Nokia is cooperating with Microsoft to bring new kind of OS to its high-end smartphones. And when Elop announced they wouldn’t use Windows Phone 7, it was quite serious. Now we can see the early results of their cooperation, as Nokia introduces a new imaginary/concept handset called the Nokia W6, which is just a shell to house the modified Windows Phone theme.

The themes were designed by Peter Lackman who emailed MyNokiaBlog saying:

Hello folks at My Nokia Blog,

As you already know, Nokia has stated regarding the WP7 partnership that they have been granted practically unlimited access to customize WP7 UI. They have also said that even though this is the case, they do not plan to do any drastic changes.

I’ve been thinking about this, and a few days back I decided to check with photoshop how would Nokia WP7 look if they should introduce a few minor things of their own to the UI, including the theme system from Symbian.

I made two sample themes “Blue leather” and “Summer” for an imaginary phone “W6” using WP7 and I think that the images came out all right, illustrating quite clearly a few possibilities that Nokia might choose to pursue.

Why am I writing about this to you? I think that this might be something that the Nokia community might be interested to see, if for nothing else, then just for showing some of the options that Nokia have with their upcoming implementation of WP7. And for fun, of course.

As you can see from the pictures, the themes are very minimalistic – plain black (or white) background with colored tiles. Peter introduced two themes – “Blue Leather” and “Summer”.

So as there are not any Windows Phone-powered smartphone in the market, let’s see how the themes would be looked at Nokia N8 if it is not a Symbian^3 handset.

Nokia C7 was officially announced at Nokia World 2010 in September, and now it is clear the phone will be the second handset to be launched in the USA via T-Mobile after the X2-01. The device is also known for Tiger, and according to the statement it is going to be released at the end of March.

Some time ago the Nuron 2 was cancelled by the carrier, that had been expected to be available in February, and now it looks like T-Mobile decided to come with another Nokia handset, the Tiger. Of course, this deal is beneficial for the Finnish company as it tries to build up its presence in North America. T-Mobile could be a good partner which has got its own group of customers that trust the carrier.

Nokia is now developing Windows Phone smartphones, and the C7 is probably one of the last Symbian^3-powered handsets that is launched. And if the carrier and the company subsidize the acquisition costs considerably, the deal could succeed.

The Nokia C7 measures 117.3×56.8×10.5mm and is equipped with a 3.5-inch AMOLED display. The handset also sports 680MHz processor, but do not let it to confuse you, as it is one of the most powerful processors the company has developed. The Nokia C7 captures with an 8MP camera with fixed focus and dual-LED flash which also provides HD video recording ability at 25fps. There is also a secondary VGA camera for video calling.

Though the price details have not been announced yet, but some rumors say the Nokia C7 might be available for under $100 with a new two-year contract.

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Yesterday Nokia launched its next super-inexpensive handset for music lovers, the Nokia X1-00. It will cost not more than €35, so we can assume it is designed for the “next billion”. Though the phone comes with a quite cheap price, but it doesn’t mean there is not any feature to be commended, and at first it comes to the speaker. But let’s talk about everything in order.

On the back of the phone users could find a massive speaker rated at 106phon. This means the volume of the sound could be so loud to rattle the window frames, heh. The frequency response has been improved, so the sound remains undistorted at higher volumes. This is the main distinguishing feature of the Nokia X1-00, as no other handset provides such feature.

The phone is designed for those places where ambient noise levels are high, so it must be a bit louder to cut through. And second, those users who like to listen to music home, that’s a perfect solution for them.

The Nokia X1-00 comes with a 3.5mm audio jack, so you can plug it into headphones. Plus there are three dedicated player keys and a nifty single-key playlist creator. And if you would like to expand the memory for more music, the phone supports microSD card slot for it. An integrated FM radio is an additional feature to access to news and entertainment.

Other attractive hardware of the phone is the battery which provides up to 61 days lifetime. It is clear the handset is intended for Western cities where is always some ambient light or where is no electricity at all.

The Nokia X1-00 runs the Series 30 operating system that brings a souped-up music player app, calendar, clock and calculator, pre-loaded games and so forth. The phone measures 112.2×47.3x 16mm and weighs 91g.

The device is coming on the abovementioned markets beginning in April. I guess it’ll succeed.

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On February 24 I said WOMWorldNokia decided to give away one device each day from February 21st and end the 28^th February. And those geeks that were more attentive, nimble and lucky, of course, each of them won a Nokia E7.

Recall 7 Nokia E7s were hidden physically and virtually around the globe, below is the destinations:

1.       Beirut

2.       New York

3.       New Delhi

4.       London

5.       Dubai

I mentioned only 5 cities as the first one and the last one were virtual places. So many people try their chance but won only 7 and they were the luckiest ones.

