AT&T and Nokia announces the upcoming availability of the Nokia Surge – a smartphone designed especially for all you social-networking minded individuals out there.

With features such as a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and the Symbian S60 OS, the Surge allows you to stay connected with your family and friends whether it’s through the use of IM, text, email, multimedia messaging, AT&T Video Share, or updating and reading content from social networking websites.

Specs and features include:

• 2.0 megapixel camera
• Web browser with Adobe Flash support
• JuiceCaster application
• Support for AT&T Navigator, AT&T Mobile Music, and AT&T Video Share

What makes the Surge particularly interesting is the claim that the Surge was designed in the U.S. – a Nokia phone designed in the U.S. specifically for the U.S. audience. Not bad.

The Nokia Surge will be available through select AT&T retail locations and online for a price of $79.99 along with a new two year agreement and a mail-in rebate (Pay $129.99 and send in a $50 dollar AT&T Promotion Card). The company expects the Nokia Surge to be available starting on July 19th.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: AT&T, Nokia, Nokia Surge

Now in other Nokia-related news, the company announced that the E71x is now available for purchase at AT&T retail stores and online. The E71x is currently the slimmest smartphone on the market with features such as a full QWERTY keyboard, 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, and a built-in music player. The full feature list and specs are as follows:

• GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA support
• 850/900/1800/1900MHz frequencies for GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• 850/1900MHz for UMTS/HSDPA
• Symbian S60 3.2
• 120MB memory
• microSD slot
• 2.4 inch 240 x 320 resolution display with support for 16M colors
• GPS and aGPS ready
• Wi-Fi, microUSB, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR + Stereo A2DP
• Infrared
• 2.5 mm UHJ connector for audio
• Speakerphone
• Video file format support including .Flash lite 3, MP4, .3GP, H.263, MPEG-4 VSP
• Audio file format support including MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+
• Measures 4.4 x 2.2 x 0.4 inches and weighs 4.4 oz
• Talk time of 4.5 hours
• Standby time of 12 days
• Mail for Exchange support as well as support for Yahoo Mail, AOL, Windows Live, Hotmail etc
• IM support including AIM, Windows Live, and Yahoo
• Text and MMS support
• AT&T Navigator support
• Web Browser with Flash support
• 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus and flash

And now.. for the price. The Nokia E71x is available for $99.99 after a new two year contract and a mail-in rebate.

[Check it out via Nokia Press Release]

Read this in Chinese Simplified and in French

Technorati Tags: AT&T Wireless, Nokia, Nokia E71x

The new Nokia E63 is the company’s latest Eseries handset designed for a broader market thanks to the suggested price of EUR 199. The E63 builds on the flagship E71 handset and features a QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi connectivity, Mail for Exchange support, and dedicated key access to contacts, calendar, and email.  Other specs include:

• CSD, HSCSD, GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA support
• 2.36 inch 320 x 240 (QVGA) display with support for up to 16 million colors
• Two customizable home screens – switch between a business mode to a personal mode
• Speaker dependent and speaker independent voice dialing
• 2.0 megapixel digital camera
• Built-in video recording and playback
• Built-in music player
• Voice and audio recording
• Micro-USB connector, full-speed
• microSD memory card slot
• 110 MB internal memory
• SMS, MMS, email, Web Browser,
• Nokia Music Store support
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
• Speakerphone, Push to Talk, VoIP support
• Files on Ovi – allows you to get remote access to their PC files
• 1GB of online file storage for free
• Symbian S60 3.1 edition
• Measures 113 x 59 x 13 mm and weighs 126 grams

The E63 will be available in ruby red or ultramarine blue.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Nokia E63

AND finally, the new Nokia 6650 clamshell handset will be available starting today (Friday) to AT&T customers for a price of $69.99 with a new two year agreement and a $50 mail-in rebate. The 6650 handset, powered by the Symbian S60 platform features the following specs:

• 2.0 megapixel camera with integrated flash and 4x zoom
• Live video capture and playback
• Brushed metal fold design
• Internal 2.2 inch QVGA display with support for 16 million colors
• External 1.36 inch display
• Support for AT&T Navigator, AT&T Video Share, and AT&T Mobile Music
• 3G network support
• Built-in music player with support for MP3, MIDI, AAC, AAC+, AMR
• Streaming Radio, MusicID support
• Text messaging, IM, Email, Web browser
• Quad band GSM support
• microSD slot
• Measures 3.93 x 1.86 x 0.64 inches and weighs 3.95 oz

The Nokia 6650 is available now in red and silver.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: AT&T, Nokia 6650

Symbian’s S60 platform finally arrives on Samsung handsets with the formal introduction of the new i8510 smartphone. The handset features support for quad-band GSM as well as dual-band WCDMA. While certainly a smartphone on paper, the i8510 also features advanced digital photography specifications such as an 8 megapixel camera, smile, face and blink detection technologies, image stabilization technology, and the ability to create panoramic pictures.

Other specs include:

• Video recording in QVGA resolutions at up to 120fps and VGA at 30 fps
• Symbian 9.3 S60 3rd Edition FP2
• 2.8 (?) 16 million color QVGA TFT display
• Built-in GPS receiver
• Built-in accelerometer
• Built-in Wi-Fi
• 16GB internal memory
• microSD memory card slot
• Bluetooth 2.0

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Samsung i8510, Symbian

In case you didn’t hear about it earlier today – Nokia announced plans to acquire the remaining 52 percent of Symbian Limited, makers of the popular Symbian OS, for approximately EUR 264 million. In turn, Nokia will turn around and team up with several companies to create the Symbian Foundation – an effort to unify the Symbian mobile platform and “set it free”. That’s the right – the Foundation’s charter is to unify Symbian, S60, UIQ, and MOAP software and then provide a royalty-free open platform. Other companies in the Foundation include AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics. Texas Instruments, and Vodafone.

While Symbian is the most widely used mobile phone OS, it’s very clear that the competition is gaining on them. It’s increasingly evident that companies are positioning themselves to be the platform provider of choice. Just look at Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS, Apple’s OS X for the iPhone, and Google’s Android platform. Each of these three competing platforms take different routes to delivering software to their respective hardware platforms. Both Microsoft and Apple are going their traditional routes with Microsoft licensing their OS to hardware manufacturers and Apple controlling both the hardware and software specifications for a relatively closed yet powerful platform and experience. Google hopes to gain market share by making their platform open and free to use (with money coming in from potential ad revenue). To combat these approaches, Nokia and the other companies had to do something – and that something was the founding of the Symbian Foundation.

According to the Foundation’s website, these companies are “coming together .. to bring to life a shared vision and to create the most proven, open and complete mobile software platform – available for free.” Membership within the foundation will be open to all organizations for an annual fee of $1500. The resulting Symbian Foundation platform will be available to members under a royalty free license. The platform itself will go open source in the next two years and will use the Eclipse Pubic License. The platform code will be available to all for free.

Of course – no one knows how all of this will pan out in the long haul. Will all the companies in the foundation be able to work well together? How will competing interests within each handset manufacturer play out in the OS world? One thing is for sure – things are getting more and more interesting in the mobile front.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Nokia, Symbian Limited, Symbian Foundation