Nokia officially unveils its first touchscreen handset, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

No more leaks, no more speculation, no more blurry photographs, the Nokia Tube is finally official and it’s called the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Launched at Nokia’s Remix event in London yesterday, not only is Nokia’s first touchscreen handset a member of the XpressMusic family, it’s also getting in on the Comes With Music action too.

But let’s talk about that screen. It’s a 3.2″ widescreen display with a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and of course, it’s a full touchscreen. It seems that it isn’t a multi-touch effort, but the interface, includes what Nokia is calling the Media Bar and the Contacts Bar, which are essentially drop down touchscreen menus for controlling music and contacts functions on the phone. The Media Bar also offers direct access to the web with a browser that supports flash content.

Unlike the 5310 XpressMusic Comes With Music handset, you can browse and download tracks from the Nokia Music Store wirelessly on the Nokia 5800, which will certainly provide a boost for the Comes With Music service. To make use of all that delicious content, the device is packing 8GB of memory and built-in surround sound stereo speakers so you can save loads of tracks and annoy people on the bus with them.

The handset also features a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens with support for video recording at 30 frames-per-second. There is of course the obligatory raft of sharing options on hand too so that with a single touch, images or videos can be uploaded to Share on Ovi, Flickr, or Facebook.

Conspicuously absent is the N-Gage service which suggests that though the 5800 XpressMusic is set to go head to head with the iPhone in the music department, gaming may have to wait. What’s especially baffling is that the handset sports a plectrum key chain, which we have learned can be used as a stylus, but also as a peripheral for playing a device specific version of Gameloft’s Guitar Rock Tour.

Apparently the N-Gage will be following at some point but the fact the handset has games of its own is enough to raise a few eyebrows about what else might be set to follow. The device will be available before Christmas, costing 279 Euros before taxes and subsidies (about £220).

So there you have it, we don’t have any more specifics yet about the way the S60 OS works with the touchscreen, or even what sort of connectivity the handset sports (given that over the air downloads are touted, WiFi, 3G or both are a pretty safe bet). As soon as we know more, we’ll let you know here.

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