Mobile Computing News

Nokia has introduced two new E series smartphones in London on the basis of the Symbian S60 platform. The E71 model is conceived as the successor to the E61 and has a BlackBerry type construction, with a mini keyboard below the screen ready for entering text. The E66, which is also planned for a July release, is in a casing with a slide mechanism, but only offers a regular mobile phone keyboard. Both devices offer improvements in software.

The display of both Symbian smartphones shows up to 16 million colours with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels and also serves as the viewfinder for the integrated camera. A main camera with a 3.2 megapixel resolution is integrated in both cameras, and it comes with both an auto-focus and flash on the side. The second camera on the front is designed for video conferencing. A positioning sensor in the E66 manages to turn the display upright when the device is horizontal.

Nokia has come up with some new things for the software of the Symbian devices: the user can either load a business or a private starting screen, in order to strongly differentiate between entries in the calendar or contact list, for example. The system also makes it possible for the user to access a contact directly from the calendar. Nokia additionally included a type of theft protection: if the Smartphone is stolen, then the user can erase their device’s files easily via a text message.

A storage space of 110 MB comes integrated in both smartphones, and it can be expanded by up to 8 GB using microSD cards. The types of broadcast technologies that both devices support are identical as well. Both HDSPA smartphones broadcast, except when in the UMTS network, over the four GSM networks with 850, 900, 1,800 as well as 1,900 MHz, and they offer both EDGE and GPRS. With HDSPA both models only achieve a maximum of 3.6 MBit/s. The other wireless technologies include WLAN according to the 802.11b/g standard, as well as Bluetooth 2.0 together with EDR and A2DP for the music.

Both mobile phones are blessed with a GPS receiver and A-GPS support, with the navigation software Nokia Maps preinstalled. As is usual with S60 devices, office software, a media player for replaying music and videos, as well as an HTML browser and email client come included. The latter offers support for Microsoft exchange, in order to better manage emails.

The Nokia E71 measures 114 x 57 x mm with a weight of 126 grams and manages a talking time of up to 10.5 hours in GSM mode. The chatting time is drastically reduced to 4.5 hours when using UMTS technology. The battery manages 17 days in standby mode using the GSM network and around 20 in standby when using UMTS.

Nokia intends to bring both the E71 and E66 onto the market in July 2008. The Symbian smartphones will then each cost around £330 without a contract.