Rumor had it Nokia would start shipping its new N85 smartphone as soon as the beginning of September. While that didn't happen, a posting on Nokia's Italian site indicates the roll out of the new NSeries model could happen soon.

The site lists the N85 as being available now in copper for 549 Euros including VAT (about $750). Other Nokia sites still list the N95 on pre-order, however.

So it isn't clear as to whether this is a mistake or not. Either way, there's still been no word on when the N85 may ship in the U.S. And, even if it does, it is unlikely it'll arrive through a carrier partner to its price subsidized to make them more affordable.

The N85 sports a dual slider design similar to the N96 and older N95 model, but is smaller than either of those handsets. It sports a 2.6-inch, 320 x 240 pixel resolution screen, built-in FM transmitter, 3.5 mm audio jack, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, TV-Out and a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and geotagging capabilities - the latter courtesy of the N85's GPS chip.

Additional features include a 1200 mAh battery and a microSD slot with an 8GB card bundled in the box.

As a quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G phone, the N85 is world phone that can be used both here and abroad for voice and data access.

As with another new Nokia model, the N96, these N85 is designed to maximize use of Nokia's Ovi line of online data services (e.g. games, music, photos, navigation, social networking, etc.). In fact, Nokia plans to pre-load the N85 with at least 10 made-for-mobile N-Gage games, which you can take advantage of through dedicated gaming keys that light up when the device is in landscape gaming mode.

You can learn more about the N85 here and here for full specs.

{via All about Symbian]