A glimpse of Nokia Connection 2009

Singapore — At the Nokia Connection event held in Singapore early this week, the Finnish giant demonstrated its commitment to harness the power of the Internet and mobility to deliver innovative services and solutions to consumers.

Nokia unveiled a number of devices with solutions that can be personalized to connect people in new and better ways.

“Nokia envisions a world where people will be empowered to share and connect with what matters most to them through highly personalized and contextually relevant solutions,” said Nokia’s EVP and chief development officer Mary McDowell in a keynote at the opening ceremony of the event.

“The Asia-Pacific market has been an extremely important region for Nokia over the years and remains hugely important to Nokia. Asian consumers’ eagerness to use technology makes this region a great place to introduce new devices and services,” she added.

“Singapore and many of its Southeast Asian neighbors represented here today will be among the first to take advantage of the future solutions Nokia intends to bring as we connect the planet so that everyone can participate,” McDowell said.

Chris Carr, vice president for sales in the SEAP region, commented: “We are witnessing exciting developments in our industry driven by the rapid convergence of the Internet and mobile. This is not only happening in advanced markets but also for everyone.”

“According to industry estimates, we have already reached the milestone of four billion mobile connections globally early this year. The next phase of growth will be very much driven by the emerging markets, including Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam,” he added.

“Many of the (people) from these markets are accessing the Internet, information, education, and entertainment on their first mobile. Nokia is playing a pivotal role in this transformation,” Carr said.

Taking the spotlight at the event was Nokia’s new flagship handset, the N97, a touch-screen and slide-out full-QWERTY keypad multimedia powerhouse boasting a whopping 32GB storage capacity, fast WLAN and HSDPA connectivity, Carl Zeiss lens with five-megapixel resolution, 3.5-inch 16:9 widescreen LCD with Flash support for Internet videos, mapping capabilities, and A-GPS with voice-guided navigation, among many others.

Another multimedia overachiever seen at Nokia Connection 2009 was the N86, a dual-slider handset featuring a stunning eight-megapixel, wide-angle Carl Zeiss camera with a powerful dual-LED flash, 2.6-inch OLED screen made of hardened glass, and 8GB of storage capacity. Its GPS receiver allows it to have full voice and pedestrian navigation and even geotagging of photos.

On the enterprise handset side, Nokia unveiled the E72, its latest full-QWERTY smartphone which brings a rich mobile e-mail and instant messaging experience right out of the box.

Hot on the heels of the hugely successful Nokia E71, this Eseries addition maintains the essential elements of its predecessor while improving its capabilities in a number of areas.

Now boasting a five-megapixel camera, the E72 lets users set up instant messaging (IM) accounts provided by Nokia Messaging direct from the home-screen. In just a few steps, device owners will be able to connect to their favorite IM accounts such as Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk and Ovi, among many others.

The Nokia E72 is expected to begin shipping late in the third quarter.

For music lovers, Nokia showed off its new 5530 XpressMusic, a compact XpressMusic device that uses a touch interface for accessing people and content on the brilliantly clear home-screen.

The scrolling Contacts Bar provides direct access to 20 people and their latest conversations and media updates. The home-screen also features one-touch shortcuts to content and popular social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic follows in the footsteps of the popular Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, expanding the touch XpressMusic phone range with a youthful device that has a solid stainless steel frame finish and comes in five vivid colors.

The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic is expected to begin shipping in the third quarter.

Nokia also unveiled the 3710 fold, a handset that balances eye-catching design with the latest in mobile functionality.

The compact Nokia 3710 fold adds a personal touch with an artistic pattern on the cover and comes with an appealing array of features in a familiar user interface. It is expected to be available in the fourth quarter.

Sharing the spotlight with the new handsets at Nokia Connection 2009 was Ovi Store and Forum Nokia, Nokia’s means of building a sound business ecosystem with content providers and third-party developers and making it reach millions of Nokia users. Forum Nokia works closely with more than four million developers from around the world to develop applications for Nokia devices.

Representatives of content providers and developers like Gambit, Singapore Press Holdings and tenCube were present at the Nokia Connection 2009 to demonstrate to the media and analysts their innovative applications developed for Nokia and Ovi Store.

With Ovi Store, content providers and developers have the opportunity to distribute their media and applications to millions of Nokia consumers across more than 75 Nokia devices.

Nokia’s latest flagship device, the N97, which is just hitting the region’s store shelves as you read this, is the first device to ship with Ovi Store, offering consumers easy access to applications, games, videos, and much more.