Last night Nokia launched Comes With Music in South Africa. Comes With Music gives you access to the Nokia Music Store for 12 months of unlimited track downloads (you only have a choice of 5 million tracks!). It will be bundled with the following 3 handsets: 5130, 5530 and 5630*.

So if you take any of these phones on a Top Up package, you’re getting the airtime and the phone free, along with a unique code to download any track in the Nokia Music Store for a year. After the 1 year is up, you will own every single track you downloaded for free, for life. If you upgrade to another Nokia Comes With Music compatible device, you will be able to carry over all your music. I’m no analyst but I’m pretty sure these phones are going to fly between the 16-24 demograph.

The formalities of the launch took place at the Holiday Inn Sandton. From the moment you stepped out of the lifts, each corner was ‘propped’ with a Nokia girl, talking on her phone or listening to music – to tie in with the theme.

Nokia’s country manager, Mathia Nalappan, spoke about what Nokia will be focussing on: messaging, music, maps, media and games. Head of music (Middle East & Africa) Jake Larsen officially announced Comes With Music is now available in South Africa.

Thereafter we were ‘bussed’ away to Mythos in Fourways for dinner. A pink pashmina style scarf waited for the ladies when they got to their seats while green beanies were left for male partners, who were also invited. We later returned to the Holiday Inn for coffee and dessert where Zebra & Giraffe provided entertainment for the evening.

The media were given a choice of 1 of the 3 handsets to take home and play with for a year. Unlimited track downloads included! I didn’t go for the touch phone (5530) because it didn’t support 3G and that would just annoy me. I chose the 5630. Thank you Nokia for a lovely evening.

* The 5130 will be available exclusively from MTN and the 5530 & 5630 will be available at Nashua Mobile, Autopage, Cell C & MTN. The handsets will be available mid-September.