N76: The rest of the world gets a S60 clamshell too...

[slitchfield]

Continuing the CES 2007 announcements, Nokia has launched the N76 - a stylish S60 3rd Edition clamshell. See below for photos and the press release. Analysis and hands-on opinion later today!

Read on in the full article.

[akboom]

Finally, a good looking S60 device.

[elp]

I personnally am a bit sad that Nokia's designer couldn't come up with something better than a clone of the Motorola V3 which i always found rather ugly. We'll see how that looks like in the real world. The new N93 on the other side looks quite nice.

[krisse]

Yeah, I've never understood the appeal of the RAZR either.

I've nothing against Motorola, the PEBL looks really nice, but the RAZR just reminds me of one of those programmable TV remote controls you buy when you lose the original.

BUT... the fact of the matter is that the RAZR sells really well in the US (frighteningly well in some ways, Motorola is in danger of becoming a one-trick pony), and there is undoubtedly pressure from Nokia's American unit to produce something that competes with it.

This is a phone for the American market, basically. Nokia need to make progress there because their highly successful European-oriented designs aren't doing as well in the US, so they clearly need to offer something different for Americans.

I too think it's sad that they're essentially copying the same design, but then it is just the casing and not the innards. In functionality, the N76 is lightyears ahead of anything Motorola's producing for the mainstream market.

And it's worth remembering that the same approach with the E61 (Blackberry-esque design combined with far superior S60 hardware) paid off for the company, it's made Nokia far more popular with the (predominantly American) PDA crowd.

[natanlevine]

Uh.. excuse me for asking the obvious question, but doesn't this make the n75 completely pointless?

[krisse]

"Uh.. excuse me for asking the obvious question, but doesn't this make the n75 completely pointless?"

Although they're both thin clamshells, the N75 has a fairly different casing design which is much more Nokia-ish, and there are differences in the hardware inside too:

http://nds3.nokia.com/pressphotos/pu.../n75_low_7.jpg

I much prefer the N75 to the N76, I really don't like the RAZR style.

[lovesign]

I see Windows DRM is included. How about this for the rest of your phones, Nokia ?!?!

[Rafe]

The N75 was announced as a US model (in theory on Congular) whereas the N76 is for all markets. There are two variants which should give wide coverage. It is also worth notng the software version has been bumped up. But yes a lot of S60 phone are quite similar and I suspect we'll see more of that.

[tomsky]

Its got a 3.5mm jack, mini-usb and some other connector on it. I wonder how popular this will be. I for one welcome our new headphone jack overlords.

[drmadison]

Keep in mind this is NOT directly for the US, as the 3g band chosen is nonexistent in the US right now (TMobile will be rolling out a 2100band UMTS service this year supposedly)....

Which is odd since what I'm reading here is that most people seem to say the Razr was basically a US success. Personally, I'd still go for the n75 over this as I prefer something that feels a bit more solid and has better keys (assuming this feels as flimsy as the razr, with the same terrible keypad) - AND it supports Cingular's 3g bands which means I could actually get better than EDGE speeds from it.

[krisse]

"Keep in mind this is NOT directly for the US, as the 3g band chosen is nonexistent in the US right now"

Surely it's a fairly trivial matter to roll out a variant with US frequencies though?

I can't believe Nokia would go to the trouble of cloning the RAZR's casing and then not release it in the RAZR's biggest market.

[stuclark]

While it's nice to finally see a move towards more "stylish" S60 devices, I don't think this is going to be a great success.

The design of the phone (while being almost a copy of the RAZR) isn't quite as good in my opinion - I bet that bulge and corresponding gap at the top of the phone / base of the screen will make it a nightmare to balance one handed. (like the 6280)

Also, where's the pictures of the back of it, and why only a 2MP camera?

[Webbunny]

Has anyone thought about the battery life this thing is (not) going to have?
Nokia state it has a 700mAh battery, and lasts on standby for 200 hours.

Now we all know how terrible Nokia's 'estimates' for battery life are! I have an N73, 1100mAh battery, estimated 350 hours life (which is 2 weeks). I'm usually recharging it every 3rd day.... the N76 is going to be worse than an N80 with its WiFi left on

Other than that... it is my perfect phone - personally I prefer flip phones, but anything more than 20mm thick is too much. And at the same time, I couldn't go back to a 'feature phone' after having 2 S60 devices, and this is the first Euro N Series flip thats not been a housebrick. And I'm not bothered about the camera being 'only' 2MP - I tend to take more video clips than stills with my phone. I think it looks good, sure its a blatant RAZR copy style wise, but I've always thought that phone looked good.

Andy

[drmadison]

Originally Posted by krisse

"Keep in mind this is NOT directly for the US, as the 3g band chosen is nonexistent in the US right now"

Surely it's a fairly trivial matter to roll out a variant with US frequencies though?

I can't believe Nokia would go to the trouble of cloning the RAZR's casing and then not release it in the RAZR's biggest market.

They haven't done it yet...
There is currently not a single N-series device that you can get in the US with functional 3g service. The N75 was the first that had the 850/1900 frequencies covered, but well, it's been announced for some time now with not a glimpse of it coming out (mid-Feb is the latest date I've heard and even that's being doubted, but I've been hearing dates since I heard it'd be out in 2006 some number of months ago))

[elp]

OT: guys at AAS, do you have a sponsored link to the Apple Store UK? If things go according to plans, i'm gonna buy my first mac, a MacBook, tomorrow evening after Steve's annoucements. Since AAS has been of so much help ever since i got my first smartphone, i thought i could help a bit by buying through you. But i don't think you've got any sponsored link to Apple Store here.