Despite the smart phone sector remaining remarkably buoyant, not everyone has money to burn on the latest high-end phones.
This is a fact that Nokia realises and is a major contributing factor to why they are still number one – by releasing plenty of great entry level devices that are attainable to those struggling to make ends meet.
These four new mobiles from the Finnish manufacturer announced today (five, if you include the £17 Nokia 1280) show that fun and functional phones needn’t cost the earth.
The Nokia 1616 is a torch-waving dual band handset with a 3.5 mm headphone jack, FM radio, colour screen and the usual suite of basic Nokia functionality.
With a choice of colours and a price of only €24 (£21), the 1616 could shine on prepay after its Q1 2010 release.
The Nokia 1800 differs in form but remains familiar in function to the 1616, another compact dual band device with a colour display, 3.5mm audio jack and FM radio.
It can also outlast even the chattiest of folks, with a 8.5 hour talk-time and a fantastic 22 days of standby, and at a price of €24 (£21) we’re sure that it won’t stay on shelves for long next year.
Amazing what the absence of wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPS tagging or toastie maker can do to a phone’s battery lifespan, isn’t it?
The Nokia 2220 Slideis far more flamboyant, a two-tone slider available in a range of colours including hot pink, which immediately got us interested!
In all honesty the 2220 is a step up from the above two phones, incorporating MMS, Bluetooth, GPRS support, a VGA camera and Ovi e-mail support.
The Nokia 2690is a candybar version of the 2220 slide that looks pretty nice and contains the majority of features, with the addition of EDGE and MicroSD support for cards up to 8GB.
At a price of €45 (£40) and €54 (£48) accordingly, it is amazing to see how far mobile phones have actually come, and what savvy folks can get for their money.
Last night saw a glittering awards bash in Central London, where Mobile Choice magazine picked the best handsets, tariffs, services and networks in the phone business. Some were surprises, many were deserving, all are great.
Without further ado, here are the big winners of the Mobile Choice Awards:
Most Stylish Phone
LG New Chocolate BL40 – None can argue that the striking stylings of this fashion phone were anything less than catwalk quality. A marriage of unorthodox looks with a 21:9 display, and a classic minimalist black finish had the Chocolate head and shoulders above the rest.
Runners-up:
HTC Touch Diamond2
Apple iPhone 3GS
Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte
Samsung i8910HD
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Best Multimedia Phone
Samsung i8910HD – 3.7″ AMOLED display? HD video recording? 8.1 megapixel camera? Yes.
Samsung Pixon 12 – For once, the numbers aren’t just for bragging rights as the first 12 megapixel camera phone also proved to be the best, with a suite of features commonly found on dedicated gadgets.
Runners-up:
LG Viewty Smart GC900
Nokia N86 8MP
Sony Ericsson C905 +
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Best Social Networking Handset
INQ1
3’s ‘little handset that could’ takes down the bevy of smart phone beauties by being a pocket dynamo in the social stakes. Liaising happily with Windows Live and Skype, the coup de grace is the merged contact list formed by hooking up with Facebook. Profiles, status and images all sync perfectly, leaving you with a perfect phone for popular folks that doesn’t dent the bank, let alone break it.
The HTC Hero ticks all of the boxes as far as a strong handset is concerned. Embracing the new Android operating system, HTC’s Sense UI manages to offer a fun, intuitive, slick and (above all else) practical interface, without choosing to ape Apple’s groundbreaking device.
The form factor might be a little divisive in terms of people’s tastes, but each design choice is clear, justifiable and makes for a striking phone to look at.
Vodafone are showing off some of their Q3/Q4 line up, with some of the hottest mobile phones posing provocatively on their “coming soon” page with an October release date.
TheNokia E72 is the latest remodelling of their popular productivity-focussed Eseries devices, bringing a full QWERTY keyboard, a robust messaging client and a great compliment of media functionality.
