News mobile phones

Nokia N96

The Nokia N96 was revealed today at the 2008 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, and proudly hails as the most feature packed smartphone announced to date. While the Nokia N96 follows the dual-sliding N95 in terms of basic form factor, it adds a pair of gaming keys to the multimedia cluster on extra slide panel that can be used for N-Gage games. A 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and Carl Zeiss lenses is accentuated by a dual LED flash that can also function as a video recording light.

This smartphone is based on the Symbian S60 3rd Edition operation system, with Feature Pack 2, and sports a DVB-H digital TV receiver and innovative kickstand for watching video on the handset's beautiful 2.8" QVGA display. There are connection options aplenty, including quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and dual-band WCDMA (900/2100MHz) as well as WiFi and support for HSDPA for high speed data connections.

A built-in GPS receiver works with the new Nokia Maps 2.0, preloaded on the N96, to keep you on the right path. Nokia's updated Share Online enables the N96 to automatically geotag your photos and upload them to Flickr or Share on Ovi so that the world can see where you travel. 16GB of internal flash memory and a microSD memory card slot with support for cards up to 16GB mean you'll never run out of space for photos, music, and games.

The N96 makes it easy to share your media with friends via a TV-Out cable and UPnP support. This slider smartphone is expected to start shipping in Q3 2008 with pricing set at 550EUR (US$802) before taxes and subsidies.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Today Nokia unwrapped its first touchscreen-equipped S60 smartphone, the 5800 XpressMusic, at an event in London. The 5800 XpressMusic, long known as the "Tube" on the rumor mills, is the first smartphone to feature Nokia's new S60 5th Edition user interface, which adds support for touchscreen displays to the platform. The 5800 XpressMusic breaks the ice with a large 3.2" touchscreen display that is capable of showing 16 million colors at 640x360 pixel resolution. A built-in accelerometer handles automatic screen rotation activation.

The 5800 XpressMusic also features a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and Carl Zeiss optics. A newly designed suite of image and video editing tools is also on board, alongside the microSD card slot and an 8GB microSD card that is included in the sales package. The 5800 XpressMusic sports a 3.5mm audio port that supports standard wired stereo headphones as well as the 5800 XpressMusic's TV-out capabilities. The device also comes equipped with a pair of stereo speakers built-in that one Nokia rep described as "quite powerful."

There will be three different configurations of the 5800 XpressMusic available. All three support quad-band GSM/EDGE, while two of the versions also support 3G connectivity; one supporting HSDPA on the 900 and 2100MHz bands, the other on the 850 and 1900MHz bands. WiFi is also included for even higher-speed data transfers. A GPS receiver is built-in, as is Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support for stereo headsets, which should allow for a great music experience. The 5800 XpressMusic also ships with a handy desktop stand for enjoying your videos comfortably.