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Nokia will soon be launching its “Comes With Music” service to the UK market. The music service will provide users of specific Nokia handsets with one year of unlimited access to the Nokia Music Store catalog. Good news is, users can keep all downloaded tracks for more than one year. To kick off the opening of the “Comes With Music” service, Nokia has enlisted Carphone Warehouse in UK to offer the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic “Comes With Music” edition. According to Nokia, lucky users who will buy the Nokia 5310 will get “unprecedented freedom” to find and listen to music from the Nokia Music Store catalog.

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Finally, Nokia has officially announced the much talked about N-series mobile phone, N96. To be out sometime in Q4 2008, the N96, just like all the other models in the N-Series, will feature a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Optics, integrated Wi-Fi support and aGPS. Nokia has also tied up the N96 with its own Ovi services which would allow users to enjoy mobile content such as images and videos available online. In addition, the N96 also packs in some preinstalled N-Gage games which would pretty much tease users into partaking of Nokia’s paid N-Gage gaming service. In fact, the N96 will come with vouchers to purchase the full version of the N-Gage games such as Asphalt 3: Street Rules as well as trial version of four other popular N-Gage titles.

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So it looks like our friends from the UK are not the only ones getting the two new N-Series phones - the N79 and N85. Nokia has also announced the North American versions of these two powerful mobile handsets, and while the UK versions of the N79 and N85 are more than likely to start hitting the stores this month, US stores will start getting both sometime in October.

Anyway, in addition to the features that we already know about the N85 such as a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, a 2.6-inch AMOLED display, GPS navigation, geotagging support and 28 hours of audio playback, we also know now that the N85 will support N-Gage gaming, high-speed HSDPA connectivity as well have Wi-Fi capability and a built-in FM transmitter.

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The United Kingdom will have two new phones from Nokia sometime in the next month, the N79 and N85.  Some sources indicate that these phones will launch as early has August 26. 

The N79 is meant to replace the N78, and has features such as a 5-megapixel camera and dual-LED based flash.  Other features include 3G connectivity, a microSDHC memory card slot, Wi-Fi support, as well as GPS navigation.

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You have to love the stream of information coming from the FCC, at times they remind me of that friend who knows a little to much, but does not know when to keep their mouth closed. Well the latest bit of information to come is in the form of the Nokia 2680 slide that was recently pictured with a nice clear AT&T logo.

Overall the Nokia 2680 is not much to get excited about, its a pretty low-end slider-style handset that features a camera, music player and FM radio. However what is interesting about this comes from the original Nokia announcement for the 2680 which announced this as a handset for emerging markets, well it looks like AT&T now has an emerging market. I wonder how they would feel after hearing that.

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Nokia has just announced their latest addition in the Arte series, the 8800 Carbon Arte and as you would expect from the name it has a carbon fiber exterior. This luxury model phone does offer some nice styling, but otherwise it seems to just be your standard Nokia handset. Feature wise, the 8800 Carbon Ante will have tri-band GSM support with a 2-inch display, a 3.2-megapixel camera, stereo Bluetooth, microUSB and 4GB of internal memory.

As for the design, the 8800 Carbon Ante will have the previously mentioned front and read carbon fiber panels, and the remainder of the body will be made of titanium and stainless steel. While a specific launch date has not been announced, Nokia does expect it to be available before the end of the year. The 8800 Carbon Ante will be available in the European market and retail in the ballpark of $1,600.

Via [PhoneArena]

Not much to go on here, but Zunescene is reporting phone giant Nokia is working with the Zune team to gain access to the Zunestore content.  This would be an inroads for Microsoft which current sits atop 0% of Nokia phone OS share.  Clearly, Microsoft wants to get on Nokia phones but is Zune the way to do it?

In my mind -and I am willing to say that I may be alone- Zune is a dead brand.  It represents a me-too attitude that got forgotten before it started. I’ve said before, much to our editor, Robert Nelson’s dismay, the Surface brand would be much better to bring in, especially if touch is the design make up.  Surface is still interesting and full of potential.  Zune, not so much.

So whether MS hopes to get its OS into european hands in a very big way or get their content sales up, it seems from this rumor, Nokia is interested.  Can Nokia resurrect the Zune brand?

Read [Zunescene]

Its been quite a while since Nokia had first announced 5610 XpressMusic phone, almost a year to be exact, but some good news for T-Mobile users it looks like they will soon be able to grab one.

The handset was originally expected to be available back in June, but was then pushed back to July and now August 11 seems to be the availability date.

The handset is expected to be available for $100, but that comes after a $50 mail in rebate and along with a two-year agreement. The Nokia 5610 will also be available in two color options, a red/black model and a black/silver model.

In addition to the hopeful availability of the Nokia 5610, T-Mobile is also expected to get the 5310 is a black/silver option as well.

Via [CellPhoneSignal]

Recent reports are claiming that Nokia has begun to make some price cuts on selected music and media phones, in some cases up to 10-percent. In addition to the selected music and media models, Nokia has also made some smaller price cuts across the rest of their models. The Nokia 5310 and 5610 music phones as well as the 8GB N81 saw the largest cuts.

These price cuts come as a response to increased competition in the mobile phone market, however Nokia still holds a solid 40 percent overall, and this news will just make it a little tougher on some of their competition. 

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It didn’t take Nokia too long to release its latest E-series phone, the E71 in the US market after announcing it last month. Being touted as the world’s slimmest QWERTY smartphone, the Nokia E71 is now available in various US retailers and at Nokia’s Flagship store in Chicago and New York. Retailing at an unsubsidized price of around $500, the E71 boasts features that make it worthy of the Nokia E-series branding.

A quick review of the specs and features of the E71 which we mentioned after the official announcement would give us a smartphone with high-speed data, Wi-Fi, A-GPS with optional turn-by-turn navigation, a 3.2-megapixel camera, full QWERTY keyboard, 3G connectivity, OVI support including Share on Ovi and Nokia Maps, easy-to-configure email features, built-in encryption technology for the device memory and an optional microSD memory card.

Throw in an integrated mobile VPN for accessing a company intranet and a lock and wipe technology for protecting corporate information and you have a Nokia phone which worthy of being an alternative to a BlackBerry handset.

Read [Nokia Press Release]