As part of coverage of the Nokia 5800 and it’s release this week in the UK, we felt it would be great to talk to one of the developers of the handset. To ask them what they like about the first big smartphone or 2009, and generally get the skinny on why the Nokia 5800 looks and acts exactly why it does.

With that in mind, we spoke earlier today with Damian Mycroft, Senior Design Manager at Nokia Design, who has been a vital part of the team from concept to final launch. See what he thinks of the Nokia 5800 after the jump…

NokNok (NN): Damian, thanks for taking the time to talk to us. When did you personally get involved with the design side of the Nokia 5800?

Damian Mycroft (DM): Concept work had already begun when I came along. Sketches and general ideas were being circulated but it wasn't particularly advanced. So you could say I’ve been with it pretty much from start to finish.

NN: From a designer’s perspective what’s the main thinking behind the Nokia 5800?

DM: We’d been doing a great deal of work with the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, improving the features and design, and the idea with the 5800 was to become the next logical step, to push what we already had to the next evolutionary step.

If there is a ‘halo theme’ to this project then it was one of taking XpressMusic and making it much more than just the music part, to make it the next big step in multimedia. We want the XpressMusic range to be seen much more as a media range and we think we’re succeeding on every level.

NN: We love the look of the Nokia 5800, it's got a great feel to it, highly tactile in the hand and feels as though it was designed with a certain user in mind. What came first, the inside mechanics or the look and feel?

DM: That’s a good question and one that has to work together. To work closely with the business and development teams to make sure that it meets the needs of the target Nokia user. In one respect, we have to balance the artistry of design without limiting the engineering. Neither can work in isolation, so if you have a shoddy concept it will show through in the final product.

NN: How does this balance act reflect itself in the final design of the Nokia 5800?

DM: If you look at the Nokia 5800 it’s the shape it is for very specific reasons. On a neat design level, it’s a phone in two halves, which is why we chose two contrasting materials to help further define the lines between them. If you look at the design, it’s an ellipse in shape, so you naturally move from the back to the front.

We wanted a great deal of interaction between the back and the front but they are clearly two separate parts that you interact with. You have to think of the back of the phone as a massive speaker, so this is the side that’s all about music, while the front is all about the screen and pushing multimedia media using the touchscreen interface. We put a great deal of design focus into the music and people always seem impressed with how great it sounds. The idea is that the music comes around from the sides, to give your videos the best experience possible.

When it comes to the screen, we weren’t thinking that the touchscreen had to be the main focus. Rather, the touchscreen is the enabler that allows you to easily access all this great media. The reason this is a very dark looking phone is so that images really stand out on the screen, it’s about being pleasing to the eye.

This all had to be tempered by battery life, and if you look at how long the 5800 lasts, you’ll see that to a large extent we’ve succeeded as it has amazing battery life.

NN: OK, so you’ve sold us on the concept and the reality but if there were one thing you’d change, what would it be?

If there was something we didn’t like it would have been taken out a long time ago. Every design starts with multiple images and design sketches, getting the look and feel right. Then we move on to dummy models that are used in conjunction with the R&D teams. These concepts all work alongside plenty of evaluation.

However, if there was one thing I’d personally change that would be to make it 2 to 3mm slimmer. The technology is there to allow us to do that now. However, you have to balance this with the type of device you’re making. This isn’t a bleeding-edge device, the Nokia 5800 has been designed as a mass market handset, so to a degree you’re balancing these needs with a certain price point.

You have to remember this isn’t designed in isolation and that we’re always working at improving it. So potentially, we could shave that 2 – 3mm off at some point but then you have to look at how more fragile the device would be. The Nokia 5800 as it is, has been designed for the mass market, so it can be used by everyone from the man in the street to, right up to snowboarders and other extreme situations and survive them all.

NN: We can attest to the durability of this device, two days after receiving it, the 5800 ended up falling down a full flight of stairs and lived to tell the tale.

DM: See , it’s these issues we have to deal with on a design level. For instance, the rim around the screen has been criticised in some quarters as been unsightly but it’s there for a reason – it means you can put the phone face down and not worry about the touchscreen getting scratched or damaged. Mass market phones need to be designed with the mass market in mind and with the Nokia 5800 that's exactly what we've done.

So, there you have it, the word from the man who helps put the Nokia 5800 together. We'd like to thank Damian for talking the time to talk to us.