Three new Symbian^3 phones unveiled at Nokia World: C6-01, C7 and E7

Four days after the departure of its beleaguered chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia Tuesday launched three new smartphones – the E7, C7 and C6-01 – at the ongoing Nokia World 2010 conference in London. The Finnish telecommunications company’s latest high-end offerings are all based on the Symbian^3 cell phone operating system.

The Nokia E7,  is expected to be available in dark grey, silver white, green, blue and orange colors before the end of the year, whereas the C7 (in black, metal or brown) and the C6-01 (in silver or black) are also likely to be out in the market during the final quarter of this year.

Billed as the ultimate business smartphone, the E7 is expected to have be priced at €495 (Rs. 29,500) before taxes and subsidies, while the C7 and the C6-01 will be available for about €335 (Rs 20,000) and €260 (Rs 15,500), respectively.

For starters, there are quite a few similarities across the three models – all having AMOLED touchscreens (resolution of 360 x 640 pixels) that can detect your touch based on proximity. Each of the new smartphones comes with the “ClearBlack Display” technology, which Nokia claims generates more vibrant colors and enhances outdoor visibility. The user interface can be auto-rotated through an Accelerometer sensor, while a Proximity sensor is in-built for auto-locking keypad.

Nokia says that the latest version of Symbian – which is behind C6-01, C7 and E7 – incorporates 250 new features and improvements (e.g. multiple customizable homescreen support, multitasking and gesture-based interactions), and is quicker and easier to use.
On the connectivity front, too, similar specifications emerge across the new handsets – with support for 3G, GPRS, EDGE and WLAN networks. You can also carry out wireless file transfers through Bluetooth (with A2DP) in each of the models. And there is a USB 2.0 microUSB in each phone to connect it to your computer.

Now, then, on to the unique features of each debutant. The E7 – the most exciting of the lot – is the next-generation Communicator from Nokia, and marks the first development in the E-series since 2007.
Targeted at business users, this handset sports a slide out four-row QWERTY keyboard and a propped up 4-inch touchscreen with multi-touch input options.
Despite adding a full keyboard to the E7, Nokia has managed to keep its form factor at pretty much the same level as that of the N8 – tshe handset is only slightly thicker than the N8 at 13.6mm.
The E7 provides on-board storage of 16GB with 256MB RAM and 1GB ROM. The memory is expandable to 32GB through a microSD card.
The Nokia E7 sports an 8-megapixel camera with resolution of 3266×2450 pixels, autofocus and dual-LED flash. The snapper also has a face and smile detection technology. Moreover, it can record and edit high-definition quality (including 720p) video and sound.

For business users, the smartphone provides compatibility with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, Mail for Exchange, Microsoft Communicator Mobile and Microsoft Share Point Server.Nokia says users can receive mails in real-time and also access corporate E-mail inboxes and other personal applications through Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. Other facilities include working on documents, reviewing spreadsheets and editing slides.

Being a Symbian^3 device, E7 can allow to customize up to three homescreens and get live updates from social networking sites.
Like the N8, there is also an option for HDMI output with inbuilt Dolby Digital Plus Surround Sound on the E7. The phone is touted to offer a host of security features such as business-grade device lock and wipe functionality, secure intranet access and remote device management.

Those of you on the move will love the E7?s travel-friendly 18 days of standby time and up to 9 hours of talktime on the 2G and as long as 5 hours on the 3G network.

Meanwhile, the Nokia C7 – being touted as a social networking smartphone – is equipped with a 3.5-inch touchscreen , and measures a hand-friendly 10.5mm thin.

Devoid of any hardware keyboard, the sleek phone sports an 8-megapixel snapper (resolution of 3264×2448 pixels) with autofocus, dual-LED flash and video recording (720p at 25fps). It has 8GB memory on board, expandable to 40GB through a microSD card.

The phone will be a delight for city dwellers, thanks to an in-built noise cancellation functionality which will ensure clearer voice calls. Other features on the Nokia C7 include a digital compass.

Talktime on the C7 is 9 hours 30 minutes (2G network) and up to 5 hours (3G mode). The battery will keep calls going for up to an unbelievable 27 days (on 3G!).

The more-affordable Nokia C6-01 also has an 8-megapixel camera (resolution of 3266×2450 pixels) with autofocus, dual-LED flash and geo tagging that can record 720p video at 30 fps. There is also a secondary camera for making video calls.

The mid-range smartphone comes with a more pocket-friendly 3.2-inch touchscreen and boasts of 340MB internal storage – a 2GB microSD card slot, though, means you can expand this to up to 32GB. No keypad here too, like the C7, folks.

On the 2G network, the Nokia C6-01 – promising up to 17 days of standby – offers talktime of up to 11 hours 30 minutes. On the 3G network, this comes down to 4 and half hours.

For those looking to stay hooked to social networking portals all the time, the E7, C7 and C6-01 have good news – you can get live feeds from your favorite social networks on your homescreen.
The three models are all connected to the Ovi Maps application, which provides navigational assistance while driving or walking.

Also revealed Tuesday at the Nokia World conference was the N8, which had been the showcased in April this year. Billed as an entertainment powerhouse,  the N8 sports a 12-megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens. The device, likely to be available in the marker, next month, can also connect to a surround sound system through a standard HDMA cable.

However, those of you expecting some sort of announcement/update from Nokia on Meego – the keenly anticipated open-sourced cell phone operating system that the firm has been collaborating with Intel on for the last six months – disappointing news, chaps. However, Niklas Savander, Nokia’s Head of marketing and sales, promised the company “will have more to say about that before the year is out”.

So, what does Tuesday’s raft of announcements from Nokia mean? Having steadily lost market share in the smartphone segment to rivals such as Apple in the recent few years, and suffered continuing decline in its profits, the Finnish giant certainly is trying to recover lost ground.

The new additions to its Symbian^3 family of high-end cell phones, Nokia hopes, will encourage more developers to create applications for this platform – at least on a scale comparable to Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

What’s more, Nokia has undertaken an overhaul of its top management to stir things up a bit, with Kallasvuo making way for Microsoft’s Stephen Elop. The new CEO certainly has a battle on his hands..!