Nokia to unveil touchscreen phone next week

Reuters is reporting that Nokia will unveil its first touchscreen phone at a media event next week in London.
The phone, whose leaked pictures were posted on this blog earlier this week, is the result of plenty of market pressure since the iPhone’s debut more than a year ago. According to a Gartner analyst in the article, Nokia’s position as the leader of the mobile market has got the world waiting for their next move.
That move is reported to happen Oct. 2.
Nokia announced back in July that it would introduce its first touch-screen phone this year, and that it would be sold for a cheaper price than rival touch-screen models in order to tap into a higher-volume market.
Of course, the pressure’s on ever since HTC and T-Mobile introduced the Google Android-powered G1 this week, which retails for $179, slightly cheaper than the iPhone.
Would you buy a touchscreen Nokia phone? And for that matter, will touchscreen smartphones replace standard cell phones altogether? Tell us in TalkBack.

Xohm WiMAX service to launch in Baltimore in September 08

We have been hearing about the on and off story of Sprint, Clearwire, and Xohm for quite some time now and I pretty much had given up hope of really seeing any commercial release of WiMAX with 4G right around the corner. According to Sprint CTO Barry West, Xohm will launch in September of this year. Apparently, the first rollout will start in Baltimore, Maryland and then move to DC and Chicago later in 2008.

There are 575 Xohm WiMAX base station sites up and running with different devices being tested. The devices you will be able to connect with Xohm at launch include a Samsung AirCard, modem from ZyXEL, a ZTE USB dongle, the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, and selected laptops. I think it would be great to use WiMAX with a device like the Nokia N810 and look forward to trying it out when Xohm hits the Puget Sound area.

The pricing plans have not yet been revealed, but it may now only be a few months until we get a chance to try out this high speed network. Then again, I’ll wait to get too excited until I actually hear reports of people in Baltimore using the network.