Nokia announced its new multimedia-centric N-series, with the N91 music phone grabbing much of the attention and already being called an “iPod killer”. For starters, it’s got a 4-gigabyte hard drive, support for all the major digital music formats (bar Apple’s DRM-ed AAC files) and dedicated music controls, and a laundry list of other features: WCDMA and EDGE support, 802.11b/g, Visual Radio, USB 2.0 and the Series 60 user interface on top of the Symbian 9.0 operating system.

The N91 is scheduled for release “by the end of 2005″, when there will likely be more competition than just Samsung’s 3GB music phone. (I’m not taking any bets on whether or not the iTunes phone will be out or even announced by then.)

Gizmodo reports the N91 “doesn’t support Napster To Go”, but probably will in the next revision. I’ll interpret this to mean it doesn’t support the Microsoft DRM that Nokia announced it was licensing at 3GSM in February. It does support OMA DRM 2.0, but that’s of little use to end users. Presumably, Nokia didn’t license the MS DRM to not use it — which raises an interesting question. If carriers have balked at the iTunes phone because it cuts them out of the revenue stream for downloads, how will they feel about phones that will let people use Napster or Real’s new subscription service?

It’s hard to think they’d react too differently, although carriers that have bought Nokia’s white-label download store may overlook this in favor of getting devices that can use it. Of course, the best solution would probably be to partner with somebody like Napster or Real and offer it to their subscribers. The services would love the extra revenues, and an operator that embraces these devices and makes them a joy to use will have a compelling, differentiated offering from its rivals, most of which will inevitably recoil in horror at the thought of letting users put their own music on to mobile phones.