Nokia to unveil touch-screen phone

Nokia is preparing to enter the touch-screen cell phone market next week, with the debut of its first finger-sensitive phone, according to a Reuters report.

Nokia's head office, in Espoo, Finland.

(Credit: Nokia)

The European handset makeris planning to take the wraps off its touch-screen phone, code-named "Tube," during an event Thursday in London for analysts and the media, according to Reuters, which cites two unnamed sources. (For more, including a photo, see "Hold the phone: Nokia's Tube is the Nokia 5300!")

The Tube will join a field that has been getting crowded since Apple debuted its popular iPhone a little over a year ago. Since then, competitors such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have come on the scene with their own touch-screen phones. Earlier this week, T-Mobile unveiled its G1, a touch-screen device that is the first to run Google's Android software.

Nokia noted in July that it planned to enter the touch-screen market and was initially aiming for the low end of the market, Reuters reported.

A representative from Nokia could not immediately be reached.

[Kwasiowusu]

"Since then, competitors such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have come on the scene with their own touch-screen phones"

Ummmm..LG had their touch-screen smartphone BEFORE Apple came out with their iPhone. In fact the iPhone bears such a strong emarkable resemblance to LG's touch-screen Prada phone, which debuted as far back as Dec, 19 2006, that LG could sue Apple for copying their designs if they wanted to.

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/12322/

Stop trying to re-write history.

[mivelas]

REMEBER DE MOTOLA A1200 or Motorola Ming that was the first one that i remember before that lg prada

[rdclein]

If you think Apple saw the Prada phone on Dec 19, 2006 and then less than a month later produced the iPhone because they copied the design you are quite ignorant on what it takes to build something like the iPhone. I would not give LG credit for anything related to the iPhone other than they happened to release it a month earlier. All of these other touch phones seem to have no thought as to what it really means to build a UI that is really run by a touch screen. Android is an exception, but even that feels clunky and quite a bit like Windows Mobile.

[Kwasiowusu]

rdclein :"If you think Apple saw the Prada phone on Dec 19, 2006 and then less than a month later produced the iPhone because they copied the design you are quite ignorant on what it takes to build something like the iPhone"

Ummm. Apple did NOT release the iPhone in Jan 2007. They merely showed the iPhone prototype to the world then, AFTER LG had shown the Prada prototype in Dec 2006, and actually WON a top international award for it, and the news had been spread all over the internet. So don't tell me Apple didn't know about the LG Prada.
Plus, in fact the iPhone did not come out till a good 6 months after that Jan show.
Irrespective of that, LG released their touch screen smartphone BEFORE Apple even came out with their iPhone, so its still wrong to say in this article that "Since then, competitors such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have come on the scene with their own touch-screen phones"
Bottom line: LG was there BEFORE Apple in touch screen smartphones.

[nite41]

Well, i do not know whether Apple iPhone's design was inspired by LG Prada. But one point is clear here. Apple iPhone is generations ahead of LG Prada. So, in a way, if Apple did actually try to copy Prada, it not only copied it, but made it a much better product! So who has more brains?
Now the issue of copying. If Apple did copy Prada'a design, then LG should have taken them to court! They did not, as they knew they did not have a case. Just because both phones have big touch-screen and just 1-2 buttons doesn't mean that one has copied the other! If that is the case, almost all new touch-screen phones are almost similar. Big touch-screen with only 1-2 buttons!! Maybe LG should go after everyone!
It's not about design and technology. It's about how effectively you can use it and apply it!

[summershoe]

LOL! Silly you. Once the jesusPhone was released all recorded history was erased and rewritten. Apple's phone was not just the first touch screen phone, it was the First Phone Ever. All other phones descended from it, and that is why they bear such close resemblence. Not because rectangular with rounded corners is a common sense shape for a phone, and not because a large screen with minimal buttons makes sense once your screen is touch sensitive.

[Uzbekistani]

Definitely getting this phone ? 3.2 mp camera, music-oriented, vediocapturing, 3.2 inch display, new Symbian ? and Symbian is sooo much better than WinMo ? flash support, SD card support, haptic feedback, but above all, not being tied to an expensive voice and data plan ? what more one can ask for? This phone is going to be huge.

[Star.69]

:O

Isn't that Batman's phone?

By the way... is the Nokia 5800 XpressMedia

[jasctt]

Any word on US carriers yet.

Yeah, and does it come with the sonar thingie that was in Dark Knight? That'd be pretty f'n sweet!

[Constable Odo]

Who cares if LG already had a touch-screen handset. History will remember the iPhone as being the first, anyway. Smartphones have been around for ages and history will say the iPhone made the other smartphones look stupid. History has a funny way of distorting the truth unless you take the time to dig really deep.