Reuters: October 2nd is go for Nokia Tube launch

October 2nd: mark it down 'cause Reuters says that's the date that Nokia will launch its Nokia Tube -- aka, 5800 XpressMusic. According to a pair of industry sources, Nokia will launch the much anticipated, long overdue, S60 touchscreen device at a media and analyst event in London -- exactly as Pocket-lint's source told us earlier. All that's left now is for the invites to be distributed.

[public @ Sep 26th 2008 5:23AM]

Sweet. Finally the biggest player of 'em all joins the full-touchscreen club. More competitiors -> better devices and prices.

[asg84 @ Sep 26th 2008 5:26AM]

this phone should have been released at the beginning of this year but better late than never!!!

[nDee @ Sep 26th 2008 6:39AM]

Wrost than being vaporware.
Nokia had not innovated much after their big crash.
In the past they bring out crazy things like the original Ngage or those funky phones.
Now all looked the same.

[GagdetHeat @ Sep 26th 2008 5:30AM]

Why do I have a feeling that after all this time, this is going to be a huge let down?.....

[kaj @ Sep 26th 2008 9:52AM]

One thing that is strange is the slow reactiontime for Nokia to come out with a touch-screen phone.

Maybe its good or maybe its bad, only time will tell.

[CJ @ Sep 27th 2008 8:39AM]

Well, look at it like this; Nokia has had the majority of smartphone marketshare in Europe for the better part of a decade, and all without touchscreens, their interface works brilliantly without a touchscreen, and it's only recently, in the last two-to-three years or so, when mobile web browsing has become one of the main selling points of mobile devices, that touchscreens have become almost mandatory on touchscreen phones.

Nokia learnt long ago that most power users (i.e. the majority of high-end symbian/S60/S90 consumers) would much rather a large, tactile keyboard than a touchscreen with an all-but-useless thumbboard or virtual keyboard. That's why the 90xx range (and more recently, the E90, and indeed, all of the E-Series) have sold so well.

[)law( @ Sep 26th 2008 5:39AM]

Oh man it's going to quite a rumble in the mobile jungle...

[Muhammed @ Sep 26th 2008 5:45AM]

This not going to be a let down, neither is it an iphone killer, just take it for what it is; a good, feature rich, well designed touch music phone.

[Rik @ Sep 26th 2008 6:07AM]

Yes... Nokia descided to jump into the midrange market because directly trying to competing in the same market as the iPhone would be pointless. Actually with this lean candybar form factor this might actually be the first 'typical' candybar phone.

[CJ @ Sep 26th 2008 6:36AM]

Actually, Rik, I think the reason Nokia decided to enter the mid-range market with a music phone is because, let's face it, this is the first time that they've ever brought out an S60 touchscreen phone like this.

What this is doing, I think, is not only creating a base for future S60 Touch phones, but also getting users used to the idea of a touch screen nokia. They're not super-cheap phones, but a midrange handset would be acessable to both simple users, because of a lower price point, and power users, because of the S60 smartphone OS.

When the bring out the Equivalent of a touchscreen N95, THEN we can properly judge them in the high-end phone market.

[Rik @ Sep 26th 2008 9:07AM]

Yeah thats true... and also putting this touch UI in a mid-range phone really provides feedback on the touch interface not only from your typical high-end smart phone user, but also from users who don't want to use a phone to such a extend.

[Richard @ Sep 26th 2008 6:07AM]

I still think the HTC HD (Dont like the OS but you have to love the hardware specs) is the leader, just hope HTC offers an Android rom option on it.

[TareX @ Sep 26th 2008 7:02AM]

HTC HD's limitation is WM6.1.... no OpenGL.... etc

The thought of what HTC will do with WM7 and Tegra is frightening. The Tube will be a very low-end touchscreen phone in comparison to the "big 3"... (iPhone, G1, HD)

[tpadekar @ Sep 26th 2008 1:17PM]

I don't think you can count the G1 in the same breath as the others just yet.. especially if you are looking at the phone purely from a features-OS-refinement-aesthetics standpoint.

A high-ranking official from Google stated on his blog that the design of the G1 is more than 3 years old anyway. When there's a more modern device running Android in the market which can compete on the above benchmark, then we can count that device in. Until then, it's still the Top-2, not the Top-3 :-)

[chefgon_ign @ Oct 1st 2008 11:31PM]

I wonder what kind of workaround they would come up with for the missing (and highly necessary) Menu button if they were to do that.

[shimmy shimmy yah @ Sep 26th 2008 6:09AM]

well im in the market for a new phone and ipod.... i was thinking about a ipod touch and perhaps a nokia n78 or maybe e71, a device that could TRULY do all this in one stylish package would be terrific, i sure hope this is it.. and no i will not by the iphone for personal reasons and that they are only on very expensive plans here in Aus.

[Jash Sayani @ Sep 26th 2008 6:17AM]

Not bad. It has a touch screen bot NOT multi-touch. Nice start nokia. !

[CJ @ Sep 26th 2008 6:31AM]

Yes, well done Nokia!

You should have listened to your consumers, and installed multitouch on this, because the ten-or-so users who are not going to buy this because of that missing feature is WELL worth the millions of dollars of lawsuits and time spent in court for infringing Apple's various patents and copyrights.

[Mark Anderson @ Sep 26th 2008 7:30AM]

Yes because multi-touch is a great feature. You can resize the screen with two fingers instead of the one it takes to move the slider.

