Nokia announced the N76 at CES today. And while I typically focus on the highest of the high-end handsets, the Nokia N76 strikes me as significant; it’s the most appealing mass-market N Series devices to date.

Typically, mass-market and Nokia N Series weren’t something I felt really went hand-in-hand. After all, N Series is known as Nokia’s cutting edge multimedia computer line, most focused on pushing limits of device capability than getting love from carriers.

This is where the N76 comes in and mixes things up. The N76 is slated to be the answer to the RAZR loving crowd, that has finally realized that their phones are 4 year-old technology in a flat metal case. And while most N Series devices are a big-time investment, the N76 should only bang you up for $300 bucks before carrier subsidies. Not too shabby.

What are you getting for it? Some awesome stuff to help the average Joe ease into his N Series capabilities. First of all, check out that it has external music controls, expandable memory of up to 2GB, and 3.5mm industry-standard headphone jack. For the love of God, thank you. The fact that any mainstream handset parading itself as a music phone doesn’t have a 3.5mm jack is a joke. It’s got a decent 2.0 megapixel camera that you can also operate while the phone is closed, with integrated services on the phone to upload to sites like Flickr.

When it comes down to it, I can see myself recommending this handset in the future to quite a few people looking to upgrade to something a little nicer than the free RAZRs every carrier is throwing at passersby. We’ll have to see how it hold up when I get a chance to review one. In the meantime, check out the slick video on the Nokia’s N76 CES web site.