Nokia Announces Three New Mid-Range Phones

Uncategorized

Nokia announced Monday three new cell phones for the mid-priced market. The world’s biggest phone maker, based in Finland, described the Nokia 6600 fold, the 6600 slide, and the 3600 slide as balancing “stunning and sophisticated looks with the latest in mobile functionality.”

Priced at 175 to 275 Euros (US$274 to $430), the new models will be released in the third quarter. Nokia executive Mikkel Drucker said the phones are a response to a “strong consumer demand for mobile handsets that blend elegant looks with modern features.”

OLED Screen

The 6600 fold features a 2.13-inch OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen with 16 million colors that is opened by a button touch. On the outer high-gloss surface, a double touch can “wake up” its display, showing such information as missed calls, incoming messages, and the time. A double tap in the right place can also put alerts on snooze, and either reject or silence incoming calls.

A two-megapixel camera has double LED flash, and the 6600 has easy access to Yahoo Go.

Its sibling, the 6600 slide, has a steel cover and an aluminum center key. As with the 6600 fold, a double tap can also bring up the time or alerts, or can mute incoming calls. This model has a 3.2-megapixel camera for still pictures and video, sharing can be done directly from the photo menu, and there’s a 2.2-inch QVGA display for high-quality viewing.

A Nokia Maps application is included, but the Global Positioning System is not — although an optional GPS module can be added.

The colorful 3600 slide is, the company said, its first product to feature background noise cancellation. A built-in music player can play up to 3,000 songs, stored on an optional microSD card. For picture-taking, there’s a 3.2-megapixel camera with two-LED flash and autofocus.

TV Out, FM Radio

Chris Hazelton, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, noted the 3600’s TV-out port, which allows the user to screen photos and video directly on a TV set.

The 3600 also has Nokia maps, with more than 15 million points of interest, but GPS is also an option.

Although Nokia did not mention a U.S. release, Hazelton speculated that several of the devices, with dual-band 3G, are U.S.-bound, “probably to AT&T.”

Nokia has been increasingly emphasizing its services as way of differentiating its devices in a crowded marketplace. But Hazelton noted that, if these models do go to AT&T in the U.S., Nokia services such as maps may not be offered in the same form.

Another differentiator could be the inclusion of FM radio in the 6600 fold and slide, Hazelton said. FM on cell phones is currently “not very common in the U.S.,” he pointed out.

Nokia, with a wide array of products and a growing emphasis on the integration of the Internet with mobile communications, had an operating profit for the first quarter that was up 39 percent from last year.

via Mobility Today