Well, I was partially correct thus far with my predictions as to what Nokia has up its sleeve for today’s music event. Keeping with recent form, Nokia has announced the handsets a few hours early, and surprised us with the 5220 and 5320 XpressMusic handsets. You can read about the 5220 here, it’s S40.
However, the S60-based 5320 XpressMusic is pretty impressive, for a number of reasons. The first innovative feature on the 5320 is a new Say and Play voice-controlled music player. Simply say the name of the track/artist that you want to hear and the music player will obey. Clearly you wouldn’t use this in every situation, but I can quickly see how useful it would be while listening to music in the car, for instance.
I noticed a few other biggies, as well. The 5320 XpressMusic is the first non-Nseries handset to support the Nokia Music Store, as well as the recently launched N-gage gaming platform, complete with dedicated keys for music playback and gaming. Also, at 15mm (.6″), it joins the ranks of the 6121 Classic and N76 for thinness. I was previously wondering where the gaming keys were, but as is noted in the comments below, there is at least one gaming key in the top left of the front of the device. Looking at the full image, it *almost* looks as if they also embedded the front-facing video cam in another gaming button. That would be hardcore.
I’m somewhat disappointed in the 2 megapixel camera and paltry 890mAH battery, however, as well as no US 3G version. You can check out the spec sheet here (PDF warning). The 5320 XpressMusic is planned to be available in Q3 2008, priced at EUR 220 (US$350), before taxes and subsidies. Not a bad price, honestly.
