The reason: Buyers are shifting en masse away from Nokia's and seeking slightly pricier low-end smartphones that are more iPhone-like with Internet capability, more processing power, better screens, and full QWERTY keyboards.
The 5800 is Nokia's star for now. It sells for less than an iPhone in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, where it outsells Apple's superphone. Nokia may even match Apple's worldwide first-quarter shipments with more than 2.5 million 5800s sold, according to some forecasts.
Smartphone success comes at the expense of middle-ground of "feature phones," industry jargon for the sort of camera-phones and music-player-phones .
Meanwhile, buyers are opting for . That's why industry watchers expect Research in Motion will see a 10 to 20 percent rise in sales this quarter, despite a 10 percent slump in the overall market. Even in a recession, people seem unable to resist buying themselves a cool phone.