Rentobile is genius. I’ve been thinking of starting something like this for a while in the UK.

But for Americans, stuffed by the (somewhat) rubbish mobile carriers in the States not carrying Nokia or any other decent European devices, this is a boon.

Rentobile carries a large range of different devices — some locked to the big networks, others entirely unlocked.

If you’re a member (rates vary, but if you buy a year’s membership, it works out at $5 per month) you can get hold of most of the top of the range devices for around $35-40. I’m talking N96, E71, Sony Ericsson Xperia and so on.

If you choose not to be a member, then you pay about $20 more for the monthly handset rental rate. And the minimum rental period is a month.

I reckon this service will — if it hasn’t already — garner a huge, huge following from the Americans starved of access to European devices.

I’m right, aren’t I? I could name 10 US citizens right now who’d sign-up for this in a jiffy. You don’t want to go spunking $500 for an unlocked handset from a supplier only to find out it’s not.that.good do you? So rent it for a month … then try another one.

I haven’t tried this myself although I’m tempted to arrange something for when I’m in Las Vegas.

Anyone else tried it?

See also the service write-up write up on Springwise. (Thanks Charlie)

The Finish Fone makers all you can eat music download service has just expanded its buffet table, to seat other countries that weren’t previously allowed at the table.

In a very tentatively  linked intro that no doubt you’ll forgive us for one day, Nokia has opened up its music store to include other countries tracks rather than just English singing artists.

Local dialects that are now featured range from France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway and of course Finland. More are undoubtedly to be scheduled within time, as they’ve missed a few places off that list that they are in, and are doing rather well in too.

Later on in this quarter of the year, Singapore and Australia performers will be available within Nokia’s download store. With the latter really being English speaking and singing, so forgive us once again for our discretions before you start writing in saying Australians sing in English as well.

Hitting all the right notes, they’ve started to gain even more ground against iTunes with this new pan European licensing agreement that’s bound to be a right kick in the Apples.

What’s next on this list we believe is for the service to be included out of the box on more and more handsets. With a view to making it backwardly available whenever they refresh a SKU or a series. Only the other week we brought you news of the N96 now starting off this trend, so it’s not too far a stretch of the imagination for this to be on the cards for the future.

We also put it to Nokia in an almost open letter at the end of that piece, the store “needs to be expanded to accommodate TV episodes and movies“. Over lunch the other day with some senior people at Nokia this was mentioned in conversation, where it was said there’s a reason for Nokia opening up an office in Hollywood a while ago.

So, you’ve read it here first folks. Nokia’s next venture is entitled ‘Comes With Video’, or it’s bound to be something quite close to that *cough*

Regular reader, MostlyThis (AKA Chris Morrison) is the proud owner of a new Nokia N96. The second one sold in the UK, apparently.

Good man.

He appears to be loving it and it *does* look rather swish.

If you’re thinking of making a purchase, his unboxing pictures are right here.

Finally, the Nokia N96 is available for ordering from 3′s UK website. I’m not sure whether you can actually walk into a 3Store and pick up one of these yet. But I’m pleased to see they’re online and orderable.

Our very own James Whatley isn’t a fan because the N96 is missing a graphics chip present in the N95 8GB. Other than that, the N96 looks like a fairly decent handset. Big screen. Who’s getting one?

Ever since the official carriers for iPhone 3G announced the pricing, there has been widespread disappointment among the people, thanks to the high prices set for phone. Hoping to cash in on this phenomenon, Nokia India had announced the launch of the Nokia N96 for the Indian Markets. People immediately started calling it the iPhone Killer, owing to the high feature set that it comes along. Compared to the other phones in its category, the Nokia N96 is so far the most powerful handset in the market and wins hands down over other through its fancy looks.

However, today’s announcement might come as a dampener to the public. According to Nokia, the phone will be available in retail outlets from September 15th, 2008 and will be priced at Rs. 34,999 (around 440 GBP).

Mr. Devinder Kishore, MD of Nokia India, said:

In the Web 2.0 era, the new Nokia N96 places the power to shape in internet in your hands. Nokia N96 offers the most personalised mobile internet experience to date and it defines convergence by blending phone and multimedia options seamlessly.

