CommunicAsia 2009 - Nokia Connection
In the first of many announcements during this week of CommunicAsia 2009, we give you a glimpse of what's to come from the Finnish company, Nokia. Amongst the devices featured, the spotlight this time is on the succeeding Nokia E72, the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, and one that fits all, the Nokia 3710 Fold.
Nokia Connections
It's that time of the year again, when all things related to communications converge upon Singapore. What we're looking at is a whole week of action in the annual trade show event known as CommunicAsia 2009. Similar to previous years, there'll be loads of announcements heading our way, and the major plays in the mobile phone industry are sure to keep everyone at the edge of their seats.
Our first stop for the day landed us at Nokia Connections, which saw the official announcement of Nokia's Ovi Store debuting on the just launched Nokia N97. Ovi Store has made its appearance just a few weeks back, bringing Nokia in to the scene that was already set by Apple's App Store and the budding Google Android Market in more recent times. Working in tandem with Forum Nokia that attracts a pool of developers in engaging one another in application development and given an avenue to distribute their apps through Ovi Store, this could be Nokia's answer in fostering a successful and lucrative developer community to enrich their user group. Nonetheless, similar to the Android Market, Ovi Store has a long road ahead of them in giving Apple's App Store a run for their money, but time will tell.
Chris Carr, Vice President, Sales, South East Asia Pacific, was on site to officially announce the launch of the Nokia E72, the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic and the Nokia 3710 Fold.
With Ovi Store now available and accessible via your PC or through the Ovi Store application within devices such as the Nokia N97, Nokia's has strengthened its service delivery in the year 2009.
Furthermore, at Nokia Connections, we were given a quick look at some of the new Nokia devices that'll be released in the second half of 2009. There's a device for everyone, and they include the new E-series device, the Nokia E72, the third touch screen device, the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, and a basic model revealed to be a clamshell model, the Nokia 3710 Fold. More details of these three new Nokia devices in the following pages.
With Ovi Store now available and accessible via your PC or through the Ovi Store application within devices such as the Nokia N97, Nokia's has strengthened its service delivery in the year 2009.
The third touch screen device, the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, will be a smaller cousin of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and comes with some further tweaks to its S60 V5.0 touch UI on the home screen.
Nokia is still in the market for a phone that's just right for everyone and affordable. Here's a basic model, the Nokia 3710 Fold that adopts the popular clamshell form factor with some great aesthetics thrown in.
Nokia E72 - Messaging Success(or)
A quick comparison between the Nokia E72 (left) and the Nokia E71 keyboards. At first glance, the individual keys on the E72 are wider than its predecessor, and tactile feedback from the succeeding device is just as good as what we experience with the E71.
With a year gone past since the announcement of the Nokia E71, and following with its widespread popularity amongst consumers in that one year span, Nokia is taking the opportunity to reveal the E71's direct successor, the Nokia E72. While it essentially adopts a similar form factor to its predecessor, note that we used the word similar. In direct comparison, the E72's QWERTY keyboard has a smaller space bar, in light of the fact that the last row has been added with two more keys. The E72 is also Nokia's first device that utilizes the Optical Navi key, which as its name implies, acts as an optical mouse to navigate through the menu icons with the S60 interface.
The E72 (left) now comes with a 3.5mm audio jack located at the crown of the device.
The E72's camera sensor also gets a bump up to 5 megapixels with autofocus and LED flash.
According to the dimensions, the E72 just a mm or so thicker than its predecessor, which isn't that obvious from the looks of it here. The device still retains the slim and easy to handle form factor that we loved on the E71.
Besides the slight exterior tweak, the E72 also comes with a ton of upgrades within. In terms of cellular data speeds, the E72 will sport one of the fastest speeds to date at up to 10.2Mbps - a further push up from the now commonly seen 7.2Mbps speeds on most smartphones. Imaging also gets a boost in the form of a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, and for conference calls that requires the E72's speaker phone capability, the device is also equipped with active noise cancellation technology to increase call clarity.
