As part of our Nokia 5800 launch roundup, we felt that with the dust settling over Regents Street, London, it was time to look back at all the hubbub the Nokia 5800 has caused over the last few months.

It’s clear this is a popular device, as we’ve just been informed that over 1 million units have been sold worldwide since it was introduced. But how did something so small get so bigin the popualr imagination? Well, let ustake a look back at the last few months…

Starting life as the Nokia 5800 Tube, or just the ‘Nokia Tube’ for a while, this device first saw rumours of a release way back in August of 2008. In true style, most of these were just internet wish-fulfilment as it wasn’t until mcuh later in the year that we started to see real evidence of a launch.

However, rumour mongers finally got their facts straight and on the 2nd October we saw the officially unveiling of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic as part of the Comes With Music announcements for the UK. Funnily enough, this announcement also saw a change of name as ‘Tube’ was laid to rest and the emergence of XpressMusic coming to the fore.

It may have been the start of October when the device was announced but it took a few weeks for the hands-on play-tests with the device started to circulate or even put through the ringer and pulled to bits.

Here in the UK, things didn’t really start to warm up until the New Year arrived, as we took our first real look at the Nokia 5800 we then took to living with the Nokia 5800, making it our number one device of choice and choosing to live with the Nokia 5800 24/7.

As part of the big run-up to the 23rd January and the launch day of the 5800, we even took a little time out to talk directly with one of the designers of the Nokia 5800, Damian Mycroft, who gave us a few nice insights into the design process. Before it got to be released in the UK, there was even time to fix a few last minute bugs, as a firmware update was issued.

But it all boiled down to one point in time – 8am, 23rd January 2009, and on a very cold, wet and miserable morning, close to 150 people queued from midnight to the allotted time just to be the first people in the UK to own the Nokia 5800.

So, has it all been worth it? Hell, yeah! It’s been one wild ride getting this device from rumour to launch and that’s only the start, as in the coming weeks we’ll start to live with the Nokia 5800, get to know it and report back on how it stands up to life in the wild.