Nokia have announced that they are taking pre-bookings of the N96 in India, although a release date is still not given.

Seen as a pre-emtive strike aginst the Apple iPhone, Nokia are looking to get ahead of their rivals in one of the largest mobile phone markets.

In addition, Nokia are to offer exclusively in India, Wave Secure, a S60 unique security application that will allow owners to just to track their handset in the event it is lost or stolen, and also to create a backup for the phone data via the Internet.

Pre orders are not currently showing on the UK or US Nokia sites.

There are rumours abound that the N96 will be launched in the UK on 1 October.

I can find no official release from Nokia as yet, but this date seems as likely as any other, but dissapointing for those who were expecting the new N-Series phone today.