NMC News: Three New N-Series Devices

[Ewan]

Three new phones have been announced by Nokia. The N71 is the all-round multimedia device, with FM Radio, MP3 and audio support; the N80 is a slider phone with WiFi support; and the N92 is a TV focussed device, with DVB-H support and a QVGA screen.  

Read on in the full article.

[ravis_31]

these phones look good,but the n71 could have been better..what's that button on top of the lower-half???is it like the n91(swivel design)the n80 is similar to n70 except for the slide design.the n92 is by far the coolest..teh screen positions in two differnt ways..thru slide!!!!awesome...**sigh**if only DVB makes it to india:(

rafe..i sent you this story,chk mail..

[zainman]

WOW!!! amazing!! let the news flow in... this is too exciting man!

[Masamune]

I've already seen the N92 - it was once called the Samsung D700. The other thing, we in the UK have still yet to see the existing N Series devices and given that there's no operators willing to take up the N90 yet and the N91 is still turning into Samsungware (the new name for vapourware), I'm not holding my breath about any of these making an appearence, especially the one with Wifi built-in.

[langdona]

Well with these new N series phones to go along with the recently announced E series I think they have pretty much sewen up the top end of the mobile phone market. The only other device that may compete with this range seems to be the SE P990.

I think the other handset manufacturors have been dithering about far too much with dabbling various OS's without total commitment one and not putting enough into developing smartphones in general. I think apart from Nokia and to a lesser extent Sony Ericsson the other manufacturers were hoping for a mobile OS that they can just bung into a device add a couple of tweeks and flog it. Unfortunately it takes much more design, development and most importently INVESTEMENT than that.

[Masamune]

Excellent point - the UIQ range from Motorola compared with the UIQ range from Sony Ericsson is vastly inferior. The OS is pretty much the same, but unless you have a decent handset to use it from, it's worthless. My only concern with Nokia is that many of the devices they're bringing out look more and more like concept devices, rather than something that would be readily usable in the real world.

[Ewan]

Originally Posted by langdona

Well with these new N series phones to go along with the recently announced E series I think they have pretty much sewen up the top end of the mobile phone market. The only other device that may compete with this range seems to be the SE P990.

I think the other handset manufacturors have been dithering about far too much with dabbling various OS's without total commitment one and not putting enough into developing smartphones in general. I think apart from Nokia and to a lesser extent Sony Ericsson the other manufacturers were hoping for a mobile OS that they can just bung into a device add a couple of tweeks and flog it. Unfortunately it takes much more design, development and most importently INVESTEMENT than that.

You could have just typed "Motorola"

[TomJ]

The N80 looks like more than a concept device to me; it looks like a fully realised 7650. While some of the recently announed phones have tempted me, I think I need to have this one. 3G, Wi-Fi (802.11g according to this site), FM radio and 3 MPixels? Huzzah. Unfortunately it looks like the camera's not protected by the slide, which was on of the most cunning features of the 7650, but you can't have everything.

[langdona]

Originally Posted by Ewan

You could have just typed "Motorola"

Well I was also thinking about Samsung, Siemens/BenQ, Panasonic, LG etc and I did not just mean people who have signed up to Symbian.

[Utenteanonimo64]

Originally Posted by Masamune

... we in the UK have still yet to see the existing N Series devices and given that there's no operators willing to take up the N90 yet and the N91 is still turning into Samsungware (the new name for vapourware), I'm not holding my breath about any of these making an appearence, especially the one with Wifi built-in.

I can't agree more! Nokia in particular seems to compete more at press release level rather than with phones in shops! If you go to their website there are now about 18 models "coming soon". I think new models are announced just to spoil other manufacturers' press releases. SonyEricsson has announced the P990 with Wi-Fi and 2MP camera and two weeks later Nokia comes with Wi-Fi and 3MP camera. And if SonyEricsson has explained that they are annoucing the phone well in advance to give time to developers to adapt to UIQ 3.0, I think that it is pretty ridiculous to have the N91 out maybe one year after its press release. Do they expect that people stop buying iPods because a phone with a 4GB disk will be available 12 months later???

UA

PS: not to mention a model with DVB-H that basically is announced only to show Nokia's support of that standard when as of today there isn't even spectrum allocated in Europe for that type of service (as far as I know)! That model is just a "press release" exercise. Look at the last part of this article: http://news.com.com/Nokia+Mobile+TV+...l?tag=nefd.top

[wshwe]

None of these phones will run N-Gagee games. So much for Nokia's promise to include N-Gage game compatibility in future S60 phones.

[zainman]

i think they will run ngage games.. the n80 does say it's going to have a 'gaming console'

Well N91, N90 and N70 sure took their sweet time, but look at the release dates of the new models. N71 and N80 should be available already in Q1/2006, which I think is pretty soon.

[Masamune]

Remember - the N91 was original schulded for an October release, then December and now February (ish). If any of these make it to the shelves in Q1 I'll be amazed. A more realistic release date is Q3 next year or Q2 at the very earliest. Nokia has had a lot of difficulty trying persuade operators to take these up not because of design or performance issues (the N series models I've seen at tradeshows have been very stable and delightful devices) but the price Nokia is charging for them. The N90 (when it arrives) is supposed to be around £200-£250 with a contract. Next to it will be the Sony Ericsson and Communicator range at a similar price. It will be hard for a Series 60 device to compete with a full blown PDA/phone combination at the same price, no matter what camera it has in it.

[stuclark]

I think these phones will come out very quickly.

The N91 was delayed so much because it was the first Series 60 V3 phone Nokia tried putting out - they've now had all that development time with the N91, so throwing out three other models with essentially the same specs will be very quick for them.

Expect to see these and the E series hitting the shelves about the same time - probably in Feb / March next year*



*I think!