Ahead of tomorrow’s launch of the much-anticipated N97 smartphone, Nokia has announced details of its new compact XpressMusic, as well as the next generation of the best-selling E71 smartphone.
The XpressMusic 5530 (pictured)is a smaller, more compact and all-touchscreeen version of the current 5800, and is designed to place social-networking services at users’ fingertips.
The XpressMusic 5530 has a scrolling Contacts Bar or ‘people carousel’ feature across the top of the screen that gives access to 20 of your contacts with real-time feedback on their latest online conversations and media updates, while there is a one-touch button for direct access to your Facebook and MySpace pages.
With 27 hours of music playback, a bright 2.9-inch touchscreen and 4GB of storage for music and video, as well as the option of coming in five different colours, the XpressMusic is aimed mainly at Generation Y handset users.
The XpressMusic phone also has access to the Nokia Music Store, as well as Ovi Share for uploading and sharing media with friends.
Now, onto the E72. The E71 smartphone was a robust, stylish and full QWERTY keyboard competitor to the BlackBerry and iPhone, and with the E72 there are a few more bells and whistles that should make this handset a little more intuitive and easier to use.
The Nokia proprietary headphone fitting has been replaced by a 3.5-mm jack, while the camera has been upgraded to 4-megapixels. However, the best improvements include more desktop-like applications -instant messaging (provided by Nokia Messaging) will sit directly on the homescreen through which users will be able to sign into and chat on Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, Ovi and others.
“Despite the outstanding market performance of the Nokia E71, we still continually look for ways to enhance the device,” said Ilari Nurmi, vice-president at Nokia.
“So we included the desktop-like email experience from the Nokia E75 and gave it a new optical navigation key for more intuitive scrolling through menus, emails and fast panning of images.”
Both the E72 and the XpressMusic 5530 will be available some time in the third quarter of 2009. The RRP for the E72 is €350 (excl VAT), while the XpressMusic 5530 is €199 (excl VAT).
By Marie Boran
