Nokia sheds more light on its upcoming phones, software and services at the recent Showcase Nokia 2008 event held in Sydney, Australia.

NOKIA unveiled some of its much-anticipated mobile phones, including the N96, the successor to the popular top-of-the-line N95 It also previewed three other feature-packed phones – the N78, 6220 Classic and 6120 Navigator.

The dual-slider N96 is optimised for video and TV thanks to its large 2.8in screen, 16GB of internal memory, built-in DVB-H tuner and support for high-quality videos in a wide range of formats.

N96

The N96, which supports common video formats including MPEG4, WMV and Flash video, can store up to 40 hours of content.

And for added convenience, the phone features a ”kickstand” on the back that allows for hands-free viewing.

The storage capacity of the N96 can be further expanded with an optional microSD card, such as the new Nokia 8GB microSD which increases the available memory of the phone to a total of 24GB.

The phone has a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, dual flash and video light. It can also record DVD-quality video at 30fps (frames per second).

N78

The phone also has an integrated GPS, so users can tag their pictures with location data and share them with their online communities.

Its lesser sibling, the N78, features a 2.4in display, 72MB internal memory, an integrated GPS, WiFI, HSDPA, a 3.2-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, and a microSD slot.

The novelty of the N78 is its integrated FM transmitter that allows music to be played on any FM radio, in a car or at home.

Guiding hand(phone)

The 6210 Navigator is the company’s first GPS-enabled mobile device with an integrated compass.

6210 Navigator

Combined with an accelerometer which measures changes in direction and orientation, the built-in compass makes it easy to follow the map on the phone when strolling about on foot.

Also, the integrated Maps 2.0 application will plot the quickest route to the desired destination and illustrate it on the map.

The phone is ready for use out-of-the-box, even without a SIM card, and local maps will be preloaded on the 1GB memory card that will be bundled with the phone.

6220 Classic

The 6210 Navigator also features a 3.2-megapixel camera, MP3 player and stereo FM radio.

Moving on, the highlight of the 6220 Classic is its 5-megapixel camera with Xenon flash and Carl Zeiss lens, which Nokia claims is on par with many single-purpose digital cameras on the market.

It features an integrated TV-out which allows photos on the phone to be viewed on a TV.

Plus, the phone’s high-speed HSDPA connection makes it easy to update blogs and upload photos and videos online.

Also, the phone uses Adaptive Multi Rate-Wideband speech coding technology to give a more natural sound to human voice in phone calls. This helps when having a conversation in a noisy environment, according to Nokia.

All the phones are expected to be available locally in the second half of the year.

New Maps

At Showcase Nokia 2008, Nokia also announced it has updated its mapping and navigation software, Maps 2.0, by improving its pedestrian navigation, adding multimedia city guides, offering satellite images, and redesigning the user interface.

The pedestrian navigation feature or “Walk” will help users find their way when they are on foot by giving them visual turn-by-turn guide. It also helps you to locate yourself by giving information about the surrounding buildings, streets and parks.

In newer handsets, like the 6210 Navigator, it will point the direction in which you are walking by using the handset’s built-in compass for orientation.

Users will also be given the option to purchase multimedia guides that feature photos, videos and audio streams, which are supposed to make the journey more enjoyable.

A beta version of Maps 2.0 can be downloaded from www.nokia.com/ betalabs.

Meanwhile, Nokia’s Ovi Internet services gets a boost from Share on Ovi, a new free personal media sharing service that makes it easy to upload, manage and share files through a mobile, desktop or other connected device.

Share on Ovi offers allows users to socialise, interact and collaborate and is designed for more than 100 different media types with unlimited storage and unlimited uploads.

To sign up for an account go to http://share.ovi.com.

Source: The Star Online

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