Recently announced is the first mainstream touchscreen device from Finnish manufacturer Nokia. They've made touchscreen mobile phones before, but... nothing like the awesomeness of the new Nokia 5800!

Nokia and touchscreens - lessons from history

Believe it or not, the Nokia 5800 isn't the first of their mobile phones to feature a touchscreen. That accolade goes all the way back to the Nokia 7700, a mobile phone that, well, never actually got released. But it was still the first, nevertheless. It's just a shame, really, that Nokia's first attempt at a touchscreen mobile phone was, frankly, rubbish, since it had a bit of a dodgy interface, the looks... well, the looks were described as anything from 'a bit misjudged', to 'looks like a taco', all the way up to 'bad prop from Star Trek'. The follow-up, the Nokia 7710 wasn't much better, being a bit buggy, still huge, and it lacked the features that other mobile phones were rapidly starting to have (cameras, 3G and so on). After that, the only Nokia devices to have touchscreens were not actually mobile phones, as the concept was shifted over to their range of internet tablets.

But now, touchscreen mobile phones are all set to make a triumphant return to the Nokia range, with their newest and bestest touchscreen mobile phone ever: the Nokia 5800.

Nokia 5800 - touchscreen mobile phones for the masses

Soon to be released, the Nokia 5800 is sure to have a very big effect on their portfolio of mobile phones. And the inspiration of it can be traced back to the release of the iPhone, so you can be absolutely sure they've made the Nokia 5800 as slick and as user-friendly as possible. The new S60 Touch interface in the Nokia 5800 is tremendously elegant, as well as being really rather powerful. Put simply, it's a joy to navigate round, and so much nicer than many other mobile phones on the market. Combine with a list of top-notch features, like 3 megapixel camera, HSDPA and so on, and you get a really cool smartphone. But it's with music that the Nokia 5800 really shines, as it's music that this beautiful mobile phone lives for, with a music player that really is second to none. In conclusion, I can sincerely say that the Nokia 5800 is one of the most impressive mobile phones I've seen in a long time.

But the surprising thing is... the Nokia 5800 is a mid-range mobile phone, not a top-ender. So what will happen, when the Nokia 5800 magically morphs into the first touchscreen Nseries mobile phone.

Captain N - the future is Nseries

There's no doubt that the Nokia 5800 is a really cool mobile phone. It's slick, pretty and clever. but what will the new S60 Touch interface be like when it gets put into Nseries mobile phones? Are we going to see something akin to the Nokia N96 that you control by prodding the screen? Well, the answer, unsurprisingly, is yes, as confirmed by Nokia themselves. The Nokia 5800 is merely the first toe in the water, as it were, and there WILL be Nseries mobile phones released with the new touch interface. That's when we're going to see the big, uber-top-end, ultra-powerful mobile phones, with cameras probably in the tens of megapixels, massive amounts of storage, and frighteningly fast internet access. They won't be the Nokia N96 with a touchscreen, though, for the simple reason that they'll blow everything away, the Nokia N96 included!