MWC 2009: Nokia overview

The Nokia 6720 classic and 6710 Navigator seem to be slightly revamped editions of the similarly equipped 6220 classic and 6210 Navigator, announced last February.

Beside the fact that the two are among the first Nokia smartphones to come with the latest Nokia Maps 3.0 pre-installed, they have already received some UI enhancements.

Nokia 6720 classic

The Nokia 6720 classic upgrades the 6220 classic with tri-band UMTS support and HSDPA 10 Mbps, or as Nokia call it - Turbo 3G. You will also spot the new curve in the design that's supposed to enhance handling. In reality, it feels nice in hand but we don't really notice that huge of an improvement. There are some new product colors in the mix as well. The plastic now looks a bit classier and doesn't feel as cheap as the one on the original.

Other than all that the new Nokia 6720 classic runs on the same Symbian S60 3.2 OS as the original but as all other Nokia smartphones today, it has received a faceliftt of all graphical icons so that they look exactly as the Nokia S60 5th edition touch UI used on Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

The last small change is the beefier battery of the Nokia 6720 classic, which has gone from 900 mAh in 6220 classic to 1050 mAh.

Nokia 6720 classic

As you probably already know the Nokia 6720 classic will be available in Q2 2009 at an estimated price of 245 euro before subsidies and taxes.

Nokia 6710 navigator

The situation with the Nokia 6210 Navigator and 6710 Navigator duo is quite similar. The newcomer has a similar design but a bit more curved and it has the same dimensions but new colors. The most serious upgrades are (1) the display has grown from 2.4 inches to 2.6 inches and (2) the camera has gone from 3 to 5 megapixels (but video recording remains unchanged).

The display upgrade was definitely needed as the 6210 Navigator had too small a screen to be used comfortably as a car navigation unit.

The 2.5mm audio jack on top of the original 6210 Navigator has now been replaced by a more standard 3.5 mm audio output jack on the Nokia 6710 Navigator. The addition of 3.5mm audio jacks and microUSB charging are two things that Nokia seem to really implementing on a wider scale lately.

There's no change in the battery department here, however Nokia promises twice the talk time and twice the standby time with the new Nokia 6710 Navigator as compared to the original 6210 Navigator.

Nokia 6710 Navigator

As you probably already know the Nokia 6710 Navigator will be available in Q3 2009 at an estimated price of 300 euro before subsidies and taxes with an all-you-can-eat turn-by-turn navigation Nokia Maps service.

Just to sum it up, the upgrades that the 6710 and 6720 represent sound really nice, but seriously, why bother make new products in such small increments? Obviously Nokia N79, N85 and 5800 XpressMusic will be the driving force of the midrange Nokia portfolio in the first half of this year.