Enhancements over the highly successful Nokia E71 include a 5 megapixel autofocus camera, 3.5mm audio jack, and A-GPS if lost on the way to the latest leadership meeting.
The office capabilities have been updated with a new version of Quickoffice, which delivers Microsoft Office 2007 compatibility, and instant messaging support is available to getting chatting as soon as you clock off.
Available from October, the Nokia E72 is an exciting addition to the range, and is sure to be the flagship handset for those bored by Blackberry and intimidated by the iPhone.
The new Nokia E72 handles the lucrative mobile messaging device market, offering unrivalled support for e-mails, instant messaging and blazing fast 10.2 Mbps web connection.
Taking a cue from the impressive Nokia E71, the E72 is a equally strong multimedia device offering a 5 megapixel autofocus camera, an optical mouse for scrolling and menu navigation, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
In at a svelte 10mm, the E72 is an panacea to all of those chunky multimedia devices clogging up boardrooms and bistros, and even comes with an enhanced version of QuickOffice with Office 2007 compatibility.
With a release date of 12th October 2009 on Expansys, the Nokia E72 will cost around €350 (a shade under £300) SIM-free, with E72 deals to follow in due course.
The Nokia E55 is a strong mobile for the ever-online executive, with an impressive 8 hours of talk/23 days of standby.
With less by way of snazzy gimmicks and more understated charm, the E55 is a candy bar handset offering a 3.2 megapixel camera, A-GPS, a 2.4″ display and all manner of connectivity via Nokia Messaging, Microsoft Exchange, and even Lotus Notes allowing you to keep abreast of work wherever you are.
The range of affordable contract Nokia E55 deals belie the suited-and-booted nature of the device, with a range of free gifts and cashback offers now available.
Expect to pat around £35 per month, but with redemption offers taking a lot off the top of those fees.
It’s out! The big announcement from Nokia is out of the bag ahead of their annual conference, and the name on everyone’s lips (and Twitter streams) at the moment is N900.
Read on to take a closer look at the official images, videos and Nokia N900 features, the most exciting internet tablet/mobile phone/sexy piece of gadgetry we have seen in a long time!
The features list reads familiarly to anyone well versed in the internal workings of the Nokia N97 (cool dudes that they are), but with changes large and small to make the Nokia N900 so much more than an incremental upgrade.
The New:
- Maemo 5 operating system.
Based on Linux, this is the biggest change of all. Nokia’s first ever mobile to run on Maemo, the user experience and multi-tasking functionality places the N900 firmly in the upper echelon of mobiles.
- CPU.
The ARM Cortex-A8 CPU is the iron fist to Maemo’s velvet glove user interface, a processing beast which allows for accelerated graphical capabilities, programs running concurrently and performance that one would come to expect from a computer rather than a mobile. Is this the end of juddery transitions and freezing that plagued certain Symbian-powered smartphones? Let’s hope so.
- 3.5″ touchscreen display.
It is huge, and is the biggest indicator of the N900’s internet tablet DNA. Primed for a landscape experience, this WVGA resistive touchscreen offers clarity and crispness at 800 x 480 pixels, as well as an on-screen virtual keyboard to supplement the three row full QWERTY affair nestled away.
Some may find a resistive touchscreen off putting, but try telling that to the millions that find it essential for depicting Asian characters and handwriting recognition.
- Mozilla Web Browser
The ’secret’ weapon in the N900’s armoury. For the many people unfamiliar with the sub-category of internet tablets, the slickest mobile browsing experience they would have had is likely to be Safari on the iPhone. We certainly can’t knock it as the kinetic scrolling, the functionality and rendering speed are all top notch.
This, however, is on another level. The size of the screen and speed of connectivity thanks to both Wi-Fi and HSDPA 3G means the Nokia N900 deals with this capably, but the full Flash 9.4 support and smooth scrolling on that native landscape display quickly reminds that you have never seen desktop-quality internet on a mobile, until now.
- Phone functionality.
