The Nokia gears are going into full overdrive ever since we’ve started the second half of 2008. On both the hardware and service front, we’ve seen the Finnish giant covering their bases well with the launch of their most recent flagship device, the Nokia N96, and following up, the public beta availability of their Ovi portal that brings their myriad of services together under one wing.

During the Nokia Remix 2008 event held on the 3rd of Oct, Nokia has officially announced its first touchscreen device to hit the mainstream market, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. For all the advent Nokia fans, you’ll probably remember this as the Nokia Tube, and being alert enough, you would have seen it in the scene where Lucius Fox deposits the device into the hands of Bruce Wayne in the Warner Brothers movie, The Dark Knight.

The 5800 XpressMusic comes with a generous 3.2-inch display, running at a 16:9 aspect ratio with its 640 x 360 resolution and up to 16 million colors support. Having a 3.2-inch screen allows one to easily swipe through the device with your fingers and thumbs, and during our short stint with the 5800 XpressMusic, we found ourselves not searching for the bundled stylus to flip through the expansive icons on the interface. It’s hardware delivery is not too shabby either, delivering a quad-band network support with HSDPA connectivity on top of its Wi-Fi and Bluetooth setup. Moreover, the device comes with GPS and is A-GPS ready. As with most multimedia devices, Nokia has wisely thrown in a 3.5mm audio jack and a TV-out port for good measure too.

Perchance you would like to give your neighbours an earful (a good one at that), we were treated to the built in surround sound stereo speakers, which sounded pretty decent to our audio receptors. For the heavy music listeners, the 5800 XpressMusic is rated at up to 35 hours of music playback, and 9 hours of talktime. And equally important for the music lovers, the 5800 XpressMusic does come with microSD expandability, supporting SDHC compatibility as high as up to 32GB (theoretically). Nonetheless, to give consumers a headstart, the 5800 XpressMusic will come bundled with an 8GB microSD to store your music tracks, which will be especially useful if you were to purchase it with the Comes with Music package.

Being the first touchscreen device under the Nokia brand, the 5800 XpressMusic will be a precursor of things to come from the Nokia engine. Whilst Nokia hasn’t officially announced its immediate plans for the S60 5th edition and its inception into its other series such as the N and E lineup, our speculation is as good as yours while we keep ourselves in tune with the Nokia frequency and check out the offerings that has yet to come in the following months. But for the present moment, be patient and await the coming of the first touchscreen device from Nokia, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, which should be looking at a Q4 2008 launch at an estimated retail pricing of 279 Euros (around US$386) before taxes and subsidies.

Furthermore, Nokia has also been going full steam ahead with its service offerings, and a few months back, it introduced the Comes with Music package. This bundled service provides consumers with a year of unlimited music download from the Nokia Music Store at a bundled price when you purchase specific Nokia devices. Announced concurrently at its London press conference, Nokia will be rolling out its Comes with Music package in the following weeks in the United Kingdom, firstly on the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic, and followed by the Nokia N95 8GB and finally the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic in early 2009. To up the ante, Nokia has also announced the addition of the EMI Group amongst other major record labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group on its Nokia Music Store offerings. Unfortunately, we have no firm data on the estimated bundled cost for the Comes with Music package for the Asia Pacific region for now but we will be expecting the unlimited music download service hitting our shores in the very near future.