Some pretty big news out of China recently as Nokia has announced the launch of its Comes With Music service in the world’s second largest consumer market. To be known locally as Yue Sui Xiang and included for free with the purchase of select Nokia handsets (in China’s case, the X6 16GB, X6 32GB, 5230, 5330, 5800w, 6700s, E52 and E72i), the service allows for the downloading of an unlimited amount of à la carte tracks over a period of 12 to 24 months. Even better, all of the music — which includes catalogs from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, EMI Music, Huayi Brothers Media Group, Taihe Rye and more — is DRM-free and allows subscription holders to keep everything they’ve downloaded after their subscription runs out. Hats off to Nokia for giving a pretty censored country a little bit of freedom. Now… When is the this DRM free business coming to the democratic world? We’re pretty tired of stripping away the DRM ourselves.

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The recently announced Nokia 5330 XpressMusic handset may be hitting the shelves of your local T-Mobile store in the near future. A leaked mock up of the 5330 XpressMusic reportedly depicts the slider with a fresh coat of light neon blue paint and a T-Mobile USA logo. Rumor suggests that the handset is slated for a summer launch and its radio will indeed sport the always-elusive 1700 MHz 3G band T-Mobile customers are always praying for. Good news for T-Mobilers as the 5330 XpressMusic would be a nice upgrade to the current Nokia 5130 XpressMusic.

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Nokia’s trio of new music phones were leaked only slightly ahead of schedule this time around, but that won’t stop live images from making their way around the internet without the Finnish company’s blessing. Just as with last night’s leak, another Dutch site is behind today’s live cameos and it has some great crisp shots of the handsets in action – no tiny blurrycam pics here. Surprisingly perhaps, Nokia’s new handsets look even better in real life than in the company’s mockups. No, we’re still not overly interested in any of them but they’ll certainly find happy homes somewhere, no doubt. Hit the jump for another shot of the 5730 XpressMusic pictured above, along with shots of the 5330 XpressMusic and the 5030.

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Following last night’s little slip up, Nokia has officially launched three new music handsets, the 5030, 5330 XpressMusic and the 5730 XpressMusic. Preliminary details were a bit shoddy but the basics were all pretty much covered. Now that they’re official however, let’s take a look at what we didn’t know last night:

First up is the entry level Nokia 5030, the first Nokia handset to feature an internal FM Radio antenna. The internal antenna facilitates FM radio playback without the need to plug in a headset or external speakers of any kind. The handset targets emerging markets and will not be an XpressMusic series phone. Next up are the 5330 and 5730 XpressMusic phones. The 5330 is a slider with dedicated XpressMusic touch keys on the side of the display, 26 hours of music playback and social network integration. The 5730 XpressMusic phone is a side-sliding QWERTY with two keypads and dedicated gaming keys. It features a home screen for XpressMusic that provides access to music content, calendar, N-Gage and other applications such as Facebook, Photos, Ovi Contacts and Maps. Timing and pricing from last night was all spot on: The 5030 XpressRadio is slated to launch in Q2 2009 for an affordable €40 ($51) while the 5330 XpressMusic and the 5730 XpressMusic are both slated for a Q3 2009 release as Comes With Music compatible phones for €160 ($203) and  €280 ($366), respectively.

Nokia also announced the expansion of both its Nokia Music Store and its Comes With Music service. Already available in 15 markets across three continents, the Nokia Music Store will launch in Mexico on Wednesday with expansion to Portugal, Norway and South Africa in the coming months. The Comes With Music service will also move beyond its current UK and Singapore limits and will launch soon in Italy, Sweden and Mexico.

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Oops. It looks like the three music-centric handsets Nokia had in store for the world at an event tomorrow are slipping free a bit early. Seemingly taking a cue from RIM’s naming conventions for BlackBerry devices, these three brothers will do their best to confuse you. First up we have the entry-level 5030 XpressMusic, a candy bar with a crazy speaker on the back, an integrated FM transmitter and no camera. The battery is said to last for 24 hours of music playback and will hit the streets next quarter for a remarkably affordable €40 ($51). Next up is the 5330 XpressMusic, a stylish slider that also features 24 hours of music playback on a single charge. It sports some kind of lighting effects, a 3.5mm audio jack and dedicated multimedia keys. The 5330 will drop some time in Q3 for €160 ($203). Last up, the QWERTY sliding 5730 XpressMusic pictured above. This guy features a 3.2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, integrated GPS and special Ovi integration on the home screen. Like the 5030, the 5730 will be released some time in Q2 and it’ll run you €280 ($366). Hit the jump for shots of the 5330 followed by the 5030.

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