Nokia N95 8GB, N81, 5610 and 5310

After months of rumors and spy photos, Nokia finally announced their latest handsets at the Nokia GoPlay event in London. Official pictures of the new handsets already leaked yesterday, but guys now it's official. The new handsets are the Nokia N95 8GB, the Nokia N81 and Nokia N81 8GB plus another two XpressMusic handsets - the Nokia 5610, the Nokia 5310.

Nokia brought joy to all fans of the high-end Nokia N95 by announcing the exciting Nokia N95 8GB. The Nokia N95 8GB edition comes dressed in black and has undergone several changes. The main one of course is the thrilling memory capacity of 8GB. It is technically 8.1GB as there are also 100MB of system memory for messages, ringing tones etc. The screen has also grown up from the 2.6" of the original to 2.8" in the new edition. The display still supports QVGA resolution and can show up to 16M colors. Nokia N95 8GB is powered by 1200 mAh Li-Ion battery as opposed to the rather modest 950 mAh in the original Nokia N95 - hopefully the new battery will be able to deal better with the phone’s energy needs. The weak battery was probably the most criticized feature of the original N95 model. The higher capacity battery on the other side has resulted in removing the lens cover. Luckily, the GPS is still present, regardless of the expectations that it will be sacrificed in order to make room for the extra memory. Instead the memory card slot is removed so transferring data through card-reader is no longer an option. Finally, another significant change in the smartphone's hardware has been made - the RAM is now double the size of the orginal to improve user experience with the browser or with multiple applications running in the background. Nokia N95 8GB's expexted retail price is EUR 560 before taxes.

The Nokia N95 8GB edition

The Nokia N81 is again a Symbian-based smartphone. It comes quad-band GSM/EDGE and UMTS enabled and stands at 17.6 mm thickness and 140 g of weight. It boasts a 2.4" TFT display with QVGA resolution, stereo Bluetooth, Wi-Fi IEEE802.11 b/g with UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) support and dedicated gaming keys. Nokia N81 is the first device armed with the new N-Gage platform and it has plenty of memory. There are two editions of the handset to be produced - a vanilla one that comes with a mciroSD slot and a 1GB or 2GB microSD card in the retail package, and Nokia N81 8GB edition. Both will have 2 megapixel camera with flash (really disappointing for a multimedia device) for making snapshots or shooting VGA videos at 15fps and a secondary CIF one for video calls. There is also a microUSB port and a audio/video 3.5 mm port. The Nokia N81 is expected to hit the market at an estimated price of EUR 370 before taxes, while the N81 8GB edition will cost EUR 430 before taxes.

The Nokia N81 gaming phone with Wi-Fi and 8GB memory

The Nokia 5610 XpressMusic is a handset for the music lovers as the name suggests, and it comes in the slider form factor. The music-centric device comes with a built-in dedicated audio chip and the manufacturer is promising up to 22 hours of non-stop playback. The Nokia 5610 is based on the Nokia S40 platform and sports a 3.2 megapixel camera with 2-step shutter key and LED flash. The 2.2" 16M TFT display supports QVGA resolution (320 x 240 pixels). The integrated memory is only 20MB but it is expandable through the microSD card slot (a 512MB or 1GB card included in the retail package). The connectivity capabilities include a microUSB port and stereo Bluetooth (A2DP). There is also a variety of choices when it comes to network connectivity - GPRS, EDGE and UMTS are supported. Nokia 5610 XpressMusic is going to work well with all four GSM bands and two UMTS ones (850/2100 Mhz). A dedicated American version will also have dual-band UMTS support (850/1900 MHz). The phone has an estimated retail price of EUR 300 before taxes.

The Nokia 5610 XpressMusic slider

The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic is a music-dedicated handset based on the Nokia S40 platform. It features a 2.0” QVGA TFT display with ambient light sensor, stereo Bluetooth, and a 2 megapixel camera. The 5310 stands at only 9.9 mm thickness and weighs only 70.2 g which makes it one of the most compact devices by Nokia. The quad-band Nokia 5310 has 30MB of internal memory and a microSD memory card slot. Depending on the market a memory card of capacity up to 2GB will be included in the retail package. The mobile sports stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) and a microUSB slot when it comes to connecting other gadgets and GPRS and EDGE, when network connectivity is involved. Equipped with a dedicated audio chip and 3 dedicated music keys Nokia 5310 should be able to provide up to 18 hours of music playback time. The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic will hit the market at an estimated price of EUR 225 before taxes.

The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic

All phones are expected to hit the shelves within the 4th quarter of 2007. Nokia has also announced that world recognized brands such as Altec Lansing, JBL and Philips, will offer musical accessories, compatible with the Xpress Music series phones. They will be labeled "Nokia XpressMusic Phones" and will include headphones, loudspeakers etc.