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Nokia Unveils "World's Thinnest" QWERTY Smartphone

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i-lost-it-in-a-deck-of-cards dept.

Barence writes "Nokia has revamped its E-series of business-oriented smartphones with two new models, including the 'world's thinnest' QWERTY device. The GPS-enabled E71 is the slimmer successor to the Nokia E61, with a thickness of only 1cm. It's HSDPA-enabled, offers switchable home screens, and gives a claimed 'two full days of heavy, heavy use.' The E66, on the other hand, is a slide-phone with a conventional numerical keypad and a built-in accelerometer. At the same event, Nokia also gave a tantalizing hint about its plans for an iPhone rival, with its senior vice president saying, 'we will have touchscreen devices coming this year.'"

4 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Why Why Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why can't the people making these devices with "full QWERTY keyboards", actually include the row for numbers. Having to switch modes to type numbers and then have all the alternate symbols on the number buttoms (!@#$, etc) hidden elsewhere is such an incredible pain. I would deal with the device being an eight of an inch longer in order to actually include a full keyboard.

  2. Touch Screen != Success by imstanny · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People and companies are attributing the success of the iPhone to its Touch technology. Yes, it was the first one to come out with it in a successful design, but the iPhone is succesful mainly because it capitalizes on Apple's software platforms. The iPhone brings together iTunes, iPod, & Telephone, and Web capabilities in a unified architecture that is based on OSX format. A Nokia or Blackberry with a touch screen will not be able to support anything remotely close to what Apple is offering. Yes, they will look similar and offer 'me-too' capabilities, but just b/c users can touch the screen and the phone can play music, doesn't mean it will be remotely competitive to the iPhone.

  3. Re:Great... by Thelasko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How come they never shipped any good thing to USA market? I have a theory. It's because Nokia doesn't play nice with the carrier pricing models. Most notably, they include Wi-Fi on their phones. Phone carriers in the US subsidize the price of the phones based on charging high rates for data. Wi-Fi enabled phones prevent them from doing that.

    I've noted this before on Slashdot and have been modded into oblivion by what are presumably Apple fanboys claiming it's the iPhone's interface that made it popular in the US. That may be true, but I still stand by what I said.
    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  4. Re:Great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Guess what -- Nokia would love to play big in the US. It's no small secret that they can't because of the carriers here. Practically every phone sold in the US goes through carrier channels. And if the big carriers don't like Nokia's phones or don't think they will appeal to enough people, they're DOA, no matter how cool the phone is.

    So go complain to AT&T and T-Mobile. Seems like the only Nokia phones they actually want are low-end featureless ones. It would be awesome to see a phone like the N96 come to AT&T.

    Yes, more phones are coming to the U.S., but the rest of the world will have had them forever by the time we get them.