Nokia didn’t exactly let the cat out of the bag the other day when they mentioned the upcoming touchscreen ‘Tube’ smartphone - since last year there have been images and talk of the first handset that the new S60 Touch OS will feature on - but it was enough to provoke Symbian Freak into spilling what they know about the device.  In fact, they’ve had some hands-on time with the quadband GSM, HSPDA, WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth toting handset, and can reveal that while the cellphone - which they’re describing as “not a flagship device” and not destined to be part of the N-series range - has a touchscreen it’s not in fact iPhone-rivalling multitouch.

Actually, they confess to being a little disappointed by the device.  It’s screen - smaller than the iPhone’s, at somewhere between 3 and 3.5-inches - may be 16:9 widescreen, have haptic feedback and be pleasingly high-resolution, and the GPS may support photo geotagging, but the camera (while described as “a decent autofocus one”) is not in the same league as that found on recent N-series handsets from Nokia.  It’s apparently similar in size, perhaps a little wider, to the Nokia N73, which measures in at 116mm x 110mm x 19mm.

Most disappointing, though, is the expected release date: Q1 of 2009.  As I’ve said before, by then Apple will have had several months with the 3G iPhone on sale, and this ‘Tube’ doesn’t look as though, on the surface at least, it will compare well.  The stylus in the second photo, incidentally, seems to be used for handwriting recognition, as can be seen in an animation at Symbian Freak.

[via SlashPhone]