The other secret weapon, the N900 is Nokia’s first tablet device to also be a mobile phone! Whilst we have had the Maemo experience in earlier Nseries devices, marrying it to calling functionality is a first. With quad-band GSM and 3G HSDPA support, the N900 is ready to go global and stay connected.
The Established:
- 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss optics camera, with dual-LED flash.
Much the same great camera found in the Nokia N97. There may be better on dedicated devices, but this is still one of the best to be found on a smartphone.
- 32GB of internal memory, microSD card support.
Hefty memory on board means plenty of space for multimedia, and if that wasn’t enough then an extra 16GB of memory can be added, courtesy of a microSD card.Hey, it even has a kickstand to turn it into your own mobile multiplex.
- A-GPS with Ovi Maps.
Getting lost gets a lot more difficult, as Ovi Maps provides turn-by-turn, walking directions as well as orientation by landmarks. Scouts must have it so easy these days…
- 3.5mm headphone jack, FM transmitter, TV-Out, DivX support, Bluetooth v2.1…
All becoming standard on Nokia Nseries handsets. All still brilliant features that round out a strong handset.
The other big surprise is that we could all buy Nokia N900 as soon as this October, for €500 (£440)!
That N97-bothering price point could see this summer’s hottest phone eclipsed pretty quickly, and with the such array of pioneering tech behind it, the N900 should have little problem selling itself across the globe. Maybe, just maybe, Nokia are back in this one.
The Nokia N97 was this summer’s blockbuster handset, the cool form factor, touchscreen display and Ovi App Store integration set many pulses racing in the sunshine.
However, not everyone thought the N97 was cute enough to fit in the pocket on a daily basis, evoking memories of slightly bulky Nokia ‘Communicator’ devices that business folk did their spreadsheets with in the back of their chauffeur-driven towncars.
Well, the Finnish manufacturer has listened, and brought out a phone that trims the size and the price of the N97, but takes a little bit off the specs too – the (imaginatively titled) Nokia N97 Mini.
Lighter in weight and in features, the N97 Mini is down to a svelte 138g from the 150g original, lowers the memory available to 8GB from a massive 32GB (still able to be supplemented with a microSD card), and the screen is a shade smaller at 3.2″. The usual great features remain in terms of connectivity, with Wi-Fi, 3G HSDPA, a 3.5mm socket and the active widgets homepage making a reappearance.
The form factor remains the same, so the sliding QWERTY keyboard is still present and correct, as is the 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera, albeit without a lens cover. So if you are looking for a sawn-off multimedia powerhouse, you can do little wrong by opting for the N97 Mini. The space saved by shaving off some centimetres here and there definitely makes the N97 Mini look a little more attractive the second time around, despite losing a bit ‘upstairs’.
There has not been any word of a Nokia N97 Mini release date other then Q4 2009, but there is word that this will have a knock-on effect on the price of existing Nokia N97 deals…
The entire mobile industry has shifted from traditional handsets to touch screen devices, thanks in large part to Apple’s iPhone making buttons boring and minimalism sexy.
Here we have our selection of ten of the best phones out this year for those looking for something to poke, swipe and tap at!
Samsung Tocco Lite
Since the original multi-million selling Samsung Tocco, touch has been a winner for the Korean manufacturer and they bring all of their expertise in the mid-range market to bear with the Tocco Lite (S5230).
The Samsung Tocco Lite is a stylish handset that doesn’t break the bank by bringing only the essential features to a touch phone. 3G connecitivty and Wi-Fi might be nowhere to be seen, making the Tocco Lite a 2G handset, but it makes up for this with an impressive a 3.15 megapixel camera with face and smile detection, as well as incorporating Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, making navigation around the phone quick and easy.
The 3” touch display manages not to pile the pounds onto the Tocco Lite, keeping it at a svelte 94g, whilst multimedia is ably handled with music and movie playback for most popular formats, stereo FM radio and support for microSD cards as large as 16GB.