The first Nokia E7 found Jimmy Lee, on the second day Jade Noureddine found the second smartphone in Beirut, the third one was hidden in London and Michael Freeman found it, here I have to stop to note that I guess he is the happiest winner. The next E7 accrued to Rehan Asi from NYC, the fifth one were in Dubai and it found Laura, however, a pretty girl. The sixth handset were hidden in New Delhi and won Clinton Jeff, and the last one was in a virtual place again.

Though I have noted all the winners and the destinations, but I guess nothing can be compared with the impressions of the winners, so I recommend you to watch the video to discover how much happiness Nokia brings to people around world.

I didn’t found any of them, but I don’t surrender and will be more consistent to win one for me, and what about you?

Nokia N900 is a Maemo-powered smartphone and it looks like the device doesn’t have a real success in the smartphone market. But Nokia is not one of the companies that surrenders without a fight and it decided to reach two goals by one shoot: today Jukka Elund, Product Manager at Nokia, announced they would bring MeeGo to the Nokia N900.

This could mean only one thing, Nokia doesn’t want to lose one more smartphone and wants to promote an alternative mobile platform which can replace Windows Phone if the last one doesn’t prove itself.

Here is what Jukka said:

Hi there,

I am thrilled to announce a little thing we started at Nokia. Basically we want to have MeeGo running in N900 device, so that it’s really usable as your daily development device. Basic Handset UX should work, phone calls, SMS, web browsing. So we are concentrating on a few selected features and polish those to be “perfect”. It might mean that we leave out some things in MeeGo 1.2 trunk for this edition, but that is not the default intention.

We are doing this fully on the open, and I hope this is an interesting project where we all in the community work towards the same goal: have a great MeeGo edition in the N900. This work is naturally based on the great work done already by N900 adaptation team lead by Harri and Carsten.

The wiki is up here:·http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/DeveloperEdition. It will populated with more information as we go, thanks for the patience.

Jukka Developer Edition product manager

twitter.com/jukkaeklund
IRC: jukka

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jukkaeklund

The Nokia N900 has been launched in 2009, and if that time Nokia’s failures weren’t obvious and no one thought to pay more attention to one failed smartphone. But now when the company’s deals are not so well, saying modestly, every device could become the “savior” of Nokia and it is clear why the Nokia N900 has appeared in the center of events. So we have only wish Nokia not to fail again.

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According to one of the latest surveys made by Good Guide, 26 of the top 30 greenest models are designed by Nokia. It could be predicted Nokia’s phones will be in leading positions in this term, but I guess no one has expected that about 90% percent of the list would be filled by Nokia.

The laboratory’s scientists have rated 576 phones depending on their health, environmental and social performance. And taking into account these aspects they give scores to the cell phones based on energy efficient chargers, environmentally-preferable materials, green production practices, recycling programs, and other factors.

It is important to mention the Nokia C6 is in the first position, so we can write down the greenest phone in the world is the C6. But the top ten list of the greenest phones is formed by other Nokia phones, below is the list:

1. Nokia C6
2. Nokia 6700
3. Nokia E72
4. Nokia E5
5. Nokia X3
6. Nokia 5530
7. Nokia x3-02
8. Nokia E73 Mode
9. Nokia N8
10. Nokia C3

On the contrary side is RIM and its 17 phones that finish the list as the lowest rated ones earning 3.3 scores.

Each of 26 Nokia’s phones score scoring 7.7 or 7.6 out of a possible 10 points. Samsung’s Blue Earth phone came in 27th, followed by Motorola’s Citrus and Ecomoto phones and by Palm’s Pixi Smartphone. For comparison, the Apple’s iPhone has earned 5.7 points and Apple earned this score because of its “ethical policies and performance.”

So before critics decide to predict Nokia’s death, I’ll recommend them to take into account this subjects too.

Nokia was always known for its humanitarian strategies over the world. This time the company decided to make a €200 million investment and build a new handset assembly factory, near Hanoi in northern Vietnam. Once the factory starts to work in 2012, Nokia will continue to make further investments. This new factory will be the next facility among the manufacturing network which is stretching from Latin America (Brazil and Mexico) to Europe (Finland, Hungary, Romania, the UK) and Asia (China, India, Korea).

Nokia is one from those companies that worry about people over the world that do not own mobile phones or have access to the internet. There are many people who can’t spend more than $100 on a device, so this segment is ignored by manufacturers and Nokia decided to help those 3.2 billion people who still do not have a phone or 3.7 billion have cell phones but less than half do not access the internet.

