Click to View

Late last year, Nokia introduced the follow up to the N95—and its latest top-of-the-line model—the N96. Yesterday, more than half a year later, it finally started shipping the smartphone.

Unfortunately for those of us who reside in the good old US of A, the N96 is only available in Europe, so far. It can be had for €550 before taxes and carrier subsidies.

Nokia plans to eventually introduce a North American-friendly version of the uber Symbian/S60-run smartphone. Until then, however we'll have to live vicariously through our European cousins.

Like its predecessor, the N95, the N96 is a dual-slider that reveals a keypad when opened one way and audio controls the other. It is supposed to include several notable improvements, such as Feature Pack 2 of the S60 Third Edition interface and double the memory to 16GB from 8GB.

There's also a 5-megapixel camera, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi, and a quad-band GSM cellular wireless radio for voice service around the world. The North American edition adds a pair of 3G-wireless bands to support high-speed data service in the U.S.

For more on the N96, see here and here.

In related news, one of the latst members of Nokia ESeries of business-orientated smartphones just landed in the U.S., according to reports. You can now pick up the North American-friendly editon of the E66 at Nokia's flagship stores, located in Chicago and New York.

The E66 (right) is a slim slider with a keypad. It follows a QWERTY smartphone, the E71 (left), in finding a place in the U.S. See here for full specs on the E66 and here for the same on the E71.