Exclusive: Nokia is not launching a handset next week

In what may not be the most exciting news of the week and may lead to more confusion than anything else, there will be no Nokia handset announced next week.

We had lunch of late with two senior people inside the Finnish fone makers, who mentioned in passing there will be a new handset unveiled worldwide next week. Only it’s come to light the launch has now been delayed until Mobile World Congress. Dang!

The rumour mill has been running overtime this week with the news of a new XpressMusic phone, in the form of the 5730 model appearing. Engadget mobile ran a piece this week, initially from the Russian site Mobile-Review heralding in its arrival and gave it a rather exhaustive preview.

On first impressions the phone, only apparently in its prototype stage at present does look a little like a crosspollination between the 5800 and the soon to be released N97.

From the basic specifications provided, the handset rocks up with a 2-inch QVGA display, with a full QWERTY keyboard and is capable of EDGE.

Is it just purely coincidental the phone’s been passed to that site for a preview, only days away from the scheduled worldwide announcement? Who are we to say.

Check back with us during Mobile World Congress , either way we’ll be able to say yay or nay.