The MWC 2008 - Live Report

Nokia new product announcements during the show definitely played a major role for our high levels of excitement. The CES event in Las Vegas which was completely boring and eventless, so we are very pleasantly surprised by the volume and quality of new products here in Barcelona.

Nokia has four new products launched – N96, N78, 6210 Navigator and 6220 classic. Those are also currently the only devices running on the new S60 V3 Service Pack 2 software. Stay tuned for our in-depth overview of its new features.

Just looking at the models you should be able to get the idea where these products stay in the company’s line of products. N96 is obviously the TOP device in the multimedia series and replaces the current #1 N95. The design language is very different and the change is noticeable only from just even a quick glimpse. Gone are the sharp edges and the new N96 looks a lot sleeker. Its resembles to the N78 is great as both devices have round edges, flush keys (soft, pick / hand-up ) and overall same design language.

The N96 overall volume is slightly decreased, but still cannot be called small device. Increased is the weight, but still it is at the very manageable 4.4 oz (125 g).



Looking at the top slider, new are the music dedicated keys which are only active when the slider is UP. When the dedicated multimedia keys are visible (slider down), the ones on the front are not active any more. Again what catches the eye is the flush surface – the only raised part is the D-pad.



Opening the slider to reveal the keypad shows four rows of keys slightly divided only horizontally. The actual keypad somewhat reminds of the one in RAZR, but instead of metal the one here is plastic. Even though the devices shown on the show are prototypes, a key press returned excellent feedback.

Hopefully the actual sliding action will be improved, as the one on the test units at the show floor was less than perfect. Sliding it open or closed ended up with very loud and unpleasant “chat” sound – way worse compared to the N95 8GB.
To sum up the design – very pleasing (expect for the slider action).

On the features side, the changes are not many but still major. All of you expecting to see 5+ mega pixels camera with Xenon flash will be greatly disappointed as N96 is still with the same camera and flash as the N95. The whole reason is it’s targeting – not as the top of the line camera phone, but the premier converged device. In order to be crowned as such, vital elements were missing. We say were, as the N96 partly adds them.



Most notable is the addition of DVB-H digital TV reception. The system is widely used in Europe, but not adopted in the US where AT&T is expected to launch anytime now its MediaFlo based service (not compatible with DVB-H). Unlike other DVB-H phones, the N96 lacks any kind of external antenna. What is has though is a small plastic on the back around the camera which when needed is used as a stand to hold the device at an angel when placed on a table for example. The idea of course is for better video and TV viewing experience.
We were secretly hoping to hear that officially or not it supports DivX or Xvid video playback out of the box, but all we got was “sorry folks maybe next time”. Very unfortunate for a video oriented “multimedia computer”. The good news is that video player software supporting those protocols can be installed later.

We all liked the idea to have 8GB of memory on board (N95 8GB), but were still secretly hoping to be able to expand it even further if the need arises. N96 tops that with 8GB more for a total of 16GB built-in memory with an addition microSDHC card slot allowing … well up to 32GB more (total: up to 48GB!). As we like to say: “Great Success” (you guessed right – we love Borat).



The combination of camera and GPS leads to a feature called GeoTagging. If the GPS can lock position (and you haven’t turned it manually off), it will add the coordinates of the location where the picture is taken, to its EXIF data of the JPEG file. It can then be seen from the phone, or from any software (on computer) which supports this feature. For example, Flickr.com reads this data and shows it. All devices announced at the MWC were GeoTagging capable.

Whoever guess that N78 is the successor of N73 gets high five. As mentioned earlier, it has the new “N” series piano black finish with rounded ages and flush surface. Unlike though the N96, here the keypad is in four rows of keys without vertical separation. The rest of the keys are around it and as seen from our great pictures – lack any relief.



Dimension-wise, the N78 is about the size of its predecessor, with the weight decreased to 3.6 oz (102 g).

Originally introduced in the N81, the Navi wheel function is present here. According to the N78 product manager, its functionally has been greatly improved in the new model. When we get our test units and do the in-depth review, will definitely let you know.

The rest of the changes are the addition of Wi-Fi, dual band UMTS (EU and EU versions available), FM transmitter and like all other just announced devices – added A-GPS.

Nokia 6220 announced during the expo strangely enough is a Series 40 device with 128x128 pixels display and 0.1 mega pixel camera. This could be right if we were at the 3GSM 2003. Confused? So are we as Nokia is continuing to re-use its model numbers and just adds “classic” to denote a completely new device. On a more series note, if it had the N-series design language, the new 6220 classic could fit in that line quite well. The new high end phone for the masses is equipped with the same 5 mega-pixel camera found in the top-of-the-line N-series, Xenon flash, A-GPS and S60 3rd with FP2. We are so happy it is MWC 2008!

The last new phone from Nokia is the 6210 Navigator. Besides the usage of the same design language as in the 6220 classic, the only other notable difference is the presence of digital compass. The Nokia people we talked with claimed that this is a first in a mobile phone, but we are more inclined to think as the first for 2008, as phone with compass was released by Nokia back in 2004 (the 5140). The whole idea to have it in your phone is not to show you where the North Pole is, but when using the new Nokia Maps 2 in Pedestrian more, instead of walking 50 meters to see in which direction you are going to, all you need is just to take the phone out of your pocket and your correct orientation will be shown.
The other changes are the increased camera resolution to 3.2 mega pixels and like all other Nokias announced during the expo – the added second band of UMTS. Its expected market release is around Q3.