MANILA, Philippines--Nokia is out to lay claim on who’s the boss in the “smartphone” wars as it rolls out its new mobile devices—one of which a Nokia exec firmly described as “a computer, not [just] a phone”—beginning next month.
At its annual product showcase held earlier this month in Stuttgart, Germany, the mobile-phone maker presented two new additions to its N Series of “smartphones,” the N900 and the N97 Mini, the latter a streamlined version of the highly successful N97. Nokia World 2009 also saw the debut of the company’s first entrant into the netbook market, the Nokia Booklet 3G, and a couple of music phones, the X3 and X6.
While the world’s largest mobile phonemaker claims to have the biggest chunk of the “smartphone” market at 45 percent, even bigger than its rivals, Apple and Research in Motion, combined, the general perception is that the iPhone and the BlackBerry are the market leaders in the category. Nokia is bent on rectifying that notion.
With its Linux-based Maemo 5 software and Mozilla-based browser, the N900 is designed to work fast like a PC but in the size of a handset; in short, a multitasking pocket computer, with up to 48G of memory. It has all the features of a mobile cellular device, a right-click button feature, a 5-megapixel camera, a touch-screen feature plus a physical slide-out QWERTY keyboard that, Juha Kokkonen, director for Nokia Devices, Explore category, said is its one big advantage over the popular iPhone.
Designed for the active social networker who values style and looks, the compact version of the N97 does away with the navigation button to achieve its sleeker and sexier form. Compared to its forerunner, the N97 Mini has an 8G memory (expandable up to 24G), versus the N97’s 32G; the latter’s 3.5-inch sliding tilt display is reduced to a 3.2-inch one for the new slimmer version. With the Lonely Planet application, the N97 Mini is also poised to become anybody’s “slimmest travel companion.”
http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/you/elife/view/20090925-226889/Outsmarting-rivals-in-smartphone-wars
Topic: Outsmarting rivals in ‘smartphone’ wars (Read 338 times)
