It may be the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile phones, with a self-proclaimed global market share of 40 per cent, but Nokia has surprisingly been hanging back on adding touchscreen technology to their mobile devices. This is despite the runaway success of Apple’s iPhone, not to mention other successful devices such as LG’s Viewty.

It’s common knowledge that the soon-to-be-released Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be a mid-range touchscreen device, but now comes the rumour that Nokia is working on a N-Series touchscreen handset (N97 anyone?). The full touchscreen phone is expected to be announced at the end of the year for a launch in early 2009.

So far the closest Nokia has come to a touchscreen mobile phone is the N810 touchscreen web device (pictured).