Hands-on at the Nokia 5800 UK launch

Yes, we did get up at 6am to head down to Nokia's flagship store for the 5800 XpressMusic launch and what do you know, a whole bunch of Nokia fans had got there before us.

First in the queue was a mysterious and camera-shy "Dan", who arrived around midnight with two mates plus sleeping bag. Unfortunately, on account of his camera shyness, and perhaps the large amount of alcohol he'd consumed overnight, he gave up his place to another mate, Bob Brown (at least that's the name he was giving), from Waterloo, who showed up at 5am and by quirk of fate was thrust to the front of the queue and into the media limelight.

Bob, a self confessed Nokia fan who has even paid pilgrimage to the Nokia HQ on a visit to Helsinki, told us: "the iPhone is my nemesis" and, "the 5800 is the best phone in the world," which caused him all kinds of fanboy confusion when we asked him, "What about the Nokia N97, then?"

Thankfully he was able to get out of this logic jam without any head explosion unpleasantness to hand over £250 (cash, we noted) and claim the first UK Nokia 5800 XpressMusic - plus two £150 tickets to the Benicassim music festival in sunny Spain. Bravo!

Afterwards our brave Bob told us the first person he would call would be his girfriend and that now, "I just want to get to bed." Onya, Bob, Rob, whatever your name is.

There were 99 other pairs of tickets for the first 100 who made it through the door. Our head count at 7.30am revealed there were 64 in the queue, all supplied with Nokia umbrellas for the wet. Doors opened at 8am and when we popped outside a short while later the queue had grown round the corner so we're pretty sure they hit the 100 target.

Trebles all round for Nokia then. We had a quick play with one of the 20 or so display handsets to get these hands-on shots. There wasn't much to report on this sim-free version that we haven't seen before. If you want to get hold of one you can pop along to Regent Street now or from 10am at the Heathrow Terminal 5 flagship store. The rest of you will have to head over to Nokia.co.uk where you can put your name down for the second batch arriving next month.

[ Nokia]