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The flashy Nokia 5800 XpressMusic all the pop stars were into popped up on the FCC's site with a nice little treat: built-in 3G support for its US release.
The rumour currently running around about the Nokia 5160 XpressMusic is that T-Mobile has recalled it. That's not quite true. It's stopping sales of the phone because a "defective component" is causing the LED in some units to go blank. If you've bought one and it's going all seizure-y on you, you gotta take it back to the T-Mobile store to "discuss available options."
After making an appearance in a recent Britney Spears video, and showing up again in Christina Aguilera's video for "Keeps Gettin' Better" (about 1:07 in), Nokia's marketing strategy regarding their new 5800 XpressMusic is becoming pretty clear. At least this time the singer can actually, you know...sing. Hit the jump to check out a couple of stills.
After Nokia set its first touchscreen phone, the 5800 XpressMusic, into the wild, one executive teased that they will be launching a new touchscreen smart phone for the N-series, wedged neatly between the iPhone and Blackberry Storm. "We will have a lot of touch screen phones coming up, including an N-series device very soon," Nokia India's Marketing Director Devinder Kishore said. Although official details and release dates have yet to be announced, the new touchscreen is rumoured to hit the markets early 2009. [Cell Passion via IntoMobile]
Thanks to about a million tips, I've been forced to sit through the new Britney Spears music video for "Womanizer" because the flashy Nokia 5800 XpressMusic 'Tube' makes an appearance. The phone is used to take a picture of a ridiculously be-wigged Britney before she violently attacks the photographer and slams his face into a photocopier, sending the poor phone flying. But that's not the end of the technology in the video!
Just like the iPhone, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic 'Tube' won't have 3G or Wi-Fi enabled when it makes its way to China, which pretty much negates any reasons that customers might have to want one. The 3G exclusion can at least be blamed on China's lack of coverage, but disabling Wi-Fi on every new phone just doesn't make sense. All China's regular internet traffic is filtered anyway, so regulators either have a crucial misunderstanding of what Wi-Fi is or a serious problem with people enjoying things. [Nokia - Thanks, Lauri!]
It looks as though the highly anticipated Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (aka 'Tube') will not make its way to the US in time for the Xmas season. Instead, Nokia seems to be content with focusing on emerging markets like India, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia and Spain before setting their sites on developed markets like the US. Analysts seem to think the move makes sense from a business perspective, but customers waiting patiently for Nokia's first touchscreen Symbian S60 phone may feel otherwise. [Reuters]
Our hands-on with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic 'Tube' was pretty conclusive: the 5800 is a solid, capable but somewhat underwhelming music phone. For a first attempt at a full touch interface, though, the adapted S60 operating system is actually pretty good. Slashphone has unearthed a mountain of demo footage displaying the different functions of the OS, so you can make your own judgment, but as with our hands-on video, you'll just have to try to ignore the damning, repeatedly unregistered touches that keep happening whenever the screen isn't pre-rendered.
The 5800 XpressMusic (aka Tube) is the first touchscreen Symbian S60 phone from Nokia--a surprising fact considering how prominent touchscreens have quickly become over the last few years. And instead of rolling out the new touch-specific S60 Fifth Edition on a flagship N-series phone, Nokia has decided to position the 5800 as a music phone for the kiddies, packaging it with their all-you-can-eat (and keep) Comes With Music service. This choice is probably a brilliant one, because after our quick demo, this thing needs a bit more time in the oven before it can stand with the big guys for a touchscreen-only device.
Reuters is claiming that the long, long-awaited Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Touchscreen "Tube" will be launched in London on October 2nd, according to their sources. This confirms the rumour that we floated Wednesday, when the first actual picture of the device surfaced. (It's mostly screen. Surprise!). As with most of the glut of new touchscreen phones out there now, the key to Tube's success as well as the most exciting part of the launch will probably be the device's software, which is rumoured to be a touchscreen revision of the venerable Symbian S60 OS [Reuters]