[Richard @ Sep 26th 2008 9:01AM]

@CJ
Multi-touch screen technology is over 20 years old. In fact the screen on the iPhone was designed by a german company "not Apple".

[Rik @ Sep 26th 2008 9:09AM]

I don't think Nokia designed this phone with "resize" type applications in mind actually.

[CJ @ Sep 27th 2008 8:33AM]

@Richard

This is true, but Apple hold's various patents (unfortunately for the rest of the smartphone market) on having a multitouch screen on a mobile phone or portable device, or similar.

[TareX @ Sep 26th 2008 6:57AM]

Prepare yourselves for a slow S60 touch experience, and a user interface designed for stylus input.

Otherwise, I may just pick that one up as well.

[asg84 @ Sep 26th 2008 8:12AM]

this phone is designed for both stylus and finger controls . advance smartphone functions will require stylus

[theCardinal @ Sep 26th 2008 7:40AM]

Still making ugly phones I see, Nokia.

[Sop.L @ Sep 26th 2008 7:54AM]

I actually thought it looks pretty damn good and it dosen't really look like iphone at all exept the screen imo, but that's hardly world first ;)

[Pdexter @ Sep 26th 2008 7:50AM]

All those who are saying that it's late and so on. You are partly right, but like Nokia have said this will be for masses, mid priced phone a'la iphone.

It got 3.2mpx cz camera (that will most probally win any HTC camera), GPS, 3.2 screen with 640×360(compared to iphones 480x320) and TV-out. Dunno about you, but for a mid market phone that sounds pretty damn good. And Nokia got line of TS phones coming next year and the TS flagship so i'm sure we will get some competition from the market leader vs Android/iphone/HTC.

Got a feeling that 5800XM won't really change much thought. It won't be sold in states so no one knows it exist while in Europe and partly in Asia it will be bought just because of the spec, price and because it's Nokia.
Intresting to see how it performs when it comes out nonetheless.

[Jah @ Sep 26th 2008 7:54AM]

Nokia had a touch screen high res device many years ago - the Nokia 7710. It was a wonderful device for its time. 640x480 res!

[zip @ Sep 26th 2008 8:02AM]

Well most of the people browsing this blog are from NA so i'm not expecting much of a Nokia knowledge.
7710 was announced in 2003 and released 2004 and used Symbian bases S90 that Symbian dropped some time ago.

[TareX @ Sep 26th 2008 8:35AM]

iPhone made people expect swipes, finger gestures, sliding icons... especially for a music phone. The targeted demographic doesn't want WM/S60 style buttons you so blandly click on with your fingertips on a music phone.

But it's thin and has a big screen, so I think those will be the main selling points, and NOT Touch.

[CBobC @ Sep 26th 2008 9:45AM]

Its best feature is that it mutes when you put it screen side down.

[Behnam @ Sep 26th 2008 10:11AM]

I've been waiting for a nice music phone from nokia to replace my old 6600,and it seems I finally found the right one.

[kali4 @ Sep 30th 2008 1:26PM]

Anybody else slightly uncomfortable with the idea of having Nokia's "Tube" in their pocket? That aside, it seems a decent enough phone to me.

[MyPass @ Sep 26th 2008 11:36AM]

Maybe (and i hope so) it is the first device with real good and compatibles car-kit´s are available! For the other devices (brand´s) nothing really usefully exist´s! That could be a big USP and i´m thinking to change from my HTC Artemis to this device from this reason!

[marsromangod @ Sep 26th 2008 5:16PM]

My mom is going crazy for this phone and thats exactly what nokia is trying to do. I don't mean get my mom to buy a phone but go for that audience. People that want a simple good looking TS phone with a half decent camera and room for some music but dont want to pay the outrages monthly plan for an iphone. I'd say its a really good move by nokia ... I'll wait for the top of the line TS phone.

[Samunosuke @ Sep 26th 2008 7:02PM]

I'm gettin this. It's gonna be comparatively cheap and it's got quite decent specs. One thing though, has it got an accelerometer cos' it's gonna be wierd if it hasn't got one.

[sclinac @ Sep 27th 2008 1:50AM]

Any way, we can put DVD movie to Nokia phone http://www.daniusoft.com/dvd-to-nokia.html

[gettingmymacon @ Sep 28th 2008 8:41AM]

a full touch screen phone from nokia...my penis feels bigger already

[katzhkau @ Sep 29th 2008 8:03AM]

na, man darf gespannt sein!

[cp @ Sep 30th 2008 6:54PM]

I have and still use a 640x320 Nokia 7710. I loved Series 90 (the touch screen Symbian effort from Nokia) but it was never widely adopted. The phone (by means of an additional battery cover adapter) supported DVB-H! Allthough 4 years old, 2.5G and very much NOT wifi, I love it. I have an E90, the only nokia phone to beat the res of my 7710. The keyboard is AWFUL, far too stiff (oo er!) but the built in GPS and Wifi are an added bonus. I maintained I would not buy another (new) Nokia until they made another touch screen. Get a move on, Nokia, I sawly need a new phone and would like to buy one before it REALLY is obsolete! (A flagship touch screen would be my next choice, but c'mon.. my 7710 needs to be retired!)

[Josh @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:39AM]

So, its October 2nd, wheres the phone?