T-Mobile USA released, yesterday, a new handset from Nokia's XpressMusic family, namely the 5610. Although the phone is available in Europe since 2007, it is brand new for North America; hence, it will probably be well received by mobile users there.

Initially rumored to be sold by T-Mobile for $150 with a contract agreement for two years, Nokia 5610 is actually cheaper, as T-Mo is offering the handset for only $99 (with the same two-year contract).

Coming in a slider form factor, the 5610 is the second Nokia XpressMusic phone released in the US this year by T-Mobile, after the slim 5310 candybar, which can be acquired for $49 on a contract.

The features of Nokia 5610 include: Music player with advanced sound quality, a dedicated slider key, stereo Bluetooth, FM radio with RDS, a 2.2 inch TFT display with 16 million colors and 240 x 320 pixels, a 3.2 Megapixel camera with auto focus, flash and video recording, Opera Mini browser, email, Instant Messaging and quad-band GSM connectivity (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz) with GPRS and EDGE. The phone only has 20MB of internal memory, but there's also a 2GB card included in the package, which should be enough for storing lots of songs and other content.

The 900 mAh battery that the handset comes with should last up to four hours in talk-time mode or up to about 300 hours in stand-by mode. Or, for those who want to listen to music all the time, the battery should allow them to enjoy up to 22 hours of continuous playback. The phone's dimensions are typical for a slider: 98.5 x 48.5 x 17 millimeters (3.9 x 1.9 0.7 inches) at a weight of 111 grams (3.91 ounces).

Nokia 5610 XpressMusic can be found as of now, both online, on T-Mobile's official website, and in the carrier's US stores, in two color versions: black/red and black/silver.