As Esko Aho, Executive Vice President at Nokia said:

“Only about 30% of the world’s population is currently online, and we believe we can play a major role in connecting the next billion not just to their first phone but to their first internet and application experience.”

It is beneficial for both sides of the agreement, as if Nokia seizes a new market and the country can reduce the unemployment rate. According to Juha Putkiranta, Senior Vice President of Nokia:

“I am extremely excited about this opportunity and about the support and commitment that Vietnam has offered to Nokia. This new manufacturing site will play a key role in our effort to connect the next billion to the web.”

This next billion probably will help the Finnish company to improve the situation, but I guess it’ll be criticized for losing market share in smartphone market for a long time.

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I begin to talk more about Nokia phones with such platforms like MeeGo, Symbian, Qt and even S40. And this after Nokia announced their cooperation with Microsoft to use Windows Phone OS in their future high-end devices. So if you think it’s just thoughts, I have come with facts – Nokia will launch a MeeGo-powered handset this year.

The words come to the Nokia N950 which is the successor of the N900. When we posted the Nokia N9 will be dropped off because of another handset, there were no words about the Nokia N950. But now we know for sure the Nokia N950 is that MeeGo-based smartphone the company is working on seriously.

Though Nokia’s CTO Rich Green didn’t show any photos of upcoming device at Nokia’s Developer Day, but here is a video where Green gave an extensive talk about the future of current Nokia platforms. As Nokia didn’t drop of MeeGo, we wondered what view the phone will have, and he told they have come up with some “very elegant” hardware and interesting UI.

If Green’s words become true and the Nokia N950 will be such awesome feature as he claimed, no one will accuse the Finnish company why they had dropped the Nokia N9. And according to Green’s words, the Nokia N950 is well-stocked as a developer platform and “we’ll see how that goes”. So we can assume it will be designed not for mass market but more towards developers.

I understand why Nokia continues to work on Qt for MeeGo, Symbian and Series 40, because there is not any guaranties Windows Phone will take out Nokia from this marsh immediately.

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The Nokia E5 is another BlackBerish phone which is designed for those users who spend many hours in social networks. The phone has been on the market for a while and now I have some gladsome news for Nokia fans as the Nokia E5 is going to get a massive price drops. So let’s see what prices the Nokia Online, Play.com and Expansys offer.

Though many phones are being launched every day but there are such users that wait until those phones get some price cuts. Thanks to NokNok who announced the Nokia E5 is now available for cheaper price via Nokia Online. So the last mentioned retailer requires £189 which is £20 off the previous price. But there is also Play.com which priced the Nokia E5 Sim Free Unlocked (Carbon Black) for only £179.99 with free delivery. But the cheapest price is offered by Expansys which charge the phone for only £177.99.

So I guess where you’ll buy your Nokia E5 but maybe there are other retailers who offer the device for cheaper price. But be sure these prices are well enough for this handset as it sports such features as a 2.4-inch display, QWERTY keyboard, 250 MB, 256MB RAM, 2GB internal memory that can be expanded up to 32GB via microSD card, 5MP camera with fixed-focus and LED flash, 600MHz processor and much more. But the phone has got a lack – Symbian 9.3 OS, though probably the phone won’t need too much fast performance, or not?

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The Nokia E7 is the next flagship of the company after the Nokia N8 which has failed, and the company tries to get back its popularity by the next Symbian^3 smartphone and the upcoming Windows Phone 7-powered handsets. Truly, all abovementioned devices will be high-end ones and designed for different groups of users, but the fact is known: the Nokia E7 is dedicated for business users and will help them to make their life more amazing.

The phone’s officially launch was in February 23^rd, though the handset has been launched in Singapore since February 19^th. And when Nokia organized a bloggers session on the 24th February guys over TechiLobang decided to take a physical look at the Nokia E7.

The Nokia E7 is quite similar to the Nokia N8, but when the keyboard is slide out the difference is obvious.

It is also bigger in size, and first of all it is due to the 4-inch touchscreen with Gorilla Glass technology. The handset looks more elegant than the Nokia N8, and the black color comes to claim it’s a business smartphone.

The Nokia E7 has got a good spaced keyboard though there could be some problems with typing as the keys are located in a different way.

So if you want to type on software keyboard, here is its view.

We can assume the phone has got many new approaches, and the next one refers to the sliding: so you’ll need some practice to slide the keyboard easily.

The device has got a support for the back when the keyboard is out, so when you return the keyboard, you will hardly feel that there is a keyboard for this phone.

The Nokia E7 has got an 8MP camera

Below is also a short video on the physical look of Nokia E7.