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Nokia will release its first touch-screen phone next week, reported Reuters today. Citing two unnamed sources, the report says the world's dominant cell phone maker's answer to the iPhone should launch at a media event in London on October 2nd.

Code-named Tube, the mobile handset should officially be named the 5800 XpressMusic, according to Internet rumor mill. In addition to touch input through a hi-res (640 x 360-pixel), 3.2-inch display, the music smartphone is said to include the following features: a quad-band GSM radio, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, A-GPS, a 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, a TV-Out port, an industry-standard 3.5mm headset jack, 150MB of storage, and a microSDH slot with an 8GB card bundled in the box.

Last fall, Nokia announced it was adding touch screen support to its S60 smartphone platform, which runs on top of the Symbian OS. Nokia, which already owned 48 percent of Symbian Limited, acquired the remaining shares of the company in June.

It then turned around and created the open source Symbian Foundation, replacing licensing fees with a royalty-free license for all Foundation members. This is widely viewed as Nokia response to Google’s Android platform and the Open Handset Alliance.

In addition to touch, the upcoming S60 interface, which the 5800 XpressMusic presumably runs on, adds support for Haptic or tactile feedback, where users feel a physical pulse when tapping a display. Perfect for a touch screen display - a la the upcoming BlackBerry Storm.

Additional enhancements include motion, proximity (like the iPhone) and light sensors, as well as full integration of Adobe's Flash Lite in its web browser. Flash Lite integration, which isn't available in any way shape or form for the iPhone yet, should enable them to view Flash-enabled Web sites containing animation and videos (YouTube, for example) just as they would on their desktops.

Thanks to the success of the iPhone, advanced touch screen phones is one of the hottest categories in mobile handsets. A number of handset vendors, with the notable exception of Nokia, have released their variations on this phenomenon.

There's Samsung, which has done well with the Instinct (see our review) over at Sprint, LG with the Prada at Verizon, and the various HTC Touch models, which are just about everywhere, for example. It's time for Nokia to join the fray with the 5800 XpressMusic.

"The phone is extremely important," explained Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi to Reuters. "We have been waiting for the market leader to respond to Apple's iPhone for a year and a half now. There is a lot of pressure on Nokia."

[via engadget]