Nokia N97 Mini, X3 and X6 announced at Nokia World ‘09
News flash: Nokia managed to keep a pair of handsets a secret leading up to official announcements at Nokia World! Alongside the oft-talked about N97 Mini, two previously unknown music-centric devices, the X3 and X6, became official — but we’ll get to them in a moment. The N97 Mini, as we’re sure most of you know by now, can be summed up pretty quickly: Slightly smaller than the N97, tilting 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen display, sliding QWERTY keypad, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and dual-LED flash, Wi-Fi, aGPS, 8GB of internal memory with microSDHC and UMTS/HSPA connectivity. Not great, not bad, but we’re also not too sure exactly who would take it over the N97, which is already free on contract in many countries.
As we said before, the X6’s announcement came as a total surprise — one that is actually quite nice. It’s a full-touchscreen (capacitive) candy bar that can pump out tunes from its 32GB of internal memory for up to 35 hours. It runs S60 5th of course; shame it isn’t Maemo-powered. Beyond that you’re looking at a 5 megapixel camera with a Zeiss lens and a dual-LED flash and as far as connectivity goes, the X6 has that lovable trifecta of HSPA, Wi-Fi and aGPS. The X3 is the alphanumeric slidin’ baby cousin of X6 that runs on S40 and has a 2.2-inch QVGA display, 3.2 megapixel camera, 46MB of internal memory, FM tuner and quad-band EDGE. Both the X3 and X6 will ship in Q4 for 115€ ($163 USD) and 450€ ($640 USD). As for the N97 Mini, it will be released next month for 450€ ($640 USD). Hit the jump for videos of each of these three handsets and let us know what you think.
I wouldn’t take neither, but I’m a faceless shadow…
With all iphone fans always saying that resistite technology is not good, nokia changed to capacitive. It’s a petty. I have a nokia 5800 and I always use hand write recognition. It’s one of the best features available, and this way it will be los. A very important thing that this nationalist American bloggers don’t even know… Why should nokia read these reviews from this Americans that don’t ever use any nokia phone. They will not buy it anyway.
why do they look so bulky?
Nokia phones don’t have a really big market share in America like the iPhone or Samsung or LG because the wireless providers don’t subsidize them. Plus they don’t make the higher end models in CDMA which leaves out Verizon. Love or hate Verizon, they still have the most subscribers in the US. I would rather have a phone that is subsidized by a carrier, AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile than have some of the phone features not supported. Maybe this will change with LTE.
@geek
I also agree. Even though Nokia has jumped back on the EVDO bandwagon (trying to kiss Verizon’s ass) its too little too late. They f’d up bigtime by getting out of the cdma market. Now if you add all the verizon/alltel, sprint, u.s.cellular vs. At@t and t-mobile, how many total combined
cdma subscriber base vs.gsm again in the u.s., let alone bell, telus, mts mobility, sasktel mobility and aliant vs.one gsm rogers/fido? Yep nokia you royally I’d up. That’s you have shitty to pretty much no marketshare in Canada or the u.s.
Would love to see the E55 in the states.
Hey BG look, it’s got a capacitive. Maybe you won’t write the X6 off as a failure, like you did the N97.
I really don’t understand the point of the N97 Mini, unless it were significantly cheaper, which it’s not. The X6 however seems really cool, although I hope it’s available in black as well as silver like with the X3.
Yep, I’m gonna have to agree with you both (geek/Dmac)
If Nokia didn’t abandon CDMA/EVDO, they’d be right up there with RIM, LG, Samsung etc…in Canada and the U.S.
Now they’re playing catchup and are considered “doggie bag, leftovers”
If you look at the North American Market its either Blackberry, iPhone, HTC, Samsung and LG.
Nokia? No thanks, never heard of them especially in the mid to late teens who are the upcoming new marketshare when they reach their college years and beyond.
Yep, Nokia fucked up!
Nokia would like to be in the US market but it’s not a priority at the moment.
As for the X6, Nokia have committed that it will support Chinese hand writing recognition and mini-QWERTY which means it’s going to have to be very accurate and, if it works, is easily going to be the best implementation of a cap screen so far.
Nice……
Sent via Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic
@dmac/Mike
Not only Nokia but there are some Sony/Erickson’s that look interesting but more of the higher end models. I rarely go two years with the same phone and will pay full retail to get a new “toy” when something interesting comes along.
@Geek/Dmac/Mike
Actually, I’ve been a long time Nokia fan. Before Cingular merged with At&t and then bought out the brand. And you’re all wrong. The majority of Americans never have liked Nokia products. Just like the negative comments on the tech now. It has always been this way.
