 has the faster 5Mb/s transfer speed via USB

-The N97 uses a dedicated sound processor

-The audio quality on the N97 is better than the 5800 XpressMusic and compares favorably to the N91, the benchmark when it comes to audio quality

-The N97 similar to the 5800 XpressMusic will have a Standby breathing light and Notification light

-The White colored N97 will have a keyboard with White and Blue backlit key, the brown version has Orange and Blue colors.

-Last but not least, the Nokia 5900 is confirmed and should launch by the end of year.