
Back on February 25th we heralded the release of Nokia’s N5800 XpressMusic touchscreen cell phone – which is widely viewed as a direct competitor to Apple’s iPhone – with not so much of a fanfare but, rather, a custom graphic (such is our nature) but, alas, it seems that the N5800’s US release has not gone quite as well as Nokia (and AT&T) had hoped – no, in fact, it’s worse than that, as is evidenced by the N5800 being pulled whilst 3G connectivity issues are looked into.
‘We have learned that some Nokia 5800 XpressMusic devices are having issues with 3G performance. This is a very isolated problem concerning only the North American market and is not specific to any other region or country.’ Nokia’s statement reads though apart from being keen to stress that the 3G connectivity issues affect only US N5800’s (and not all North American handsets) Nokia has also been keen to point out that the issues reported by end users specifically affect those attempting to connect to AT&T’s 3G network in the New York and Chicago areas.
The problem, reading between the lines, appears to be occasioned on account of the North American N5800 being an unlocked device that Nokia thought (we suspect after considerable testing) would prove wholly compatible with AT&T’s 3G network, but this is evidently not the case.
Nokia are said to be working on what it terms as a ‘quick remedy’ though lets hope that their compatibility testing is a little more thorough this time around shall we – we’re sure a ‘foolproof remedy’ is actually what Nokia intended to say, surely?
UPDATE: see Nokia N5800 XpressMusic 3G Issues Fixed, Say Nokia [New Firmware Update].
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