Business Anywhere Blog

Best Buy has begun selling the N96, the flagship N series phone from Nokia. This is a dual slider phone with a large 2.8 inches display, 16GB of memory and 5Mpxl camera.  You can read more about this phone here and here. If you have your heart set on this phone, be ready for the sticker shock. Boy Genius Report is saying that the Best Buy is selling the device for $799 in the store. However, online, Best Buy is selling it at $899.99 and is on back order.

Yesterday, I visited the local Verizon Wireless store. While talking to the salesperson about the Blackberry Storm, he indicated that the phone will be available by mid-November, possibly as late as Black Friday. That is understandable. However, given the delays with Blackberry Bold, one has to wonder whether RIM will ever get its act together and launch the Storm on time. Of course, they have been careful with not committing any specific dates for the launch but rumors have been for early November launch and Best Buy is preparing to launch it November 16.

The other piece of information was the pricing. According to the salesperson, the phone would cost somewhere between $300 and $400 with 2 year contract and contract free it is somewhere around $750. If this is accurate, I have only one thing to say to both RIM and Verizon Wireless: What are you thinking?

With iPhone starting at $199 with contract and the HTC Dream G1 slated to cost between $150 and $250, why would anyone shell out $300 or more for the Blackberry Storm, especially when its features are on par with some of these phone and way below the phones like the Nokia N96 or Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1 which fall in the $700+ price range. It is even more insane when Vodafone, Verizon Wireless’ parent is giving it away for free with 18 month contract.

Given this economy, pricing it high is a sure recipe for lower sales. No wonder than that Microsoft is lurking and playing a waiting game.  Lets hope some saner minds prevail and the pricing is more competitive!

Nokia today announced the launch of a mobile TV Channel for its flagship phone, the N96, according to UK-based The Inquirer newspaper. The channel to be called ‘Capsule N96′ will launch asa pilot on October 1st in UK and will be available on the N96 website. If the pilot is successful, it will be expanded in November. The channel will include aptly sized, 96 seconds mobisodes on motoring, fashion, gadgets, comedy, culture or homes, each with its own title.

Now that the Nokia N96 is available for purchase, the reviews are starting to come in. Here is one from Nick Anstee on All About Symbian with photos too. First off, the N96 is smaller than the iPhone, but nonetheless equally impressive. Nick was impressed by the built and the screen. He liked the camera and the photo quality is good. You can tell looking at the photos he uploaded. The long battery life and good quality sound certainly make it a desirable multimedia phone and the new flagship for the N series.

Nokia today announced that it has begun shipping the highly anticipated flagship product, the N96. It sells for €550 before taxes and subsidies. Just to refresh, the N96 comes with 5Mpxl camera, 2.8 inches display, geotagging, N-gage gaming, and Mobile TV support. You can read more about this phone here and here.

Here an in-depth review of the Nokia N85 by Anton Spiridonov of Smape in Russia. Anton has, as always done a very good job of reviewing this phone and comparing it to Nokia N96 including some side-by-side photos of the phones and also of various subjects. According to Anton,

Nokia N85 isn’t a controversial product like the cult N95: it doesn’t display any apparent weaknesses (e.g. short battery life, assembly quality) which served as good soil for the criticism which sprouted up almost immediately whenever N95 was being discussed; the functionality level didn’t jump far above that of the predecessor model, though the implementation of certain features was greatly improved. At the same time, the price isn’t biting.

The Nokia N85 is truly a good product aimed at middle market consumer who is looking for a phone that can play several other roles including music player, game controller and a camera. It will debut in Europe for 550 euros in October. Now, we know that the N85 has been approved by FCC, so we will have to see how long before it starts selling Stateside.

Thanks, Anton!

Here is an in-depth review of the upcoming Nokia N96 from TIm Wijkman at Mobile Phone Helpdesk Europe. Tim covers all the key features of the N96 including Mobile TV, design multimedia, touchscreen, etc.  It is good read and he has done justice to the device. It certainly makes you think about buying the phone. If you do think the N96 is for you, then your wait is almost over. It will be released in Netherlands on September 15 by the Dutch carrier KPN, three short weeks from now. Other European carriers will release it in October. It will also be available in India in September. No word on US availability yet.

Looks like the good folks at FCC have tested and passed the North American version of Nokia’s highly anticipated N96, the follow-up to its popular N95 phone. This is a quad-band GSM and tri-band CDMA phone with Wi-Fi capabilities. It also has a large 2.8 inches display, 16GB of internal flash memory and 128MB of RAM and S60, 3rd edition software, Mobile TV access, microSD card slot, and weighs only 125 grams.

For all of you who are waiting for Christmas to splurge on a new phone, I both envy and pity you. With Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and RIM all releasing some really cool phones, you will have a hard time deciding which phone to buy. Oh, and in case your heart is set on the Nokia N96, the MSRP is US$800.

Yesterday, Nokia announced its 2nd quarter 2008 results. The results were impressive to say the least. The company sold over 1 million phones a day in Q2. Let me repeat, 1 million phones a day! Not over a weekend or 2 days. It made 1.4 billion euros in profit on revenues of 13.15 million euros for the quarter. It also increased its device sales forecast for the rest of 2008 stating that the mobile device market globally was up 10% over 2007.

However, the most exciting part of the presentation, if you can call it that given the nature of these calls, was the announcements of new devices for the remainder of the year.  First off, Nokia is working on several touch screen models aimed at all segments of the market that it plans on bringing out later this year. Secondly,  take a look at the devices below taken from the 2nd quarter earnings call presentation. There are a couple of devices that take on both Apple and RIM directly.

Nokia N96, which is an upgrade to the popular N95, will come with 16 GB memory, Mobile TV access, microSD card slot, and host of other features which put the iPhone 3G to shame. Granted, the N96 does not have touch screen, but it has a lot of other oomph that a lot of folks would consider and at a cheaper price-point than iPhone 3G. 

Nokia also takes on RIM with its E71 product which looks like the Blackberry Bold, but is sleeker, weighs less, has longer lasting battery and better 3.2Mpxl camera than the 2Mpxl camera in Blackberry Bold.

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