Ever since we brought you the first pictures of Nokia’s touchscreen Tube back in August 2007 – 15 long months ago – we’ve been dying to get our mitts on one properly. And the good news is that the wait is almost, almost, over.

Nokia has announced that it’s started sending out the first shipments across Euroland so all things being well, the 5800 XpressMusic should be in the shops just in time to treat yourself to an early Christmas present.

There’s no sign of it in Nokia’s online shop, just yet – but we’ve set the page to refresh every hour just so we don’t miss it.

Word is that it’ll first pop out in Spain on 1 December – that’s Monday! – ahead of Nokia World which starts on Tuesday. Once that’s out the way, then it’ll start trickling through to other places.