The X6 also has 32GB storage, TV-out and Comes With Music unlimited downloads (delayed to year in U.S). Nokia says the phone will be available by the end of the year for 459 Euros (about $650).

Meanwhile, the X3 will have a 3.2-megapixel camera, FM Radio, integrated stereo speakers, and need to use MicroSD cards for storage (probably a preferable option, anyway). It will be 115 Euros (about $160) when it arrives along with the X6.
[Nokia]

The announcement, whatever it might be, could also be related to Comes With Music, Nokia's audio service. If you're really interested, check in with Nokia around 5 a.m. EST Wednesday morning. [Nokia via The Nokia Blog]

The track lists are said to mirror the region where each individual bench was deployed, with the Beatles dominating Liverpool but Black Sabbath representing Birmingham. But while you's expect the benches to be stolen/destroyed/soiled immediately, each will feature the close supervision of a security guard, along with the presence of one "performer" (which kind of defeats the purpose of the headphones, no?).

So sit back, relax and enjoy your favorite songs...while closely scrutinized for deviant behavior and hanging out with some musician who is probably only moderately more tolerable than a Greenpeace donations collector. But hey, at least you'll know that no one peed in the headphones.

That's my take, at least. Would you be tempted take a seat? [musicradar]

The 5800 XpressMusic (aka Tube) is the first touchscreen Symbian S60 phone from Nokia—a surprising fact considering how prominent touchscreens have quickly become over the last few years. And instead of rolling out the new touch-specific S60 Fifth Edition on a flagship N-series phone, Nokia has decided to position the 5800 as a music phone for the kiddies, packaging it with their all-you-can-eat (and keep) Comes With Music service. This choice is probably a brilliant one, because after our quick demo, this thing needs a bit more time in the oven before it can stand with the big guys for a touchscreen-only device.

For a mid-range music phone with touch, though, the 5800 is pretty well equipped: 640x360 touchscreen with haptic response, Wi-Fi, A-GPS, 3G on the 850/1900 MHz band (works with AT&T here in the States), 3.2MP camera with Zeiss lens, and an 8GB microSD card for music in the box. But while the touchscreen is sharp and bright, it's resistive rather than capacitive, which means instead of accurately picking up the light zap of electricity from your fingertips, it registers where two thin layers of the screen get pushed together under your finger.

On the prototype we played with briefly, it's much harder to get touches to register, and far less accurate than the iPhone's capacitive screens. The 5800 packs a built-in stylus for this reason—you'll be using it a lot. Text entry can be done with a full-screen QWERTY, a mini-QWERTY for the stylus, T9 on a touch dialpad, or using handwriting recognition w/ stylus. It's almost exactly like what's found on Nokia's touchscreen internet tablets like the N810, which makes sense, since Nokia recently folded the tablet group in with the smartphone folks to help develop touch features for S60 v5.

Other touch-specific additions are a new Contacts bar similar to T-Mobile's myfaves that can replace application shortcuts—giving quick access to calling or texting your four favorite folks, as well as the option to add an RSS feed of that person's blog or Twitter updates. Application menus also appear on a nice translucent overlay in most applications instead of Symbian's usual pop-up lists, making the camera much easier to operate while switching options, for instance. And a dedicated button on the upper right brings up the Media Bar, which gives quick touch access to the music player, camera, contacts, and web browser at any time. If you're used to Symbian's browser, you'll fit right at home with the touch version. Basically touching replaces the scrolling cursor for zooming and scrolling a page. It's a pretty solid experience, although pages still tend to load their mobile versions by default like in S60 v4.

For music the device looks capable—there's a 3.5mm headphone jack thank God, and 8GB of space on the included 8GB microSD. In the States, the 5800's price (which is not yet set, but the Euro version is €279/$389) will include a year of Comes With Music downloads, which can then be kept. Going beyond Nokia's proprietary sync software (for iTunes, etc) will be like in any other Symbian phone—not super convenient. Comes With Music allows you to sync albums grabbed on the web to your device over 3G, though, which is nice.

The 5800 seems like a solid mid-level touch phone for music—especially if Comes With Music pans out as a cool service. But don't plan on using this thing for heavy emailing or texting—you'll probably be using T9 text entry with the touch dialpad or the stylus for most of your text entry unless you have the patience of a monk, which kind of defeats the point for an all-touch device these days. Look for it hitting before the end of the year for an as-yet-undisclosed price.

The company is purportedly hoping to announce its all-you-can-eat music product before the end of September, with a launch date in Europe before Christmas. Right now, Walkman phones function on a pay-per-track business model, with roughly 5 million un-DRM-ed songs available. If its unlimited service is similarly DRM-free, it might have a chance at one-upping Nokia's Comes With Music buffet after all. One can only hope. [Financial Times]