As promised, James and I braved the rain on Friday to attend the launch event for Nokia’s first Symbian touch-driven device, the Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic – also often still known by its pre-launch name ‘The Tube’. Available exclusively via Nokia’s two flagship stores in London’s Regent Street and Heathrow Terminal 5 plus the Nokia online store (at least that’s what the press release says – the online store is still only offering a ‘pre-order’ option right now), it will also be available from all of the major UK network operators (with the exception of Three) starting Friday 30th.
Priced at £249 SIM-free, it’s expected to be free with contract on most tariffs and – we’re all agreed – is pretty exceptional value, although some are dissappointed it’s not a ‘Comes With Music‘ handset yet. Nokia shifted 500,000 of these things in 30 days of sales, with over a million sold even before the UK launch.
At the event James reprised his ‘normob walkabout’ role in the queue of eager first-customers, we spoke to Mark Loughran (Managing Director, Nokia UK and Ireland), got a demo of the device and even managed to get ten minutes with friend-of-the-show Rafe Blandford from the excellent AllAboutSymbian.com.
A 5 minute extract of the Mark Loughran is available on YouTube or the full show is embedded below and hitting the podcast feeds right now. Take a look:
Nokia 5800 ‘Tube’ Launch at Nokia’s Regent St flagship store from Ben Smith on Vimeo.
‘Just for fun’ there’s also a brief outtakes reel for the people who have drunkenly told me ‘they were the best bit’. Feel free to ignore it if you’re a sensible person…
Nokia 5800 Launch – Out Takes from Ben Smith on Vimeo.