Nokia 5800 full review -5

Sensors

After touch, the second headline addition for S60 5th Edition was the introduction of the sensor framework. This provides a standard way for the platform and applications to query and interact with sensors that are available in the device. Accelerometer powered functionality has been seen in earlier devices, but the framework for this varied from device to device - it's now been standardised at the platform level. The 5800 doesn't break any new ground in one sense: automatic screen rotation, flip to silence for incoming calls and alarms, but it is good to see all of this available out of the box. There is now a dedicated 'sensor settings' module in the phones' Settings application which can be used to activate or deactivate each action. Much of the potential is in how third parties might take advantage of the functionality. Now that it is standardised, developers are more likely to use it. For example, in Global Racer, a driving game bundled with the phone, you steer by tilting the phone from side to side. Again it's nothing ground breaking, but it's the starting point for a whole new set of ways of interacting with S60 devices