With all of the talk of new handsets coming out of 3GSM a few weeks back that aren't headed to US carriers any time soon, I thought I'd pass along some news on phones you actually might be able to buy stateside before too long.
Nokia's N75 has been spotted with Cingular branding, so hopefully that's a sign that the soon-to-be AT&T carrier will be releasing this flip handset soon. With a 2mp camera and music player with dedicated external controls, the N75 is Nokia's answer to the Samsung Sync and Motorola V3x. But if the phone ships with the Series 60 platform common to Nokia's N-Series handsets, or at least some hybrid of S60 and Cingular's standard interface, the N75 will offer smartphone functionality above and beyond its competitiors. While I'd be more excited about a Cingular-branded N76 - the slimmer successor to the N75 Nokia showed at CES - I'm definitely looking forward to some N-Series love on AT&T Wireless fairly soon.
Read More at: boygeniusreport.com/2007/03/01/cingular-nokia-n75-in-the-concrete-jungle/
Meantime, Nokia's brand new, way over the top flagship Communicator - the E90 - has shown up on the FCC's website. Most notably, the FCC docs mention both the US-specific GSM 850 band and the WCDMA 1700 and 1900 bands. In English, that means that the E90 appears not only to be tailored to the US market but also tailored to US-specific 3G data networks, specifically T-Mobile's forthcoming WCDMA 1700-based offering.
Launched at 3GSM, the E90 will feature WiFI, GPS, a 3.2mp camera, full QWERTY keyboard, and dual displays (the internal of which can display the full width of a standard Web page at 16 million colors depthj) running on the Series 60 platform. This all makes for a seriously sweet high-end business device on whose shoulders to possibly launch T-Mobile's long-overdue 3G data network.
Read More at: engadget.com/2007/03/02/nokia-e90-hits-fcc-with-lots-of-3g-bands-destination-t-mobile/
And coming out of left field is this curious eBay auction for an alleged Nokia prototype that may be the successor to the 8800. While it's definitely dubious, the seller claims that while the phone is only marked "XXXX" on the back, it's "known as the 8005 ... looks similar to the 8800 ... is black and has a 4 megapixel camera."
Is it worth the $1,750 Buy It Now price? Not to me, it isn't. But is it worth a quick look at the auction page? If you're a Nokia fan, most definitely!
Auction Page: cgi.ebay.com/Nokia-Prototype-8005_W0QQitemZ280089415943QQihZ018QQcategoryZ64355QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem