Nokia Astound Symbian^3 Smartphone Now Available

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It seems as if we have been hearing a bit more than some will like about Symbian lately. Just yesterday we got the word that Nokia is holding a Symbian event on April 12th and as of today (and coming as expected), T-Mobile has officially launched the Symbian^3 running Nokia Astound.

Of course, some will likely recognize the handset as the Nokia C7. But naming aside, as far as T-Mobile is concerned the handset is the Astound and it has come available for sale as of today. The pricing is simple and fairly inexpensive, $79.99 on a two-year agreement and $299.99 to go contract free. Though worth noting, that $79.99 on-contract price tag comes AFTER a $50 mail-in-rebate.

In terms of features, the Nokia Astound has arrived sporting a 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen display, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, 3.5mm headphone jack, FM Radio, microSD card slot, front facing camera and an 8 megapixel rear facing camera with 720p video recording and a dual-LED flash.

Otherwise, there are some other perks that arrive pre-loaded including the Fruit Ninja game, Slacker Radio for your streaming music needs and integration with Twitter and Facebook. Plus, users will also have access to the Ovi Store which will offer much more in terms of apps.

With that, and while we may poke fun at Symbian and Nokia right now, there are likely still plenty of upset Symbian fans that are not ready to give up their favorite mobile operating system and given that — the Astound makes a nice addition to the T-Mobile lineup. Plus, the handset comes with a seemingly reasonable price point, both on-contract and off. But the bottom line, given we tend to always think about the next best thing, we would much rather have been writing about T-Mobile and Nokia launching something running Windows Phone 7 — but hey, in good time. Well, in 2012 anyway.