Nokia, the world's largest maker of cell phones, on Wednesday announced new phones loaded with more music features and better integration with Facebook, as well as pricing for its upcoming Netbook.
The company announced the new phones and services at its Nokia World Conference in Stuttgart, Germany.
Tops on the list of new phones is the N97 Mini, a slightly smaller version of Nokia's existing flagship N97 smartphone. This new, smaller N97 has a shorter battery life than the earlier device and also less memory (8GB compared to 32GB), and a smaller touch-screen display. The device is expected to ship in October. Its list price at 450 euros, or about $639, is not much less than that of the full-fledged N97, which initially went on sale in the U.S. for $700.
The new N97 Mini also will have Nokia's Comes With Music service integrated. This service increases the cost of the device, but provides users with a free download music service. And the device will be the first Nokia phone to have tighter integration with the popular social networking site Facebook. Nokia has struck a deal with Facebook to let users update their location and status directly to the Web site through a Nokia Ovi account.
Nokia plans to offer the Facebook integration on other phones as well.
The handset maker also announced two new music phones: the X6 and the X3. The X6, which has a touch screen and 32GB of built-in memory, will be Nokia's new flagship music phone.… Read more