Nokia is the most popular handset manufacturer in the country and their N-series phones are becoming a popular trend among the youth.

O2′s management team is looking to rein in the spiralling cost of Nokia’s Nseries handsets in light of the lower average monthly spends on postpay. The operator believes there is no merit in stocking the N96 if its minimum line rental offer for a free N96 is higher than rivals’.

Fascinating.

As we’ve already seen a few times here on Mobile Industry Review, the N96 is lacking the graphics capabilities of the N95 8GB. James did a side-by-side comparison a while ago showing how woeful the experience was.

That shouldn’t interfere with your day to day calling on the N96 – but for a high end phone, it’s a little disappointing. One expects the incremented model number to mean it’s better.

I think o2 are right. If you can make more profits with Apple, stick with Apple. There is, I suspect, a lot more people willing to pay a premium for an Apple vs a Nokia.

Netbooks were very much in evidence – being supplied free with the various subscription 3G data packages.  In addition to the existing range including some Eee models from Asus, an Acer Aspire One and an Advent 4211 a new model from Fujitsu was on show.  Spec wise there was little separate it from the pack but styling and finish were impressive… Everyone agreed there would be a ‘bloodbath’ in this sector in the next few months with Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba all also due to announce products.

The Samsung stand was one of the best with the Omnia – a Windows Mobile 6.1 iPhone-a-like (that’s mine on the right of it for comparison) – launching today and the very impressive i8510 – one of Samsung’s first Symbian handsets – also on show.  The i8510 give Nokia’s best a run for their money – expect to hear more on this… my wallet is itching!  I’ve already got Ewan excited see here.

Next up was Nokia announcing an exclusive (until Christmas) white 5310 handset via CPW for the launch of their ‘Comes with Music‘ offering which is first to launch in the UK.  This gives a code for unlimited downloads from the Nokia music store which is very cool.  Even better is the fact you can keep the tracks after your year-long free subscription expires, but some of the answers about transfers to upgraded handsets and renewing subscriptions were worryingly vague – Nokia best have some good answers before those years start expiring!  Also on show were a number of the newer handsets including the N96 which, in my opinion, is looking lamer and lamer everyday as a flagship model (sorry Nokia).

Next up were our new best friends at SonyEricsson (the same chap in fact) who had his X1 out again and couldn’t answer any of the hard questions about when it would actually be released.  He did say some nice things about the show though so there is some hope for them

The new Jawbone headset we reviewed a few months back is now available in gun-metal grey and gold…. Meh.

Motorola had their Z10 out which impresses with its unusual form factor and video playback if nothing else, but also had their ‘budget smartphone’, the A810 on display – at around £90 on PAYG this is a Linux-based mini-tablet intended for people who want smartphone features at a lower cost… The interface and screen size are all much poorer than the best smartphones available, but at this cost I think they may have a good compromise.  Also impressive was the ZN5 – a 5 megapixel cameraphone with Kodak branding and xenon flash (something that helps Nokia’s N82 shoot such great pictures).  This has a WiFi photoframe accessory that is set to automatically show pictures the phone uploads to Kodak’s online photo site (via a Shozu-like feature) and multiple frames can be added.

LG were also present but apart from a nice table setting didn’t have much new to announce.  Disappointingly the PR there didn’t know about the LG blog so I gave up and moved on.  Nice table though…

Weighing in at 125g with 16GB of memory and HSDPA brilliance, the Nokia N96 arrives on the 3UK network in September.

It’ll be available for around £15 per month on mix’n'match. I’ll take two, please.

I think I need this one.

Here’s the QIK video of it in action:

The Nokia E71 is coming within two weeks to 3UK.

Followed by the Nokia N96, the Sony Xperia and the Blackberry Bold.

Geez.

The 3UK Christmas strategy was revealed to us here at SMS Text News this morning at their launch event — the mobile equivalent of a fashion collection preview.

Standby.

I’ve got photos. I’ve got QIK. I’ve got prices.

Also:

3′s going live with laptops very shortly. And some pretty sexy ones too.

And the 3 Skypephone … it’s much sexier, built-in modem driver so you can use it a a dongle (literally just plug it into your laptop to get started) and it’s got a heck of a lot more features worthy of it’s HSDPA status.

More coming.