Nokia charts three new music phones

LOVERS OF TINNY TUNES will be jumping with joy at the news that Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia has released three new music-playing handsets.

The Comes With Music (CWM) phones hook up seamlessly to the Nokia Music store and come with between 12 and 18 months of unfettered access to millions of tunes which can be swapped between the phone's onboard memory and a host computer.
 
The 5730 Xpress Music is the company's first device CWM handset with a QWERTY keyboard as well as dedicated gaming keys. Nokia's new Homescreen software provides direct access to music, games and other applications, like Facebook, photos maps, messaging and Ovi Contacts, which lets users see which of their 'friends' are online, chat and view what music they are listening to.

Nokia is promising 26 hours of playback time on a single charge and you can expect to see the 5730 from June onwards at around €280.

The 5330 is a top slider with pretty much the same capabilities as the 5730 but is expected to get to market at the same time for around the €160.

 
The 5030 Xpress Radio, which is aimed at emerging markets, has a traditional soap bar design and comes with an internal FM radio antenna and one-touch radio and channel selection keys. It's expected to hit the shelves in the second quarter of 2009 and cost less than €40.

Nokia plans to expand its Comes With Music service, which is currently only available in Britain and Singapore, into Australia, Italy Sweden and Mexico in the next few months. µ