Grab PaintPad for 5800 XpressMusic [Freeware]

Put that stylus to good use with PaintPad.

One thing that irks me about the 5800 XpressMusic are the little oversights that I come across. You know, small little things like being unable to select multiple items in a list, or an email application which is supposed to have Home screen notifications, but doesn’t. Things that should have been caught during testing.

Take the stylus, for example. It’s great for taking notes, writing quick messages, or sketching something off the top of your head - right? Unfortunately, you can’t do any of those things because the 5800XM lacks any sort of drawing application. SERIOUSLY. (Side note: while you CAN use the stylus to type out text messages or web addresses in the browser, it’s not too accurate, nor is it quick.)

And that leads us to: PaintPad for the Nokia 5800. Freely available on the Nokia Hong Kong site of all places, and something that should have been included with the phone in the first place. PaintPad is an easy-to-use drawing program that allows you to draw freehand, throw in some lines/shapes/text, undo and redo your actions, and save your creation for later use. You can also load an existing image or take a picture using the camera. There’s even a nifty option to turn off auto-rotate. It’s like a mini-Photoshop for your 5800.

Pretty much the only flaw I can find with the program is that it can’t draw curves correctly - it uses lots of lines in pencil mode which means lots of hard edges (see screenshot above). Still, it’s not a big deal and the application is still way awesome.

Download PaintPad for the 5800 XpressMusic (698k, signed sis file)

While you’re downloading PaintPad, check out the Nokia 5800XM Application Page - there’s around 25 or so free applications that can be had here. Note that some applications, however, may require your phone to be from a certain region (namely Hong Kong). I also find it a little funny that some applications are zipped up, yet there’s no zip client available on the 5800XM.