Nokia is set to announce a brand new phone this coming March 11th, over on their events web site at events.nokia.com. The headline for the event reads, “Your music player is ringing,” so the new phone will probably be one for the Nokia XpressMusic range of music phones. And if I had to venture a guess, I’d say Nokia will probably announce the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic, a previously leaked music phone with a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Other than that, there’s no way of knowing what Nokia has in store for us. Yet another new service? Some low-end candybars? We’ll see on March 11th.

Nokia E73 and E85
The gentleman from Russia has done it again. Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-Review has just dropped word, through his Nokia E75 review, that Nokia has been working on at least three devices that have a side-sliding QWERTY keyboards. These are the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic, Nokia E73, and Nokia E85. The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic, I suspect, will be announced on Nokia’s upcoming online music event. And I believe the Nokia E73 is the same QWERTY keyboard-equipped candybar that we saw last year as the Nokia E72 in a leaked Nokia promo vid. However, the last one, the Nokia E85, is a phone that I’ve never heard of until now.

According to Eldar, the Nokia E85, like the E73 and 5730 XpressMusic, will have a side-sliding QWERTY keyboard. His exact words:

Other than that, Eldar revealed nothing else about this mysterious new handset. Perhaps if we take another look at Nokia’s leaked smartphone roadmap which enumerates some upcoming devices, we’ll have a better idea of what the Nokia E85 is (or what it could be).

Could it be the Nokia Madeleine, which is described in Nokia’s leaked smartphone roadmap as having a Side-sliding QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM Radio, VoIP, GPS, 3.2MP camera,…

A year ago it seemed Nokia was happy to let the whole touchscreen music phone phenomenon pass it by, sticking with more traditional form factors. But times they are a changin’, and Nokia has finally caught up with the Joneses, releasing its first true touchscreen device.

Design

Opening the 5800’s retail box with a head full of iPhone expectations is sure to lead to one predictive first impression, it looks kind of like a toy phone. The 5800 has a playful aesthetic, with its electric blue (or red) trimming and glossy black plastic, but it doesn’t have the premium look or feel of Apple’s phone or the Samsung F480, another excellent touchscreen. It’s thicker than these other phones as well, measuring in at 15.5mm deep, but we quite like this — it doesn’t stretch the pants pocket and it felt secure in our grip.

The front of the phone is 90 per cent touchscreen with three slim mechanical buttons below; the calling keys and a menu button. The right side of the 5800 houses a volume rocker, camera key and spring-loaded switch used to activate the touch-sensitive display. On the top of the handset, alongside a USB slot and power button, is a…