The Samsung Tocco Lite manages to be cheap and yet a handset which for once doesn’t feel like concessions have been made in an effort to bring the price down. A confident and capable device, the Tocco Lite certainly isn’t light on features!
Phones like the LG Viewty Smart are the number one reason that people are mothballing their digital cameras and using a mobile phone to capture their snaps.
Sporting an 8 megapixel Schneider-Kreuznach camera, a 3” full touch screen, and the fast and fun S-Class user interface that premiered on the LG Arena, the Viewty Smart brings an (almost) professional quality camera to the mobile phone game.
Whilst the camera is the focus (that’s a play on words!), let’s not overlook the full touch capacitive display, which enables users to manually focus on whatever they choose to in camera mode, pick a song or movie in the Dolby Audio-supported media player or easily navigate the 3D graphically rich menus of S-Class.
Setting alarms, using the in-built FM radio and sending a text using the virtual QWERTY keyboard quickly become second nature as the lack of buttons goes from curious to comfy.
With a bevy of ‘Intelligent Shot’ features including setting adjustments for various conditions, smile shot and multi-face detection, budding Rankins can certainly cut their teeth on a camera that puts much of the competition to shame.
Add to that Assisted GPS, 3G connectivity, Bluetooth support and Wi-Fi, the LG Viewty Smart is a great snapper as well as a more than capable handset.
The HTC Hero follows in the robotic footsteps of the HTC Magic and T-Mobile G1 as the first wave of phones to run on Google’s ‘Android’ platform.
Touch-driven just like the others, the HTC Hero has drawn much attention due to running on a highly customised version of the Android software, offering a wilding different touch experience that many have dubbed ‘Sense’. It has also garnered attention to the unconventional design, because it looks like it has a chin.
HTC insists that it makes the handset feel more natural on the face, something we’d be inclined to agree with…
This Sense user interface brings a wealth of personalized content directly to the fingertips of HTC Hero users in a unique manner, including Facebook, and Twitter status updates, contact information and even weather at a single swipe.
The HTC Hero is also unique in offering different profiles depending on the situation, and we are talking far more than ringtone volume and the colour of the background here…
The Hero can be set to automatically change the entire layout of the phone depending on the time of day or week, showing stock information, world clocks and e-mails during the day and switching to Twitter and your personal favourites after clocking off time.
The HTC Hero confirms its smart phone credentials when you look at the specifications, with a 5 megapixel camera, 3.5mm headphone jack and GPS support as standard. Games and applications can freely be downloaded from the Android Market, and the Hero is undoubtedly the best of the Google phones currently on the market.
Also answering to the name G2 Touch on T-Mobile, the HTC Hero is an awesome all-rounder, and a powerful yet painless introduction to the world of touch phones.
The HTC Touch Diamond 2 represents a real sea change, both an evolution and a revolution that demonstrates just how far Windows Mobile-powered devices have come.
The iconic design of the original HTC Touch Diamond has been tempered slightly, resulting in a phone that is familiar and compact to hold, yet improves in some important areas.
The 3.2” VGA display is significantly larger, and combined with a touch sensitive zoom bar below the screen, the Diamond 2 makes web browsing a joy.
The zoom bar can also be used to navigate web pages, texts and photos, whilst the TouchFLO 3D interface makes navigating the handset simple yet effective.
TouchFLO serves to streamline the Windows mobile experience for the uninitiated into smart phone ranks, and the graphical flourishes as well as menu shortcuts make the Touch Diamond 2 a relative joy to use. TouchFLO undeniably has its fingerprints all over the Touch Diamond2 , doing for Windows Mobile what Sense did for the Android platform on the Hero…
Despite having a resistive touch screen, the Touch Diamond 2 is alert and responsive, reacting quickly to the majority of inputs and swipes with verve and tenacity. That’s not to say the endemic lag is gone, but it is down to an easilt manageable minimum on this handset.
