No, the London Underground hasn’t gone out of business thanks to Oyster card cloning,
but disappointingly, Nokia’s iPhone killer the 5800 XpressMusic will
not be gracing the shelves of retailers in the UK before Christmas.
It
would appear that Nokia’s first born in a potentially lucrative touch
screen range, dubbed the Tube, will not be launched as planned in
November.
Nokia revealed that ‘The 5800 XpressMusic will be
available in Q4 in some markets including Russia, Spain, India along
with parts of Asia pacific and the Middle East. In other key markets
like the UK, it will be available from the first quarter of 2009′.
The handset is Nokia’s first mass-market touch-screen mobile and launches the version five of Symbian’s S60 operating system.
But
it is thought that a higher-end touch screen phone is on the cards for
release next year, which would put up more of a fight with the
Jesusphone.
Speculation surrounding the problems includes
rumours that UK operators have been reluctant to offer the related
unlimited ‘Comes with Music’ service. Not having the phone out in time
for Christmas has been seen by some as a mistake for normally on-the-ball
Finnish phone maker.