Nokia Announces 3 New Audio Enhanced Handsets

Nokia today announced the arrival of new Nokia Music Stores, more Comes With Music launches and three new music devices - the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic, 5330 XpressMusic and Nokia 5030. By expanding the music range to different price points, introducing more markets with Comes With Music service and the Nokia Music Store as well as making the integration of these elements as easy as possible, on both on the mobile device and the PC, Nokia aims to change the way music is enjoyed.

“We’ve sold more than 425 million devices with a digital music player and more than 700 million devices with an FM radio, which clearly shows that the mobile phone is the natural device for listening to the music and carrying it with you,” said Jo Harlow, Devices, Nokia. “Combining a connected digital music player like the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic with unlimited access to millions of tracks via Comes With Music means that in addition to their favorite tracks, music lovers can discover, experiment, and keep the new music they find.”

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Currently available in 15 markets across three continents, the Nokia Music Store lets people browse or purchase music, get recommendations or search for their favorite artists, songs or albums directly from their device. Mexico was the latest country to launch a Nokia Music Store with additional markets such as Portugal, Norway and South Africa joining the fold in the coming months.

Comes With Music gives people unlimited music downloads from the Nokia Music Store for a year or 18 months. People can choose from millions of tracks to download and keep them, even once the year is over. Currently available in the United Kingdom and Singapore, Comes With Music will launch in Australia later this month. Additional launches, including Italy and Sweden are planned for the coming several months. It still seems like a work in progress for India with no clear sign of an official launch just yet, however the Beta version is a available.
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Nokia 5730 XpressMusic
The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is Nokia’s first music-optimized device to offer a full QWERTY keyboard. The heart of this Series 60 music device is the Homescreen for XpressMusic, providing access and information on music, people, games, email and calendar. The Homescreen features an improved contacts bar with up to 20 friends and family members and provides direct access to music, N-Gage and other applications, like Facebook, Photos, Ovi Contacts, Maps, messaging and more. With Ovi Contacts, people can see which friends are online, chat and even view what music they are listening to.

The Music shortcut offers quick access to the music stored on the device as well as to the Nokia Music Store where they can find information on artists, music and over-the-air downloads, directly on the device.

Other features include -

• 2.4-inch TFT LCD with a 240 x 320 pixel, 16m color resolution
• 3.5mm audio socket
• microSD card support
• 3G, GPRS/EDGE and Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0
• 3MP AF camera with Carl Zeiss optics and an LED flash
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• GPS with A-GPS support
• dedicated gaming keys for N-Gage Arena (preloaded N-Gage games)

Nokia also launched the Nokia Mobile Holder CR-110 to keep the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic firmly in place.

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic is what I can only see to be a very complete multimedia handset that covers all bases even the social networking trend.

Nokia 5330 XpressMusic
The 5330 has an edgy, top-sliced design with illumination effects making it quite a neat looking handset depending on the color. XpressMusic touch sensitive keys on the side of the display provide instant access to music. The standard 3.5mm jack offers users the ability to use any headphones of their choice and the extended battery life, according to the company, gives more than 26 hours of playback time.

This slider handset, running on Symbian Series 40 UI is equipped with –

• 2.4-inch TFT LCD with a 240 x 320 pixel, 16m color resolution
• 3.5mm audio socket
• microSD card support
• 3G, GPRS/EDGE
• Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0 (micro)
• 3MP enhanced fixed focus camera
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• GPS with A-GPS support

The Nokia 5330 XpressMusic also provides access to social networking sites that specialize in online sharing, including Ovi, Facebook, and MySpace.

Nokia 5030
Nokia 5030 is the company’s first phone with an internal FM radio antenna, which eliminates the need for a headset or external speakers just like LG’s Intenna radio handsets that were recently launched in India. The 5030 is not of the XpressMusic range but is part of a new range called XpressRadio. The one touch FM radio and channel selection keys on the side of the device ensure the product lives up to its name.

The handset is an extremely low-end device with very limited features with nothing but an FM radio feature. It doesn’t even support GPRS or even WAP for that matter but it does have a flash light and a 1.8-inch TFT LCD with a 120 x 160 pixel, 65K color resolution. Perfect for emerging markets. According to Nokia, the 5030 has up to a day of listening time and 10 hours of talk time, with a loudspeaker and is available in two colors - graphite and red.

The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic and 5330 XpressMusic are both expected to begin shipping in the third quarter of 2009 for estimated retail prices of Rs. 18, 613 (280 EUR) and Rs. 10, 636 (160 EUR) before subsidies and taxes. One of Nokia’s most affordable devices to offer an FM radio, the Nokia 5030 is expected to begin shipping in the second quarter of 2009 with an estimated retail price of less than Rs. 2, 660 (40 EUR), before taxes or subsidies.