Back when they were first making the communicators, most Americans weren’t into smartphones. The flip was the hip back then. Everyone joked on how bulky they were and what not. Called them bag phone look alikes and such. They didn’t understand the tech like the overseas customers did. The American carriers actually shunned them. When Cingular merged with At&t at first, the turned their backs on Nokias’ higher end phones like the communicator. But they actually used to carry them when they were little old Cingular.
It’s amazing how these carriers, when they get big enough to get bigger deals and contracts shun makers. They run for the cheaper deals that they can inflate prices and get rich hand over fist. This has always been the policy.
As a matter of fact, Verizon tried this with Apple. But At&t looked at the tech and realized the game changer this was. Apple and Microsoft are the last two major computer softwared dynasty. Apple has no PDA’s and is stepping right into the smartphone game. That alone was big, fail or not. They new it would sell at least to the Mac Crowd and jumped on it. To be the first and exclusive carrier to sell an Apple first in a market dominated by WinMo. Actually, Verizon messed up badly! That’s why Vodafone is pushing them to LTE. They are not doing this by choice. That’s also why they bought out Alltel. It’s the only chance, they have to redeem themselves.
@Cingulair
While I do agree with some of you statements, its actually Apple who first approached Verizon over AT&T. When Verizon didn’t like the way Apple wanted to run things, Verizon said “thanks, but no thanks.” So, Apple went to option 2, which was AT&T.
If you look at the entire scope, Verizon is still ahead because it still rakes in profit year after year, an increase in post-paid subscribers year after year and are you ready for this…..ALL WITHOUT THE IPHONE.
Apple sees this and wants to take the U.S. and Canadian market share entirely completely away including RIM. The only to do this is to provide one that will work on Verizon’s network whether it be a hybrid CDMA/GSM/EVDO/HSPA (Present Blackberry Tour/Storm and HTC Touch Pro 2s) or just LTE.
Point of this, is that NOKIA is trying to catch up when its too late because NOKIA is an unpopular namebrand to average joe schmo in North America.
It is true as mentioned from one of the above posts that NOKIA has now release some recent models for Verizon but again as others have said, TOO LITTLE TOO LATE.
Go look at the future market as the above mentioned, NONE of their generation is using a NOKIA. It’s either Blackberry, iPhone, HTC etc……
X6 nice enough, a tad expensive for what it is given the shoddy Ovi (store, music, expensive maps! etc) that you’ll be tied to whether you like it or not. Capacitive at last, but no multitouch support so one wonders how long it’ll take Nokia to get there?
S60 5th is the only reason why I won’t be having a second look at this otherwise nifty device.
Oh multitouch. That’s that thing that makes you use two hands to do things that everything else can do with one isn’t it?
Your views of “carriers shunning brands” are amusing but factually
incorrect. We don’t buy cheaper phones so we can make a “bigger profit”. We buy them because not everyone actaully wants something that complicated.
Nokia has sold a fair number of cheaper GSM/EDGE products in US and Canada. Their higher end products seem to have zero appeal to North Americans. Their E7x series Messaging products feel sterile and empty. Their real strength is pumping out cheap and cheerful send/end phones with text in developing markets. They have been unable to emulate RIM after 5+ years of trying. After 2 years, they are still far short of an iPhone experience. And then they choose Linux instead of Android.
Must be a strange view from the executive floor in Finland.
My Nokia N958GB is a great piece of hardware. My folding bluetooth keyboard (also by Nokia) really rounds it out. True, I don’t see many Nokia smartphones here in Toronto, but then again I didn’t want to go the iZombie route.
I’ll GLADLY GET RID OF MY iPhone 3GS for the X6, right now. It’s amazing… iPhone people are all on Nokia’s nuts for not being in the United States, then you all turn right back around and say how you wouldn’t buy them anyway, and neither would the rest of the country. Speak for yourself. I agree that Nokia should’ve stayed more dedicated to CDMA technology given that combined with potential sales from Sprint and Verizon Wireless, they’d have half the American cell phone buying public to sell phones too. Despite all this though, they’re still the largest selling phone maker and seller in the world, including smart phones. PS: they actually make smart phones, and the iPhone isn’t one. You do know that Symbian S60 5th Ed. runs applications in the background, right? That’s all I needed to know… LOL Let’s not take cell phones so seriously, people. Let’s lighten up. Bush is gone.
