June 22 - 9:05am EDT   Rogers this morning became the first major North American carrier to adopt the 5800 XpressMusic. The first touchscreen Nokia phone shows in Canada with native 3G and is very close to the reference Symbian S60 platform with the exception of a new urMusic app for shopping from Rogers' store for music or concert tickets. Rogers allows Nokia Maps to serve as the GPS navigation option rather than offering its own. [full story]

June 15 - 8:15am EDT   Just as key to Nokia's phone launches this morning is its first lower-end touchscreen device. The 5530 XpressMusic is still a true smartphone with Symbian S60 and a 2.9-inch, 640x360 touchscreen but makes a number of sacrifices to scale down its price. It limits cellular data to EDGE and relies on Wi-Fi as its fastest connection; it also drops GPS with this goal in mind. A 3.2-megapixel camera stays onboard, as does a bundled 4GB microSDHC card (down from 8GB) for storage. [full story]

June 11 - 11:25am EDT   LG's mobile chief Skott Ahn today told the press that his company is planning to claim second place in both the overall and smartphone markets by 2012. The Korean company expects its total phone share to remain a flat 10 percent in 2009, or third place behind Nokia and Samsung, but also anticipates moving up much more quickly among the more advanced devices, where it doesn't yet count among the top five. Much of the boost should come from its deal with Microsoft for Windows Mobile phones, but at least one Android phone is due this year. [full story]

June 10 - 1:40pm EDT   Immersion on Tuesday announced it has joined the Symbian Foundation, giving other members access to the company's TouchSense haptics technology. The TouchSense API is available for free to programmers who are developing applications for the Symbian platform and cellphone makers can separately license Immersion's haptic technology. Haptic feedback such as Immersion's theoretically improve touchscreen interaction by producing confirmation of a virtual button press with vibration and sound. [full story]

May 29 - 4:55pm EDT   Canadian wireless provider Rogers will soon offer the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic handset, if the attached photo of a billboard advertising the fact is correct. The ad, located at a The Source retail store in Ottawa, is reported to be one of many placed across the provider's locations throughout Canada. [full story]

May 26 - 7:30am EDT   After an early opening for some areas, Nokia today formally launched the Ovi Store worldwide. Accessible both through the web and through a downloadable app, the service is Nokia's own contender against the iPhone's App Store and puts both third-party apps, N-Gage games, podcasts and videos in a central location. It's primarily intended for Symbian S60 phones such as the 5800 XpressMusic as well as most recent Eseries and Nseries smartphones, including the imminent N97. [full story]

May 14 - 3:35pm EDT   Nokia's recently rumored entry into multi-touch phones may come relatively quickly if a slip through Taiwan circuit designers is accurate. They reportedly tell DigiTimes that Nokia has finally settled on Synaptics to provide the circuitry driving at least one phone's touchscreen and "does not rule out" the possibility of the phone supporting multi-touch input, a first for Nokia's handsets. The product would be launched in the summer, though whether it ships at that time or is simply announced isn't apparent. [full story]

May 8 - 3:25pm EDT   Nokia's sequel to the 5800 XpressMusic may have already been spotted online if a Chinese gallery proves true. Supposedly called just the 5900 XpressMusic, it would have a slightly larger 3.5-inch touchscreen, a 5-megapixel camera, touch-sensitive hardware buttons and an overall slimmer profile. It would have the same S60 5th Edition operating system as the 5800. [full story]

May 4 - 1:30pm EDT   Cincinnati Bell Wireless on Monday announced it is the first US carrier to offer the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic smartphone in the US. Before today, those who wanted the handset in the country had to pay $400 for an unlocked but also unsubsidized device. Otherwise, the smartphone includes its stock 3.2-inch, 360x640 touchscreen, a web browser with Adobe Flash support, an integrated GPS sensor, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0. [full story]

April 28 - 1:00pm EDT   Nokia has announced a new movie tie-in edition of its 5800 XpressMusic phone. The Star Trek variant is preloaded with four custom screensavers, as well as three new wallpapers, and eight ringtones based on movie sound effects. Also loaded is a Phazer application, which simulates the series' famous guns. [full story]

April 24 - 1:05pm EDT   Regardless of the economy, Apple has managed to claim 1.5 percent of the market in the early part of 2009, according to ABI Research data. The California company's 3.79 million iPhones sold in the first quarter were enough to eke out the amount, which gives Apple an extra 0.4 percent of the total market beyond the 1.1 percent it had just at the end of 2008. The expansion comes at the same time as significant shrinks by market leader Nokia, which dropped to 36.2 percent, and struggling mid-range firm Sony Ericsson's fall to just 5.6 percent. [full story]

April 17 - 8:10am EDT   Nokia may give the 5800 XpressMusic and more of its phones an upgrade to a capacitive touchscreen, tips from Taiwan's phone part makers would claim. Although Nokia built the 5800 around a resistive touchscreen, which requires pressure and is sometimes better-suited to a stylus than finger input, the company has supposedly ordered a switch to capacitive screens with the explicit goal of rivaling the responsiveness of Apple's iPhone and newer Korean phones like the LG Arena or Samsung's i8910 (Omnia HD). About 2 million of the upgraded phones would be shipped between May and June based on these plans. [full story]

April 16 - 10:30am EDT   LG today said it has sold 2 million of the KM900 Arena since it went on sale in the first half of March. The tally includes the 1 million pre-orders leading up to the release and marks LG's fastest-selling phone to date; the original Chocolate music phone took 3 months to reach the 1 million mark. [full story]

April 16 - 8:25am EDT   Nokia this morning reported major falls in both its financial performance and its phone market share for the quarter. The Finnish cellphone maker's operating profit has dropped from slightly over $2 billion in early 2008 to just $72.4 million in early 2009 based on a significant decrease in sales income, which dropped by 27 percent year-over-year. Much of this is attributed directly to a 19.3 percent plunge in cellphone shipments from 115.5 million phones in the first quarter of 2008 to 93.2 million for the same period this year. [full story]

April 15 - 11:05am EDT   Nokia's 5800 XpressMusic touchscreen phone may become the centerpiece for the company after surprisingly strong sales, according to analyst estimates. Where the company only officially said it had shipped 1 million units between December and January, GC Capital's Tero Kuittinen now determines that Nokia should have sold 2.5 million of the device just in the first three months of 2009, indicating exceptionally strong sales for a single model. [full story]