14 DAY TRIAL // Today is definitely Nokia's day, at least when it comes to announcing affordable phones, as the Finnish giant company unveiled four new devices, all packed with basic features. Besides the weird-looking Nokia 5000 and the 7070 Prism clamshell, the largest handset manufacturer in the world also comes with Nokia 2680 Slide and Nokia 1680 Classic.
A common feature the four new phones have, besides being affordable, is the fact that they all come with support for dual-band GSM networks (either 900/1800 MHz or 850/1900 MHz), hence they can work almost anywhere in the world, since GSM is the global standard for mobile networks.
As the 5000 and 7070 Prism models, Nokia 2680 Slide and Nokia 1680 Classic are created for emerging markets, but this doesn't mean they won't be available in the mature ones, like the US for example, where entry-level phones are still needed.
Nokia 2680 Slide is (obviously) a slider. It weighs 97 grams, measures 99 x 47.1 x 14.8 millimeters (when closed) and it's presented as "Nokia's first slide device for entry markets". The phone's features include FM radio (allows recording), Internet and email capabilities, GPRS, a 128 x 160 pixels TFT display with 65K colors, a VGA photo camera that can take pictures at a 640 x 480 maximum resolution, MP3 ringtones, Java MIDP 2.0, expanded phone book (up to 1000 entries) and so on. The slider costs 75 Euros ($120), but it will only be available in the second half of 2008.
Nokia 1680 Classic is a candybar that comes as the cheapest Nokia camera phone. Sure, we talk about a VGA camera that can't offer photos at a quality that you can be proud of, but at least you can take occasional snapshots when there's no better device near at hand. Besides the basic camera, 1680 Classic also packs a TFT 128 x 160 pixels screen with support for 65K colors, email and Instant Messaging (but no Web browser), Java MIDP 2.0, English-Chinese dictionary and a Li-Ion 700 mAh battery said to offer more than 7 hours of talk-time and up to 424 hours of stand-by time. Nokia 1680 Classic will have an estimated price of 50 Euros ($80) and should hit the market in the second quarter of this year.
