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The world of touchscreen mobile phones is starting to get exciting, as the biggest name in the business has waded in with not one, but TWO mobile phones: the Nokia 5800 and the utterly mind-blowing Nokia N97.

An undistinguished history – Nokia touchscreen mobile phones in the past

Many people are under the false assumption that the Nokia 5800 is the first ever touchscreen mobile phone to come from the Finnish manufacturer. It’s not. Quite the opposite, in fact, there have been a few touchy-feely phones to wear the Nokia badge. Starting with the 7700, there have been a couple of Nokia mobile phones that work by you prodding and poking the screen. They had a relatively big (for the time) touchscreen in common, but the other feature they had in common, unfortunately, was that they were irredeemably awful. Only one of these mobile phones, the 6708, showed any promise, but that was destined only for the Chinese market, and so, never saw the light of day in the UK. The mobile phones we got were, and I use this phrase with much feeling, utter, utter garbage.

However (and yes, it’s a big however), these bad, bad memories have all been exorcised by the launch of two new Nokia mobile phones, both of which have touchscreens, and both of which are much, MUCH nicer…

Nokia 5800 – touching music

First up is a new entrant into Nokia’s Xpress family of music mobile phones, the gorgeous Nokia 5800. This one’s very definitely designed for music and media, as it has a dedicated XpressMedia button that brings up a list of shortcuts to music, videos, the web, and so on. Oh, and a 3.2 inch touchscreen, to actually watch/play with/use those different media. Basically, the Nokia 5800 is designed as a little handheld entertainment centre, and as music mobile phones go, this is easily one of the sexiest. The Nokia 5800 also comes with a 3 megapixel camera, HSDPA internet access and GPS, making it a brilliant all-round mobile phone, as well as a brilliant media player. Oh, and it has a lanyard to attach to imitation guitar plectrum. That rocks!

However, the Nokia 5800 is very definitely a mid-range mobile phone, it isn’t, nor was it ever meant to be, an absolute top-ender. That position falls to another…

Nokia N97 – the single best phone EVER made?

With the Nokia 5800 all set to bring touchscreen mobile phones to the mid-range market, that leaves a very big gap at the very top-end, and yes, there IS a touchscreen mobile phone on its way to fill that gap: the frankly awesome Nokia N97. This takes the same Symbian S60 Touch interface and crams it into the body of a proper, full on smartphone. So it has a bigger, 3.5 inch screen, a slide out QWERTY keyboard, and the camera’s been upgraded to 5 megapixels. The Nokia N97 is, in a very definite way, the new flagship Nseries mobile phone, and it really is as high-spec as the rumours had us believe, with HSDPA, GPS, digital compass, and built-in Flash, meaning you get an internet experience like no other mobile phones! Put simply the Nokia N97 is awesome. It gleefully relieves itself over other mobile phones and while the Nokia 5800 aims firmly for the mid-range, I am predicting that the Nokia N97 will DOMINATE the world next year!

The latest Nokia 6500 Slide Black has now been released in the UK and adds to the already popular Nokia 6500 Slide Silver edition.

The new black Nokia 6500 slide offers exactly the same features and technology as the original silver edition but with a sleek and nysterious new Black exterior casing.

This new 3G enabled phone has been initially released on Orange in the UK with further network launches expected soon, whilst the original Nokia 6500 Slide has been available for over 3 months on Orange, O2, T-Mobile, 3 Mobile and Vodafone aswell as pay as you go and as a sim free handset.

Part of the Nokia 6500 range, the new Nokia 6500 Slide Black is in good company with the Nokia 6500 Classic range which has also expanded recently to accommodate a new Bronze colour variant.

The Nokia 6500 Slide offers slightly better power management than that of the Nokia 6500 Classic, with 6 hours of talktime and 310 hours on standby and includes all of the basic features available in the 6500 Classic such as the built-in MP3 Player, web browser, email, instant messaging, EDGE technology, UMTS support and so forth.

And as with the Classic version, the Nokia 6500 Slide is a 3G enabled handset but the camera has been boasted up to 3.2 mega pixels with the introduction of Carl Zeiss Optics and the inclusion of a secondary camera for video calling is a bonus plus you’ve also got FM Radio with RDS.

Based on the design of the Nokia 6280 and 6288 handsets and unlike the Nokia 6500 Classic, this version of the 6500 is a slider.

The new Black Steel casing provides extra protection against everyday knocks and scuffs whilst the extensive features take care of business.

Other enhancements available with the Slide version of the Nokia 6500 include a TV-out jack so Video clips and images can be played/viewed on your Television screen as well as enabling TV Video Calls & Conference Calls and then seperately you’ve also got A2DP Stereo support with Bluetooth.

The biggest difference between the Nokia 6500 Slide mobile phones and the Nokia 6500 Classic is that these new sliding phones can make and receive face to face video calls over 3G, although the Classic versions do support 3G services they do not facilitate video calling.