My impression is that Nokia Xpressmusic is cheap smartphone very popular in India. Since Nokia must compete on price and not on quality in that market I wouldn't expect high quality there. As well it is quite old phone (released on April 27, 2008). I'm not sure if it is even fair to compare it to anything and make conclusions about Nokia's decline from 3 years old product.
I personally have Nokia N8 ("Made In Finland"). It is really solid and good made phone. I have not seen any of the problems you have with your Nokia. As well there are reasons why I wouldn't change this phone to iPhone and Android (like stable performance, good camera and free navigation). There are reasons why I don't like my phone: like browser that does not support HTML5 (while Qt has webkit that supports HTML5 features) but Nokia is working on those issues (google Nokia Anna).
P.S. Maybe I'm just lucky to get good Nokia smartphones :)
I was referring specifically to the cheaper "feature phones" (such as the Xpressmusic, which certainly isn't a smartphone). We often hear that they rule the low end market, but even in that segment, their design and quality seem to be slipping.
I would like to know why it is not smartphone? I don't see the difference. As well I think I agree with you that in low end market design and quality is slipping because Nokia has to compete with cheap phones from China. Wikipedia article on your phone lists visible things that were done to lower the price of this phone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_5800_XpressMusic#Price_Dr...). I'm more than sure that there are invisible ones as well. But as I have noted that says nothing about Nokia overall. If you want good Nokia phone buy good Nokia phone but not cheap one. You got what you paid for. That's like buying Toyota Yaris and complaining about lowering quality of Toyota cars overall.
I personally have Nokia N8 ("Made In Finland"). It is really solid and good made phone. I have not seen any of the problems you have with your Nokia. As well there are reasons why I wouldn't change this phone to iPhone and Android (like stable performance, good camera and free navigation). There are reasons why I don't like my phone: like browser that does not support HTML5 (while Qt has webkit that supports HTML5 features) but Nokia is working on those issues (google Nokia Anna).
P.S. Maybe I'm just lucky to get good Nokia smartphones :)