Billed as a messaging device, the Nokia E72 will also be integrated with Nokia's push e-mail service that would now be familiar with most business executives out there: Nokia Messaging. Nokia Messaging will also include instant messaging (IM) support that encompasses popular IM accounts such as Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk and Ovi, amongst many others. Social networking sites are also part of the deal, with the introduction of apps such as Facebook for S60 that gives you instant access to your Facebook account from your device.
Pre-loading Nokia Messaging is just a start, because from what Nokia has mentioned, this application will be given a lifetime license for E72 users. With this announcement of a lifetime license tagged to the E72, it goes to show that Nokia Messaging, in its current free for all stage, might require a subscription plan in the near future, as stated on its Nokia Messaging website. Email support such as Mail for Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes Traveler and POP/IMAP are also included as part of the messaging delivery from the E72.
The Nokia E72 is looking at a launch date sometime at the end of Q3 2009, i.e. just before September, and will be available in the following colors: zodium black, metal grey and topaz brown.
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Nokia 5530 XpressMusic - Pocket-sized Music
Nokia has been playing the catch-up game over the past year or so. Now, with its services such as Nokia Music Store, N-Gage and Ovi all laid out, we are starting to see the Finnish company dishing out devices where its competitors once had an edge in the past few months.
With regards to touch screen devices, Nokia has released both the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia N97, both utilizing the latest Symbian S60 Version 5.0 OS. The third device powered by the touch screen OS has just been revealed to be another XpressMusic series, the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic. As a slightly smaller cousin to the earlier 5800 XpressMusic with its 2.9-inch screen, the 5530 XpressMusic retains the same 640 x 360 screen resolution that translates to a 16:9 aspect ratio for the perfect widescreen experience with current day video feeds.
Placed side-by-side, the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic (left) has the advantage of being more compact and easy on the hands than the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (right).
Looking at the profile, you'll again notice that the 5530 XpressMusic is a better alternative if you're on the look out for compact music phone that's friendly on the pocket.
Oddly, the 5530 XpressMusic's 3.5mm audio jack is located at the bottom profile, as opposed to the 5800 XpressMusic's location at the top.
Both devices support the same imaging resolution at 3.2 megapixels, though the 5530 XpressMusic utilizes just one LED flash instead of the dual LED flash as seen on the 5800 XpressMusic.
The 5530 XpressMusic comes with the same Contacts Bar shortcut as first seen on the 5800 XpressMusic, with a slight twist. The new Contacts Bar now sports up to 20 different favorite contacts instead of just 4 for you to assign. In essence, you can now scroll through horizontally on the Contacts Bar to access your favorite contacts, which will also display your recent messages, emails and call history with the aforementioned contacts.
The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic will be shipped out in Q3 2009 and comes in the following colors: black-red, white-blue, black-grey, white-pink and white-yellow.
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Key Features
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Nokia 3710 Fold - Back to Basics
Nokia hasn't forgotten the down-to-earth crowd who prefer simpler devices that fulfill their cellular needs. As such, this was also the day the Nokia 3710 Fold was revealed to the world. Taking on the clamshell design that gave it the "Fold" tag, this model is targeted at the larger consumer group who don't need a device that does it all. Measuring at 89 x 47 x 15.2mm which gives it the compact stature some people desire, the 3710 Fold is also quite lightweight at 94g.
Nokia is still in the market for a phone that's just right for everyone and affordable. Here's a basic model, the Nokia 3710 Fold that adopts the popular clamshell form factor with some great aesthetics thrown in.
While it is designed to be as simple as it gets, the 3710 Fold does come with some niftier features one might expect on a smartphone. This includes an A-GPS for location based services and used in conjunction with the Nokia Maps for navigation purposes. The Symbian S40 interface also comes with a makeover of sorts, with a new user interface that is seemingly simpler and more intuitive. Nokia has expressed this new interface will be implemented for its other devices on the S40 interface, though there hasn't been any news or timeline of when this'll be happening.
The Nokia 3710 Fold will be available by the last quarter of 2009, and it will come in three colors: pink, plum and black.
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Eye Candy
Haven't had enough of the new Nokia devices? Here are more pictures for you to check out, and it comes not with music, but some eye candy that we spotted at this year's Nokia Connection.
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