Nokia has arrived in the touchscreen market with its first ever touchscreen smartphone and Research In Motion’s long awaiting BlackBerry Storm touchscreen smartphone are both set to compete with the Apple iPhone with the run up to the Christmas period.

The Nokia has beat RIM to the market with its Nokia 5800 XpressMusic touchscreen nicknamed the “tube” which was launched on Thursday in London, although analysts say that it won’t make the big splash that is expected from the BlackBerry Storm as although Nokia is the biggest cellphone maker in the world its relationship with North America telecom carriers.

RIM’s BlackBerry Storm touchscreen is the smartphone to watch for a battle with the iPhone in North America, The Storm will come out this month and will probably by carried by Telus in Canada and Verizon in the United States.

The wow factor on the Nokia tube has to be that it offers free music downloads for a year and allows you to keep your downloads forever, and that the high resolution touchscreen is designed to play video that is formatted for high-def TV without cutting off parts of the image. The Wow factor on the RIM BlackBerry storm would have to be the keyboard.

Source: CanadianPress