Nokia’s Nseries has another jewel in their cluster of multimedia rich handsets, Nokia N900 is an awesome phone based on the Maemo 5 platform. Nokia N900 promises a whole new user experience & great mobile browsing.

Nokia N900 at a glance

• Type: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/1700/2100 MHz, HSDPA 10 Mbps, HSUPA 2Mbps
• Form factor: Full touch device with a side-sliding hardware QWERTY keyboard
• Dimensions: 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm, 113 cc; 181 g
• Display: 3.5″ 16M-color TFT resistive touchscreen, 800 x 480 pixels WVGA
• CPU: ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz, PowerVR SGX graphics
• OS: Maemo 5
• Memory: 32 GB storage, 256 MB RAM, microSD card slot
• Camera: 5 megapixel auto-focus camera with dual-LED flash; WVGA(848 x 480)@25fps video recording
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, USB v2.0 with microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio, FM transmitter, Infrared port
• Battery: 1,320 mAh Li-Ion battery
• Misc: Built-in accelerometer and ambient light sensors, proximity sensor, IR output port for remote control
• Software: Ovi Maps (voice-guided navigation purchased separately), Mozilla-based browser with Adobe Flash 9.4 support, Facebook and Twitter integration

The Nokia Booklet 3G battery design is based on from a Nokia 1000 mAh mobile phone battery. Building around this as a power source, Nokia has created a slim-line 16-cell removable battery that has been tested to give amazing 12 hours’ use. However, it’s more realistic to see around 8-10 hours over an average.

The chassis of the Nokia Booklet 3G is manufactured with a single piece of aircraft-grade aluminum, with no breaks or joins whatsoever. The chassis is part of the heat dispersal design of the netbook, as the device has no cooling fans. Nokia has abandoned the traditional way of cooling a portable computer, instead using passive heat sinks and relying heavily on the chassis as the largest one…innovation indeed!

We will have to see how the Booklet handles processor-intensive tasks, such as video encoding or even high-definition Flash playback.
The 10.1in glass display is similar to the first Asus Eee PC netbooks that came out way back in 2007. Those were a little blurry as a result of the cheapness of the build and the material used in TFT LCD technology. The Booklet’s screen doesn’t display an image that’s sharp and distinct. Despite of that the screen is capable of displaying a resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels. This isn’t the normal resolution seen in 10in screens, as 1,024 x 600 is more commonly found in most netbook’s displays of this size.

The Booklet has a very slim design, and is one of the thinnest in its league. Its overall thickness is just 19.9mm, which is only five mm more than the thickness of the Macbook Air.

On the right-hand side of the Nokia Booklet there is a flap which has a SIM slot and SD card reader. The latter doesn’t support the higher capacity SDHC cards.

It Supports the built-in 3G/HSPA modem can only be used for data calls, over WCDMA 900/2100 or 800-850/900/2100 GSM. The netbook has the Intel Poulsbo US15W mobile chipset with HD PowerVR SGX graphics, all of which is driven by an Intel Z530 1.6GHz processor.

On the keyboard, the keys are well spaced out from each other. Booklet 3G also includes some goodies such as Nokia’s Ovi suite, access to Nokia’s Music for the PC, a 120GB Toshiba hard drive, HDMI and audio jack.
It is running on Windows 7, Nokia Booklet 3G will be available for buying by the end of October 2009. It is likely to be priced at €575 (£506).

Nokia N97 Mini has finally been made official by the Nokia’s CEO Anssi Vanjok at the Nokia World 2009. The annual event hosted by Nokia throws some launches and big developments every year. Nokia Mini was making news for quite some time now since it was discovered in the wilderness of Russia.

Nokia N97 Mini is gonna be a lighter version of Nokia N97 with slightly lesser features. The measurement of the Nokia N97 Mini is also smaller than that of the standard version. Nokia is going to reatail the handset at $639 but Nokia claims that the handset will be available for free (as in bundled with the mobile service) in many markets.

North America should find itself lucky with the subsidizes bundling while folks in Asia will have to shell out dear moolah to get this darling. Nokia is trying to market the handset by positioning it as a “slimmest travel companion” courtesy the Lonely Planet guidebooks installed in it. The handset will be available in markets from October.

If there are any awards out there for the most hip promotional video then Nokia’s N900 video will definitely make it to the cut. The Linux powered Maemo 5 which will debut with Nokia N900 has received the first ever video treatment and a look at its user-interface in motion in this video.

The video has been given just too much Trance dosage but it is nice for a change from the relative sober promotional videos. Nokia would like to make the right noise in the market as it’s the best thing that we are getting from Finland in quite some time. Nothing pains me more than finding good apps for the S60 and the bar has been raised considerable by the likes of Apple and Palm in recent times that S60 finds itself quite obsolete. Maemo 5 is Nokia’s bet for the present where consumers expect the world from their mobile phones.

The stage seems all set for the Nokia World event which is going to be held at Stuttgart on September 1. Nokia seems all prepared for the day as it has some decent stuff to showcase in the event. Nokia N900 will be most likely the main attraction of the event. One more shot of Nokia N900 is making the rounds on the blogosphere and we thought it’s just wise to tell you about it in the light of upcoming Nokia World event. There is also one shot of Nokia N97 Mini which is the downgraded version of Nokia N97.

Nokia Money might also be one product which will receive its share of limelight. It’s nice to know that Nokia is embracing a better OS for its high end smartphones. Maemo 5 seems like a much better replacement on Symbian S60 5th edition. We will also be hearing about it at the Nokia World event. Nokia N900 is the first device which is going to be powered by Maemo 5. All in all there are some exciting launches that are going to be made at the event.

