AT&T next Nokia smartphone will be the message-centric (and relatively cheap) Surge, a compact horizontal slider with a QWERTY thumb-keyboard underneath its 2.4-inch display. It will go on sale on July 19 for $79.99 with a two-year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate.

The Surge runs on the Symbian S60 3.2 platform and includes a number of social networking features for uploading content such as videos, images, messages, comments and more to Facebook and other sites via the bundled JuiceCaster app. In addition to instant messaging, texting and consumer e-mail, the Surge allows folks to access enterprise e-mail through Microsoft Exchange.

Additional features for the quad-band GSM phone is support for 3.6 Mbps HSDPA 3G as well as stereo Bluetooth, A-GPS (for mapping and other location-based service, including AT&T Navigator), a two megapixel camera, microSD slot, and a browser that supports Adobe Flash technology for viewing videos from sites like YouTube.

The video from AT&T below shows the Nokia Surge in action. See here for more details.