Yesterday, the Apple iPhone 3G was announced to the world, and it promises to rock the world of mobile phones. But one thing's for definite: the major mobile manufacturers out there aren't going to take it lying down. They're all set to make new mobile phones to take on the iPhone, and nowhere is that more obvious than with the biggest mobile manufacturer in the world, Nokia.



Nokia N96 - the first salvo is launched

The first shot to be fired in Nokia's battle against the new iPhone 3G is the upcoming Nseries flagship, the Nokia N96. It is set to be a truly mind-blowing mobile phone. Since it's designed to be within the Nseries of devices, it'll run on Symbian Series 60, a truly open operating system that lets you beef up the software on your handset with so many more extra programs. It's one of the key definitions of a smartphone, that, and the Nokia N96 really is aiming to be the best smartphone in the world. You can take that to indicate that it'll lso have an amazing camera, too, and the official specs give credence to that, indicating that it'll have a 5 megapixel beastie, with autofocus, flash and Carl Zeiss lenses. It will be, without question, truly awesome.

But there's more to it than just the camera, and the Nokia N96 packs in more cool stuff than any other mobile phones I know of. You'll, needless to say, get the awesome Nokia media player built-in, and with this beauty, you get a secret bonus in a little, pop-out stand on the rear of the phone, for which the word 'kickstand' would be appropriate. Not only that, but you get Ngage gaming built in, giving you some of the most amazing games ever experienced on a mobile phone, and HSDPA (think mobile broadband, but on a phone) to actually download Ngage games. If that's not enough, you also get GPS built in (a mobile phone to replace your sat-nav? Yes please!), but the real kicker is the amount of memory you get to fill up in the Nokia N96, since it stands at a whopping 16Gb. Not many mobile phones can say that, can they!

Nokia 5800 - totally Tube-ular

Right back from when the first iPhone was let loose on the world, Nokia came out and said they would bring out their own full touchscreen mobile phones. Till now, though, all we've seen are little glimpses, now and again, of the S60 Touch system, the system that will power their touch-based mobile phones. Now, though, spy pics and specs have been leaked for the first touchscreen mobile phone from the Nokia stable, the super-sleek Nokia 5800, nicknamed the 'Tube' (why? I have no idea...). It's all set to have a huge touchscreen, all the cool media functions you'd expect from a Nokia, XpressMusic playback and a groovy little 3 megapixel camera. Of course, that's not the end of the matter, either, so expect a lot more mobile phones designed to take on the iPhone, from the Finnish giant.