Click to View

Ten years ago Nokia announced its first Communicator, one of the first mobile devices to ever be considered a smartphone. A few years later, in 2001, it introduced the 9200 series, the first to run on the Symbian OS. This device looked like a typical (if large) cell phone closed and a mini laptop open. It's been close to three years since the mobile phone giant introduced - the 9500 and 9300 - its most recent smartphones with that form factor, however.

At 3GSM this week Nokia resurrected the communicator category with the introduction of the drool-worthy E90, which is now a part of the business-centric Eseries. It also introduced two additional new members of the Eseries, the E65 and the E61i.

The E90 appears to pack it all ... and then some.

While the E90 is a Symbian smartphone like past communicators, Nokia ditches the S80 interface for the far more popular S60 platform with this device. This means, among other things, a far larger swath of third-party software will be available to E90 owners than the 9500, for example.

It measures 5.2 x 2.2 x 0.8 inches (132 x 57 x 20 millimeters) and weighs 7.4 ounces (210 grams). That's a little lighter than the largish 9500 and a little heavier than the compact 9300. The E90 is also about as wide as the 9500 but is about as tall and thick as the 9300.

As a quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900) device, the E90 will pretty much get you a signal almost anywhere in the world. There's also GPRS, 2.5G EDGE, 3G UMTS and 3.5G HSPDA data networking supported. Additional wireless technologies include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with stereo headset support, GPS and even an FM radio.

There's a full keypad along with a 240 x 320 pixel resolution display that you can run software from on the outside - so you can use nearly all the E90's functions with the smartphone closed (unlike previous Nokia communicators), and a full QWERTY thumb-keyboard with a large 800 x 352 pixel resolution screen that supports 16 million colors inside.

The E90 has two cameras, a 3.2 megapixel one with autofocus and flash and a second shooter for video conferencing. It features stereo speakers and a 2.5 mm connector for stereo headphones. There's a microSD slot to add additional storage on top of the device's built-in 128 MB of RAM: It ships with a 512 MB microSD card, which format that is now available up to 2 GB in size. The E90 sports a USB Mini-B connector to link to a PC at USB 2.0 speeds.

It includes a text-to-speech reader, the Quickoffice document editor/reader, many personal information management tools, the new Nokia Maps application, a MP3 and AAC audio player, an video player, and a full compliment of messaging and e-mail options.

Nokia estimates the E90 will start shipping during the second quarter of this year, and become available globally during the third. The unsubsidized retail price should be around 750 to 800 Euros, which is in the $1,000 range.

Nokia E65 & Nokia E61i
Both these Sybmian/S60 smartphones are quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE models like the E90, and feature many of the same business-centric corporate, data, and entertainment features. They top out at UMTS cellular-data networking, however. There's still Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.


                    N65

The E65, which is already shipping in some markets, looks like a tablet smartphone, but slides open to reveal a keypad. It is the first model in the Eseries to do so. There are one Touch Keys on the front to ease access to most-used applications when the slider is closed.

As you can tell by the name, the E61i is an extension of the tablet-style QWERTY-keyboard E61 and E62, which is available in the U.S. As with those devices it is designed with extensive mobile e-mail usage in mind. The E61i adds a 2 megapixel camera and is a little thinner.


                         N61i

Both devices will sell for 400 euros unsubsized. We expect to receive all three smartphones in for review over the next couple of months.