The Nokia 'Tube' 5800 comes, as they say, with music
While it may be a rather late entry in the "handset*" field, today's launch of the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 (originally nicknamed the "Tube") has been timed to coincide with the availability of the "Comes with Music" service.
The 5800 is equipped with the tactility-enabled Symbian S60 interface that Nokia began showing off last year. Unlike other touchscreen handsets in this form factor, the 5800 is primarily a music phone. It has outward-facing stereo speakers (rather than ones mounted on the back of the device), a 3.5mm headphone jack, stereo Bluetooth, 81 MB of on-board memory expandable with an included 8 GB microSD card, and a quirky guitar pick stylus. Fortunately, that is not the device's main input device, and is more of a gimmick to accompany the numerous ways to interact with the touch UI.
Playback supports protected WMA, as well as AAC and MP3, and the on-board player will reportedly be compatible with Windows Media Player 11, though it will be tied more closely with Comes with Music, which Nokia says will be available when the first Comes with Music device (Xpressmusic 5310) goes on sale on October 17 at Carphone Warehouse.
Other features of the XpressMusic 5800 include: quad-band GSM (regional variants will support different 3G standards), 802.11b/g, GPS, a forward-facing 3.2 megapixel camera with flash and 30 fps video recording as well as a second backward-facing camera. The screen measures in at 3.2" with a 640 x 360 resolution.
Contrary to what many have said, the XpressMusic 5800 is not the "first touchscreen device" from the world's foremost mobile phone maker. In 2004, the company made the 7710 smartphone that ran the Symbian S90 UI.
*Some still insist on calling every phone of this type an "iPhone killer," but that comparison is now ice cold, and this commonplace design needs its own name once and for all. Please post what you think I should call this style of handset, and the best response will become my personal name for them in every future BetaNews article I write which refers to such devices.