Nokia

Nokia Music Store

Update: a spokesperson from Nokia contacted me and let me know that, despite what the booth staffers told me, Nokia has "not announced plans or a timeline for the U.S. market" regarding a music store. So we'll have to wait and see.

I stopped by the packed Nokia booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to get an update on the Nokia Music Store announced over the summer. It's already online in the U.K. (PC only), with a library of nearly 3 million songs.

The Web-based store looks fairly standard. But according … Read more

Samsung's 5-megapixel camera phone

Samsung today showed off its answer to the Nokia N95 with the Samsung SGH-G800. Offering a 5-megapixel camera and a 3x optical zoom, a Xenon flash, face detection and image stabilization, the SGH-G800 is a powerful shooter on paper (we have yet to test its image quality). Its slider design also mimics the N95, but unlike the recent North American version of the Nokia handset, the SGH-G800 has a lens cover. And on the whole, it actually looks like a camera, while the N95 was definitely a camera phone.

Other features include an expansive (2.4 inches) 262,000-color display, … Read more

N95 and Slingbox: Reese's couldn't do better

Better than peanut butter and chocolate: the N95 and a Slingbox.

If you've spent the money for the Nokia N95, a Slingbox is a must get. The company bought live spots on my program on KGO Radio months ago. My job was to read the copy, not test it. And from the commercials, to be honest, I wasn't totally sure what it did and how to use it.

Then I got one to try and now I totally get it. Wow! What Slingbox somehow does is enable you to take your TV room at home with you anywhere … Read more

Nokia to Google: Android is potty

It stinks to be a mobile phone company right about now. Take, for instance, Nokia. The company has long thought of itself as the king of mobile innovation, yet along comes Apple with its iPhone and changes the rules of the game.

Just when it was at least still in charge of the software that runs on its devices, Google shows up with its open-source Android platform. Nokia, not surprisingly, thinks Android is neither new nor threatening:

Nokia's CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo dismissed Android saying his company had already ventured down that path. "Conceptually, we [Nokia] could have made … Read more

Nokia headsets play a new tune

As mobile phones continue their march in to the music world, their accessories increasingly resemble those previously reserved for media players. Just yesterday we saw a pair of Bluetooth headphones designed for both music and phone reception, complete with touch-sensitive controls.

Now Nokia, which has been among the more aggressive phone makers to market music equipment for its handsets, has come up with a couple of new headsets that will let you listen to MP3s until a call comes in, then automatically shut them off so you can talk. Even better, it'll pick up where the song left off … Read more

T-Mobile's new Nokia 6263 brings 3G

More clues are emerging that T-Mobile's is getting ready to launch its 3G network. Today Nokia announced a new cell phone for the carrier, the Nokia 6263. The 6263 is the second 3G-capable (UMTS 850/2100) handset for T-Mobile (the 3G-capable Samsung SGH-T639 launched in October), which is the only major carrier not to operate a wireless broadband network. Though it has promised that it will launch 3G in the future, T-Mobile is still mum on exactly when that will happen. Some have speculated that it could happen as early as tomorrow, which leads to ask if the launch … Read more

Nokia's 'Comes With Music' initiative

Yesterday, Nokia announced a new initiative, Comes With Music, that will offer "free" music to purchasers of certain cellphones. It's the first outgrowth of Nokia's Ovi brand, which the company announced earlier this year. It also seems to be the first implementation of Universal's Total Music plan, in which device makers bundle a music subscription on new devices and add the cost to the price of the device, rather than forcing consumers to pay the monthly fee.

As with all such services, the devil's in the details. According to Ars Technica, there's an … Read more