Espoo’s first touchscreen S60-powered handset is nigh here. Well, the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 Tube isn’t Nokia’s first touchscreen mobile phone, but the Nokia Tube is the first touchscreen offering that’s actually worth mentioning. Not to be outdone by the flood of mobile phones coming on market with touchscreens in tow, Nokia XpressMusic 5800 Tube will be debuting the company’s S60 5th Edition mobile OS with full touchscreen capabilities.
As a direct competitor to the Apple iPhone 3G, Nokia is pulling out all the stops. While Apple may
have been the market-force behind the current touchscreen handset-boom, Nokia isn’t going to let the iPhone 3G trump its Tube on the feature-tip. The Nokia XpressMusic 5800 Tube sports all the high-end features that we’ve come to expect from Nokia.
The Nokia XpressMusic 5800’s 3.2-inch high-resolution display packs in an impressive 640 x 360 pixels in a pressure-based touchscreen. A 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with Car Zeiss optics adorns the backside of the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 Tube along with a dual-LED flash. Within the Nokia Tube’s svelte package lies the GPS receiver, WiFi radio, quad-band (850/900/1800/1900Mhz) GSM/EDGE radio with your choice of North American 3G support, European 3G support, or none at all (depending on which variant you decide to pickup.
A 3.5mm headphone jack makes sure that you can listen to your favorite tunes on your favorite headphones. Of course, you’re going to need some serious storage to tote all your media on the road, so the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 Tube brings along a microSD card slot that supports up to 16GB of extra storage – Nokia has seen fit to include an 8GB microSD card in the box, making the Tube a sweet deal.
And, even sweeter is the Nokia Tube’s price-point. The Nokia XpressMusic 5800 will be available in your choice of Black, Red, or Silver for just €279 (about $392) in unlocked form. But, if unlimited subscription music downloads are more your style, you might want to wait for Nokia to drop the “Comes With Music” edition of the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 Tube next year.