Nestled in the bosom of the high-end market, the Touch Diamond 2 is a fully fledged multimedia device with 3G connectivity, built-in GPS and a 5 megapixel camera beefing up a rich feature set.
With the ability to upgrade to the new version of Windows Mobile when it comes out, the Touch Diamond 2 is a great bit of mobile kit that will remain future-proof for a long time to come.
LG Crystal
Who says that you can’t have both style and substance? Or a mobile phone with both an alphanumeric keypad and a touchscreen? Yeah, more people probably say the first thing than the second, but both are still proved very wrong by the LG Crystal (GD900).
A handset that definitely cannot be accused of being designed by committee, the LG Crystal is a gorgeous testament to cool, chock full of ‘wow’ factor and glitz, but with the specs to back it up!
The LG Crystal is equipped with an 8 megapixel camera, a 3” touch screen, HSDPA 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi, and is another device to sport the S-Class user interface, making it more than just an estoteric choice.
The see through touchpad is undoubtedly the crowning glory of the device, the 12 keys etched onto it whilst any action causes the entire lower frame to light up with an eerie glow.
The silder also doubles as a trackpad when surfing the web, but can’t but feel a little defunct at that point as pawing at the screen itself offers largely the same effect.
Nevertheless, the LG Crystal is the perfect combination of brains and beauty for those who demand more from a fashion phone.
Samsung Jet
Touted as being ‘smarter than smartphone,’ the hook of the Samsung Jet is less what it can do, but how quickly it can do it. With a super-fast processor under the hood, this otherwise unassuming Samsung handset offers a world of applications, faster navigation, and a touch device that feels far more responsive.
The Jet has a 3.1″ touchscreen to showcase Samsung’s new TouchWiz 2.0 user interface, introducing 3D elements to their handsets for the first time. A cube interface with motion controls can quickly access contacts, favourites or menu options on the device. Yes, it is a gimmick, but a decidedly cool one.
In terms of general specs, the Samsung Jet is more Maverick than Goose, with a 5 megapixel camera with dual-power LED flash, aGPS, and Wi-Fi. Music and movies are ably handled with MP3, MPEG-4 and DivX support, as well as an FM radio with RDS and a 3.5mm audio jack.
Memory-wise, the Jet’s 2GB internal memory can be easily expanded via a microSD slot supporting up to 16GB.
The Samsung Jet is a great all-rounder that is just flying off the shelves!
Apple iPhone 3GS
You know it, and whether you love or loathe it, there is no denying that the iPhone have been as influential to the mobile phone landscape as the iPod was for music.
Getting the design so right first time has given Apple the ability to reiterate rather than revolutionize, and the Apple iPhone 3GS is the second update to the highly successful formula.
The ‘S’ on this new model’s chest stands for ‘speed,’ and in terms of loading applications, web pages and general handset use, the iPhone 3GS trounces its forebears.
Little else has been changed, but the addition of an internal compass has enabled the device to provide full turn-by-turn GPS (with the help of a forthcoming application).
All this is moot – as iPhone owners know – the hook is the brilliant interface. The 3.5” touch screen, the multi-touch input methods, the ambient light sensor and menus created with touch in mind have all been around since the first iteration and are still the reason that people have flocked to the device in droves.
Ahead of the curve in so many ways and yet glaringly behind in others, the iPhone approaches mobiles from such a different perspective, and is largely why it is such a revelation to use. The browsing on Safari may lack Flash (for now), but is arguably the smoothest, fastest and most enjoyable web experience on a phone, bar none.
Use an iPhone and your current mobile - touch screen or otherwise – will feel archaic in comparison. The only thing that will stop you tearing into your local store and snapping one up will be the exorbitant price tag.
LG Cookie
Don’t underestimate the humble LG Cookie, an entry level device that has managed to sell in excess of 5 million units since release. The secret? Just that it is a truly impressive touch phone for the money.
Weighing only 89g and at a thickness just shy of 12mm, the phone is certainly a nice looker, with the 3” screen taking much of the real estate on the front of the device.
