WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

Nokia stopped selling the U.S. Version of the 5800 Xpress Music phone in U.S. stores due to problems connecting to 3G networks. They are substituting the European model which does not work with 3G networks.

There have also been reports of problems with the earpieces.

Phones were pulled off the shelves just seven hours after going on sale in New York and Chicago. The phone is not available online, it is backordered.

A statement to Mobile Review said:

All the faulty earpieces have been replaced with units produced by a different manufacturer, both those used in production models and those in the warehouses. I shall emphasize that we haven't changed the model of the 5800 XpressMusic's earpiece, but rather changed our supplier. It's easy to prove since the new units look differently.

Starting in late January all authorized service centers have been receiving packages with the new earpieces and any users who made warranty claims after that time shouldn't experience the problem again.

It's worth noting that the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is one of our company's top-priority products, therefore its sales have been monitored by our Research & Development (R&D) division from day one, and as soon as we found out about this defect an official representative of Nokia's R&D department visited Russia to study the issue on-site.

The best thing about the phone is that it comes with one year of free music, which can't be heard without a functioning earpiece.