Source: BeGeek

Nokia has today announced the launch of Nokia Money which will allow its users to send and receive payments using their mobile phones. Nokia Money is going to be based on Obopay which is the mobile payment transfer service available in India and USA right now. If you hear the transfer fees of Obopay then you might dump Paypal. I am already very pissed off with Paypal and I welcome every competition in this segment.

Obopay pays its users $0.25 to send money upto $1000 while receiving the payment is completely free of cost. It’s anybody’s guess that Nokia might revise its rates once it reaches handsome subscriber base but till then it’s just tempting and I am definitely gonna give a it a try.

Not only Nokia Money would allow its users to make transactions but they may also use it to pay the bills or recharge SIM cards. It is expected that Nokia will officially speak out more on it at the Nokia World next week.

Nokia has today formally launched the Nokia 5230(image below) and Nokia 5530 XpressMusic(image above) edition in the Indian market. Nokia 5530 XpressMusic was launched in USA few days back and its launch in India was imminent because as it lacks 3G.

Its hard that it would find many takers in USA but it’s the whole different story in India where government bitchiness has ket the 3G plans under the wraps. Nokia might like to make the most of the delay with Nokia 5530 XpressMusic which is priced at Rs. 13,999.

Nokia 5230 is priced at Rs. 10,000 and if you are very excited about the touch screen then you might be interested in it. Barring the touchscreen everything about this handset is lower-middle class. It has a 2MP camera seems pretty outdated now as most companies are moving to 3.2 MP as the standard camera power. The internal memory is 70 MB which can be expanded up to 16GB using a microSD card. As for data connectivity it supports GPRS, EDGE and surprisingly also happenss to have 3G. The addition of 3G in Nokia 5230 while its exclusion in Nokia 5530 is in my opinion a dumb decision. It would have been splendid had Nokia added 3G in 5530 as it pretty much has all the standard features that an active web user like me would have liked.

Nokia 5530 has a 3.15 MP camera with no secondary camera. The camera has a LED flash and can shoot VGA video at 30fps. Both Nokia 5530 XpressMusic and 5230 are pretty much same in design and in most features. Both have the accelerometer sensing touchscreen of 360×640 pixels resolution. Both the devices have 70 MB internal memory and sports Symbian S60 5th edition.

I think Nokia just missed it here. I would have so much liked a device with all the features of Nokia 5530 XpressMusic with 3G. If you just want to flaunt a touch screen Nokia device then both look pretty good. Nokia is pretty naive in the touch screen devices and they seem to be only experimenting here. I am giving both the phones a pass.

The French blog BeGeek managed to get the first marketing shots of the upcoming Maemo 5 powered N900. It seems pretty close to the Nokia’s N97 which somehow didn’t manage to make as much thunder in the markets as we might have liked. N900 is an entirely different story with its Maemo 5 powered interface which is a significant improvement over the S60 5th edition. We are little cheap with details about N900 right now but it is expected to be showcased at the Nokia World next week on September 2. It’s my guess that the features will be comparable to Nokia N97 and the only major difference would be addition of Maemo 5 instead of Symbian S60.

Source: BeGeek

In February, the CEO of Nokia, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo had mentioned that Nokia is planning to enter into the laptop/netbook space. They have now finally made it official with Nokia Booklet 3G which is going to make Nokia’s entry into the netbook space. The netbooks although a new phenomenon but Nokia is little late in entering this niche which has somehow become crowded in recent times. The netbook space is all monotonous with similar offerings with no manufacturer providing any killer USP. Nokia might also become just one more name in the space of netbooks as the features of Nokia Booklet 3G are not compelling enough to cause reverberations in this space.

Nokia Booklet 3G is powered by the Intel Atom processor which is the common processor in most of the netbooks present in the market today. Nokia claims that it’s battery life is going to be around 12 hours which is just something I won’t believe until I use it first hand. The battery life advertised by the manufacturers is measured in standard tests under ideal conditions which can not be replicated in the practical daily use. The device weighs around 1.25 kg and is little more than two centimeters thin.

Since Nokia is a leader in mobile manufacturer, one would expect top notch connectivity options from Booklet 3G and they do deliver on that front. It has 3G/HSPA and 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, SD Card Reader, webcam along with A-GPS which is good enough for most users who would be interested in buying a netbook. The A-GPS will work in conjunction with Nokia’s Ovi Maps. Nokia is in fact trying to give some push to its Ovi Suite through Booklet 3G. The press release by Nokia implies that Ovi Suite will be a good part of the netbook so that users can have the liberty to work in cloud.

One more interesting thing Nokia Booklet 3G is that it will be powered by Microsoft Windows Operating System which seems like an arrangement that was finalized in the recent meeting between Nokia and Microsoft when Nokia decided to introduce Microsoft Office in their smartphones.

Nokia Booklet 3G takes good care of the video needs by providing a 10.1 inch “HD ready” screen which is probably the most killer feature of Nokia Booklet. The Nokia Booklet will be available in three colors; black, white and blue or as it seems from he pictures available. More details on the specs, pricing and launch date will be known on the September 2 at the Nokia World.

Nokia has unveiled the curtains from its Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition phone. The phone as the name implies keeps the navigational capabilities at its heart. As for folks confused about the nomenclature then it’s not the first time that Nokia is using one number to name more than one device. Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition is nothing much with just lipstick of navigation put on the Nokia 5800 EXpressMusic Edition.

Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition takes special care of the navigational needs with A-GPS support along with Nokia Maps 2.0 Touch. It has lifetime pedestrian and vehicle voice-guided navigation licenses with regional maps so that all you men never have to ask for directions again. It also has a car stand and charger which can be used in your car just like you do the SatNav.

All the other specs are just like what you found in Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Edition such as 3.15 MP camera, S60 5th Edition OS, 3.2 inches TFT touchscreen etc.