Nokia Releases the Tube

At Nokia Remix in London today Nokia released it's first S60 touch screen phone the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 aka the 'Tube'.  Go here to see a video about using the 'Tube' and here to see a video about the gist of the 'Tube'. 

Nokia's stated goal is to combine rich Media with Community and enable the user to interact with this environment in a  much more intuitive  and effective way using a touch screen interface.  The touch screen also has tactile feedback and a built in accelerometer which enables even more intuitive interfaces to be developed using the Sensor APIs in the SDK, out of the box it used to rotate the screen to orient photos to the proper direction. 

The 5800 is Nokia's first direct shot at the iPhone and they didn't seem to be hiding that at the announcement.  Nokia Music head Jo Harlow: "This is about half the price of competitive touchscreen devices in the market today. It is the best value touchscreen device in the market today."  Most reviewers are dismissing the 5800 as a direct threat to the iPhone due to lack of features but it is a solid entry for Nokia.

What maybe of interest to developers is also the inclusion of Flash to its on-board web browser.  "Some people thought Flash was not important on a mobile device but we made sure that you can browse the whole web and not just pieces of it. " said Harlow, translated Apple didn't think it was important to enable users to browse the whole web, we did.

Click here to read the full press release.