nokia 5800 express tube

ouchscreen mobile phones are the big thing at the moment, mainly thanks to the iPhone.

Now, at last, Nokia has joined the fray and its Tube smartphone - or Nokia 5800 XpressMusic - has the potential to eat into Apple’s market share.

Nokia’s touchscreen is arguably on a par with the Apple handset and is likely to cost significantly less when the final operator packages are worked out. Nokia says the phone will cost about £220 before taxes and subsidies.

Here are the highlights of a phone that, together with Google’s G1 phone, will make the mobile smartphone battle really interesting.

There is a 3.2-inch display, smaller than the iPhone's. But with a widescreen 640 x 360 pixel display and 30 frames-per-second playback and recording, the device provides high-quality video record !!! Really cool for nokia 5800

The handset features a 3.2-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens. With a single touch, images or videos can be shared via websites such as Flickr or Facebook.

The layout of icons and access to the main functions works well and Nokia is very keen on its innovative “Media Bar” - a drop-down menu that provides direct access to the phone’s myriad music and entertainment features.

One of the biggest features is Nokia’s ground-breaking Comes With Music feature, which enables people to buy a Nokia device with a year of unlimited access to tracks from the Nokia Music Store. Once the year is complete, customers can keep all their music.

The 5800 Tube provides one-touch access to browse and purchase tracks from the store.

There are strong music features to go with Comes with Music - a graphic equaliser and support for all the main digital formats. But there is only 8GB of memory in the form of a microSD card (enough for 6,000 tracks) and many music fans will be disappointed. Many other phones (including the iPhone) already offer 16GB. Nokia says a 16GB card will be available in 2009.

The Tube offers iPhone-ish web surfing with the usual 3G, HSDPA and wi-fi connectivity, but the sensitivity of the screen is not quite up to Apple’s sexy standard. However there is support for Flash, which allows users to get at much more of the web’s content than with Apple's Flashless handset.

There is an FM radio and powerful built-in stereo speakers, said to offer the biggest sound of any mobile.

Perhaps one of the most interesting innovations is that the phone supports handwriting. As well as inputting your e-mail or message using the virtual alphanumeric keypad or the virtual computer-style QWERTY keyboard, you can use a pen stylus to write on the touchscreen.

For the truly music obsessed, the Tube also comes with a plectrum to write with. The software recognises 60 languages.

The phone runs on the latest version of the Symbian operating system, S60 5th Edition. Nokia is proud of the new open platform, which will allow developers to come up with their own applications for phones like the Tube.

Precise details about and where it will be available are not yet available, but a Nokia spokeswoman said it will probably be in UK shops by Christmas. The basic price for the Nokia 5800 will be €279 euros or £221, but operator deals and other details are still some way off. The pay-as-you-go iPhone costs about £375 from O2.

For Nokia’s first attempt at a touchscreen, this was pretty impressive. And I also liked the fun use of the accelerometer - when the phone rings, just turn it upside down to silence the ringing.

THE SPECS

Size: 111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm

Weight: 109g

Memory: 81MB internal memory, supports up to 16GB micro SD (but 16GB card not available until next year)

Music playback: Up to 35 hours

Display: 3.2 inch nHD (640 x 360 pixels) with up to 16 million colours

High-speed connectivity: 3G, HSDPA and wi-fi

Talk time: Up to 9 hrs (WCDMA), 5 hours (GSM)

Stand-by time: Up to 17 days

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Nokia sells security appliance business to Check Point

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