Nokia trumpets the N91 as mobile jukebox

 

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 28 Apr 2005 at 13:10

Nokia has introduced a new sub-brand Nokia Nseries dedicated to presenting multimedia content.

The phones - the N91, N90 and N70 - were unveiled at a Destination Multimedia event in Amsterdam, where Nokia has been proclaiming 'the next step in digital convergence' with major support for mobile multimedia content.

Leading the way is the N91 (pictured, left), which is marketed as a mobile music centre as much as a phone, with its storage for up to 3,000 songs on a 4GB hard disk and its support for transferring music files from a computer and sharing playlists, a la iTunes.

The device also has dedicated music keys on its face, which slide down to reveal the phone keypad.

'The Nokia N91 delivers both a fantastic music experience and cutting-edge phone features,' enthused Jonas Geust, VP of Music at Nokia. 'What sets the Nokia N91 apart is the fact that it is always connected - you can download new music while on the move, add it to your favourite playlist and then share your playlist with friends. It's truly the world's best mobile connected jukebox.'

Connectivity options include 3G WCDMA, WLAN, Bluetooth and USB 2.0. But how much will it cost to transfer the multi-megabytes worth of data that make up a CD by 3G or Wi-Fi? At the time of writing Nokia has not yet supplied this info, and we are still investigating.

Note that the device works with Windows Media Player 10, a result of Nokia's recent collaboration with Microsoft. The deal means that Nokia can support Windows Media Audio, Windows Media Digital Rights Management 10 and Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) on its music phones. Microsoft, for its part, agreed to support Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Digital Rights Management and the MPEG Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) family of codecs in Windows Media.

The Nokia N91 is expected to become commercially available worldwide by the end of 2005.

Moving on, the 2 megapixel N90 (pictured, right), which is foldable and twistable for videoing purposes, has a Tessar lens from Zeiss and a 416 x 352 pixel display screen. The 30fps video works at a resolution of 352 x 288 pixels.

Following in the wake of Monoblocks, Clamshells, Slidephones - these specially hinged phones are dubbed Transformers by Nokia's Christian Lindholm, the inventor of the Nokia Navi-key interface and dubbed the 'father of the Series 60 user interface'.

According to Lindholm, in his online blog, such handhelds are intended to serve as a general purpose 'liferecorder', although he concedes the devices will require some user learning, figuring out how to grip the device for the most optimal transformation.

The phone is expected to become available during the second quarter of 2005.

Completing the new line up is the N70. This 3G device has a 2 megapixel camera, support for push email, a HTML browser, music player and FM radio with stereo audio. It is expected to become available during the third quarter of 2005.

More info on the new multimedia Nseries can be found at www.nokia.com/nseries/.