Nokia’s New Toys
Nokia announced new stuff for you mobile market moguls who can’t get enough good stuff. Granted, I’m still waiting for Nokia to come back around and be the innovative beast they’re supposed to be in the world of pocket gadgets, but until then? I’ll accept throwing more handsets into the pit as a temporary band-aid for their slipping marketshare in the smartphone realm to those “other guys”.
Music Phones
Nokia’s unleashing the X-series to the world. Their newest additions to this niche market are the X6 and the X3. The X6 seems more like the flagship device for this bucket of goodness. With some 32GB of data, Nokia Music embedded, Facebook integration, a touch-screen, and other fun fancy features (minus the whole tired Symbian S60 5th it’s running), it seems to be a device that might worth the nearly $700 price tag, if you want something new and shiny, loath Apple, and don’t much care for the Nokia N97.
They also made mention of the X3, not to be confused with small 4 wheeled cross-over German Vehicle. The X3 is a slider, sports a 3.2 megapixel camera, an expansion slot (microSD) and S40… yes, 40, not S60.
Nokia N97 Mini
I have no idea what Nokia is thinking with this. It’s smaller, less powerful, has less battery life, is the same price (nearly) as the N97, but it’s a bit smaller. Oh, goodie! In a world where we don’t give much of a care about size of device, as much as we care about what the device does, I believe that Nokia needs to park their ambitious product releases and rethink few things before they go making more hardware with bad software. Anyhow, this thing is some 450euros, and will be available in European markets shortly.
N900
News of the Nokia N900 came last week, and Nokia’s boasting about its awesomeness still. The first Linux-powered cellular device. I have to say, I know a good number of people, especially those interested in Defcon, that should pay attention to where this handset is headed, and what the capabilities of it are… or at least potentially can be. Nothing says “do uber-geek-stuff” more than Linux, and putting it onto a handset with A-GPS, 3G, HSDPA, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, makes for the ingredients of awesome-stew.
Or at least, I hope it does.
Nokia Booklet 3G
The last thing to mention, so far, is the Nokia netbook, the Booklet 3G. It sports an Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor, brags about a 12 hour running battery life, includes A-GPS, 3G and is all around getting some pretty decent reviews from sites like Slashgear, for example. My opinion: This netbook is a hell of a lot sexier than the Acer I picked up for the half the price of the Nokia Booklet 3G, but in the end, I think I should have waited (had I known about it) and just bit the bullet to pick this puppy up.
Ovi
Nokia’s Ovi network is a monster, and if it ever gains traction in the United States, it will be even more so. I’ve been using Ovi software and networks for over a year now, and what Nokia is doing on the web, is powerful. 
If they could translate this to their handsets with finesse, they’d truly have something. They might even be able to pick up carriers in the US for their high-end handsets, who knows? But in all seriousness, Lifecasting with Ovi is their latest focus, and though they’ve been building up to this for a while now, Nokia is officially coming out and saying, “this is what we know everyone wants, and we’re going to give it to them” (in so many words):
“Nokia announced lifecasting with Ovi, a partnership with the world’s largest social network, Facebook. Lifecasting with Ovi is the first application to let people publish their location and status updates directly to their Facebook account from the home screen of a mobile device. Lifecasting goes beyond just publishing your status – it is about building deeper and closer connections between people. It triggers new kinds of communication patterns, such as sending messages or status updates or even navigating to a friend or a place.” – PR Newswire
