More eagerly anticipated than the return of the Wispa, the as-yet still unofficial Nokia Tube has already secured gadget-candy status thanks to a few – well, a lot – of judicious leaks and internet speculation. The Tube is the latest in a long line of handsets to receive the 'iPhone killer' moniker; but with Apple's device showing a resilience Rasputin would be proud of, it'll have to exceed the hype if it's to land that fatal blow.

So what do we know about the Tube – apart from the fact Morgan Freeman used it for some pretty neat tricks in The Dark Knight? Well, unofficial or not, we've been fed enough titbits to get a clear enough picture of what to expect as the Finns square up to Cupertino.

First up, the name. It now seems pretty certain that the Tube will be marketed under the slightly less inspiring title of the 5800 XpressMusic – not XpressMedia as first thought – after being seen in an apparently genuine German ad. Whether or not there'll actually be two variants of the phone isn't clear, but it's more likely that Nokia has chosen to slot the 5800 into its existing music range and fight Apple on its home turf, rather than spawn a whole new series.

How will Series 60 cope?

A glance at the predicted specs shows the Tube looks set to be another device happy to occupy the hinterland between mid-end handset and smartphone. Like any self-respecting 'iPhone killer', the Tube is likely to sport a large 3.2-inch, 16-million colour TFT touchscreen with 16:9 support for movies. Nokia's haptic-feedback should also make an appearance, emulating the feel of using a real keyboard with vibration feedback when the screen is tapped.

The actual dimensions of the handset appear similar to the iPhone, at 111x52x14.5mm, but the Tube could trump it in weight at a reported 104g (compared to the iPhone's 133g). The brains of the operation will be the latest fifth incarnation of Symbian S60, featuring an accelerometer for auto-screen rotation. How Nokia innovate S60 to compete with the iPhone 2.0 platform is up for debate. Early leaked pictures indicate a rather prehistoric interface that looks more Fisher-Price than Batman.

Connectivity options should match the iPhone blow for blow, with the quad-band Tube offering GPRS, EDGE and 3G as well as HSDPA and Wi-Fi. Like the iPhone, Assisted GPS should also feature, allowing you to geo-tag any snaps taken with the camera. At 3.2 megapixels, this is a respectable enough affair complete with autofocus, Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED flash.

Storage issues

As part of the XpressMusic line-up, the Tube will hopefully boast a decent music player – but it should definitely include a 3.5mm jack so you can add your own headphones, as well as stereo A2DP Bluetooth for wireless listening. A TV output is also likely to feature. Onboard memory should stretch to 140MB, and there's support for microSD cards up to 8GB – although that's still only half the storage space of the top-spec flash-touting iPhone model.

As Nokia's first serious foray into the world of touchscreen handsets, there's no denying the Tube looks to have an impressive spec and meets the form factor requirements to compete with the likes of the iPhone. But if the leaked images of the user interface turn out to be correct it will be a huge shortcoming on the part of Nokia, failing to acknowledge Apple's main lure is its operating system's satisfying graphics.

It's definitely a case of 'wait and see' – and if the frenzied speculation is anything to go by that could be a case of weeks not months. The smart money, though, is still on the iPhone.