14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia was expected to release two E-series phones for their business customers, the E65 and an E61 successor, the E61i. While some specs of the E65 have been revealed and the phone has already been FCC approved, more details on the E61i have also appeared.
The E61i will apparently become available in two variants, one with 3G capabilities and one without, the latter probably heading towards the U.S. Just like the E61, the E61i will target business users and include a QWERTY keyboard that is more convenient for e-mail composing. The European version of the handheld will support GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and WLAN, Bluetooth for connectivity and a screen with QVGA resolution.
Although the difference in design is not very noticeable, the shortcut buttons on the E61i have been rearranged. While bringing everything included in the E61, Nokia's E61i also features a 2 megapixel camera, and the MiniSD card slot has been replaced with MicroSD.
Just like Nokia's other recent releases, the mobile phone will run Symbian S60 and like other E-series phones, it will come with pre-installed office applications. The only reason why one would consider replacing their older E61 with the 'i' version would be the built-in camera, since aside from that, features included in the two phones are pretty much the same.
No more information is provided so far, but the business phone is expected to be launched at the upcoming 3GSM event next month, and an approval by the Federal Communications Commission will probably happen pretty soon. When that does happen, more info regarding availability and price will pop out as well.