Nokia’s Nseries multimedia handsets officially arrive in Ireland with the N70, expected to debut on Vodafone and O2 before Christmas. A smartphone with a 2MP camera and onboard FM radio, it’s the most compact of the new Nseries range.
The manufacturer’s flagship music phone, the N91, will be out in March 2006. It packs a 4GB hard disk that can store up to 12.5 hours of digital music (3000 songs) in MP3, M4A, AAC or WMA formats.
Nokia said the phone’s strong audio performance is bolstered by a 3.5mm headphone jack that will accommodate different grades of headset to be sold as a bundled accessory. The price of the phone is still to be confirmed.
The multimedia Nseries range was unveiled by Nokia earlier in the year and included the N90, a 2MP camera phone featuring Carl Zeiss optics. Launched in the UK, the N90 has won many plaudits but has not, however, been approved by the Irish networks and is only available SIM-free for around €800. Nokia says it was positioned at “a difficult price point” for the Irish market but is confident that other phones with Carl Zeiss optics will be more readily available in 2006.
In the business sector Nokia will launch three feature-packed 3G smart phones as part of its Eseries. The E70 slides open to reveal a QWERTY keyboard, while the E60 adopts a more conventional ‘candy bar’ styling. The BlackBerry-style E61 has a fascia dominated by a QWERTY keyboard, a 16 million pixel colour screen and a four-way joystick control.
The fashion front is catered for by the subtle pink of the 6111 clamshell and the slim contours of the 7380, which boasts real leather as well as metal and ceramic surfaces.
By Ian Campbell
