3230: Nokia's Midrange Series 60

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Nokia announced the 3230 the other day and I'm very excited about it! This could be the phone that is everything that I thought the 3650 could be. It has basically everything you could want in a smart phone with multimedia (including the Java 3D API) a 1.3 megapixel camera and EDGE data at a mid-range price. And it's an attractive phone to boot - it's even smaller and lighter than the 7610, which is a very reasonably sized phone. I'm excited!

This phone seems to have finally gotten a lot of the bugaboos from previous models worked out. For example, finally a Series 60 phone with an FM radio and stereo sound! Yes - I know about the N-Gage, but the QD got rid of that feature soon thereafter. I could bitch about the stuff I always bitch about - the memory for the phone is RS-MMC instead of the more common SD card, but at least it's hot swappable! Very nice.

Nokia really needed to launch this phone. The Audiovox Windows Mobile phone that are now available in Europe and here in U.S. and others of that generation are going to start eating away at the Series 60 market in the mid-tier. The SMT 5600 in the local AT&T Wireless store is much smaller than the Nokia 6620 sitting next to it, with a bigger screen, much better multimedia capabilities, better syncing functionality, a more common User Interface and priced almost $200 less. If Nokia doesn't want to lose the American market to Microsoft in short order, they need a viable competitor - and this phone looks like it's it. Nokia better not wait until the *end* of Q1 2005 to get it out there, because a lot can happen in the next 5 months.

-Russ

Update: I'm a dork, I keep forgetting that my 6620 actually does have stereo sound (I'm listening to it right now...)

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