Focusing on specifications, the LG Cookie has a 3 megapixel camera, accelerometer based gaming, an FM radio with RDS and a microSD slot to expand the memory to 8GB.
Features getting the chop to keep costs down are all based around connectivity. It is a 2G quad-band phone, also lost at sea are GPS and Wi-Fi support, but it has managed to keep a hold of some Bluetooth.
Pound for pound, this is arguably the best touch screen phone on the market, and is poised to sell over 10 million by the end of 2009. We are entirely sure that they can do it!
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is the epitome of cool by committee. With a plectrum for a stylus, endorsement from today’s fashionable young things and an eagerly awaited touch design, the 5800 was bound to be a hit.
A music phone at heart, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic ticks all the specs boxes with 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi support, a 3.2 megapixel camera and a hefty 3.2” high resolution touch display. Your music selection is handled by an 8GB memory card (included in the package), and a 3.5mm audio jack means that your favourite headphones can be plugged in with little trouble.
Despite the novel form factor and touch input, it is business as usual for anyone familiar with a Nokia device, the icons and menus will be entirely familiar for those used to any phone from the Finnish manufacturer in the last five years. Which is everyone.
Despite this, the funky combination of old and new has made the Nokia 5800 hugely popular for hip kids as a first foray into mobiles without (as many) buttons.
Nokia N97
The N97 steps into mobile computer technology according to Nokia, as their latest flagship device combines touch and a slide-out full keyboard to offer the complete experience.
The Nokia N97 features a 3.5” touchscreen with haptic feedback, a 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss optics camera with dual-LED flash, 32GB of internal flash memory, expandable up to 48GB, A-GPS with compass sensors, and Nokia Maps 2.0.
As an always-connected device, the N97 shows initiative with live widgets on the homescreen, feeds which can update news, weather and even Facebook statuses throughout the day. Making all of your important functions available at a glance, the N97 is equally about fun and connectivity as it is function.
The business side of things is taken care of, as a full suite of software enables the writing of documents and viewing of spreadsheets.
The touchscreen is complimentary rather than essential to the N97 thanks to the keyboard, so if you have only wish to dip one toe in the high-end tactile game, this handset is a perfect choice.
TheNokia 5530 XpressMusicis now out in the United Kingdom, and the tune pumping credentials are so strong that the Finnish manufacturer is considering it is a music player that calls, rather than another mobile phone.
With a metallic finish, 3.15 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and 4GB of memory on board, the 5530 XM is a stylish and slick accompaniment to the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic device, ready to handle multimedia on the move. The 5530 XM loses 3G, but still has Wi-Fi, a stereo FM radio and a 2.9″ TFT resistive touchscreen for fast and intuitive controls.
The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is also coming in at a low price to appeal to the masses, with a choice of colours and a UK prepay pricing of £130. For those willing to commit, pay monthlyNokia 5530 XpressMusic deals are also on the way.
Check out a bunch of features including the cool contacts lists, customisable home screen and social network integration in this video!
The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is unique. Cheaper and prettier than the immensely popular 5800 XpressMusic, the 5530 retains the Symbian S60 5th edition operating system, packed into a 2G device with a wide array of high-end festures. It may not have 3G, but it more than makes up for that with 4GB of (microSD supplied) storage, Wi-Fi and a 3.15 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera.
With a 2.9-inch touchscreen, the 5530 retains the active homescreen chock-full of social networking connectivity with contacts and a bevy of frequently used services just one touch away. The GSM/EDGE support will be more than sufficient to support them, 2G web browsing is a small concession given the clean design and attractive looks.
Available in a variety of colours and at a bargain SIM-free price of €199, the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic will begin shipping in Q3 2009.
Want to see the latest Android phones? Check out the HTC deals now available on Omio.com to see prices and features of the HTC Magic, HTC Hero, HTC HD2 deals and the forthcoming HTC Bravo!