I think all you guys ragging on Nokia phones on Verizon will have to eat your words in the next couple of months. You guys don’t understand the business side of things, you just sit on your ass and wait for next phone BGR hypes up. Nokia has always maintained decent marketshare in the US, all the while focused on the big fish in Asia and the Middle East. Let’s see US = 300 million people in a divided wireless markets (CDMA/GSM) Asia/Middle East = 2.5 BILLION people all on the GSM technology….that means if Nokia only has 12% marketshare in the Asia and the Middle East, they would have more users than all of the US population. And trust me they have way more than 12% of the Asia/Middle East marketshare.
Oh wow, Apple sold 26 million iPhones in the past 3 years….it took Nokia about 3 weeks to sell that many phones.
I hope all you guys that rag on Nokia, eat feces and die!
My first phones were Nokias in the mid ’90’s. I would love for Nokia ti be more popular. S60 needs to be modernized. Maemo looks good. If Nokia could make a capacitive touchscreen Maemo, I would definitely buy one. Til then Android will be my choice..
S60 is actually being modernized, symbian will unite all UI on QT, next year. But that’s not important. Both Maemo and the current edition of Symbian together with the hardware (camara, speakers, gps…) make a much better solution then iphone and RIM. And less expensive too.That is why nokia is a leader with a market share that make apple so jealous. Not all the noise in the world that american bloggers can make will erase this truth.
To oldwirelessguy:
First, you speak ok nokia has a producer of mobiles for developing markets. North America in terms of mobile is a developing market. What to you seem very new is not new at all here in Europe. I add that the European market has 500 millions compared to the 300 millions of America. Plus the dollar don’t buy anything these days. Another thing nokia phones seem expensive to you because of the protective practices of American carriers that refuse to buy nokia opposite from the European carriers that buy all that comes from America even though the iphone and RIM don’t sell anything here. Why because their technology is not that good. And people here know what to buy. Although I like apple computers in terms of design I must admit that in iphone they made a very feminine design. Almost gay. Here in Europe it’s a bit of a shame to take such a woman mirror in the middle of the street. And if you can use it in the street it’s a bit useless as a mobile.
@ oldwirelessguy,
“Their higher end products seem to have zero appeal to North Americans. Their E7x series Messaging products feel sterile and empty.”
LOL. You know absolutely nothing. Their E71 is their best selling enterprise device ever, and judging by the forums sections on a lot of mobile industry websites in the US, I’d say they sold extremely well for something not having been subsidized and ruined by a carrier. If the rest of the world is any gauge at all, I’d say if the carriers here sold the N73, N95, E61i, E71, and didn’t cripple them (because feature wise they top everybody else), they would be huge here as well.
“They have been unable to emulate RIM after 5+ years of trying.”
4 of my friends have BB’s, 3 have the Tour, one has the Curve, and both of them compared to my E71 fall short easily. You want to talk about not everyone actually wanting something complicated, then please explain to me why so many people insist on getting a Blackberry and half of them don’t know how to use it still after a week with it.
The carriers in the states are the biggest problem for Nokia, and they will continue to be until they ease their control and start letting more phones in and stop taking important features out of them. Have you taken notice that all the carriers seem to want to sell is a low end phone with their name on it? You think that’s a coincidence? Nokia allowed AT&T to sell the E71 and what did AT&T do? They took it from a highend phone to a midrange device and ruined the software that made it stand out. This is why Nokia is having a difficult time breaking into this market. They’re doing surprisingly well without the carriers, but that will never get them above a 10% market share.
This is really interesting seeing people talk about phones if they only have one side of the story… I currently have a BB Bold, Apple 3G, Nokia E90 and a Nokia N97. I like all of them for different reasons and hate them all for others. The interface on the iPhone is great but up to today I can not get corporate email or edit MS Office docs on it. And oh the thing I really hate about the iPhone… When outside the US, I can not switch my sim card to a local carrier and use the phone. Sure I can use it if I am willing to pay AT&T $2.99 a minute. (ya right)(oh and data charges are over the top) The Bold gives me the corporate email but no editing of docs and while coverage is pretty good in the US It does not work outside. (sorry it is tied to Sprint) Also the thing most people do not know… Without using Nokia technology Blackberry would not exist. The BES server of Blackberry is really just Nokia’s Intellisync software.
As for the Nokia E90… It is a big phone and heavy and it does not support 3G speeds in the US and Canada. It does however run my corporate email, edit MS Office docs. I have even used it to show presentations from. The thing I like most is the fact that I can change the sim card to a local carrier as I travel around the world. Oh did I forget about the truly amazing GPS that is built in. As for the Nokia N97 it will replace the E90. Much lighter but I need to get use to it. At least I got corporate email and IM working on it within an hour.
My point is that my requirements are somewhat extreme. Nokia fulfills most of it and the Apple and the Bold probably could if the carriers would allow it. Although there are things that I have been able to do for years that people are only discovering now.