On Thursday, Nokia launched four new mobile devices optimized for entertainment, music, and games at its Go Play event in London. Combined with the unveiling of Ovi, the door to Nokia's new Internet services, the quadruple release is designed to draw some attention away from the Apple iPhone and perhaps even the rumored Google Gphone.
All four devices -- the N81, the N95, the 5310 XpressMusic, and the 5610 XpressMusic -- feature dedicated music or gaming keys, expanded memory, large screens, and extended battery performance. The devices range in price from 225 to 560 euros and are expected to begin shipping later this year.
"From the compact Nokia 5310 XpressMusic music phone to the fully featured Nokia N81 multimedia computer, Nokia offers a range of entertainment-enabled devices for consumers who want their music, games and favorite media with them wherever they go," Nokia executive vice president Kai Oistamo said in a statement.
N95 the Star of the Show
The star of the Go Play show is Nokia's latest rendition of the N95. The phone offers all the key features of its predecessor, including a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, GPS, and Wi-Fi. The N95 addresses some consumer complaints about the last model by adding more memory and a larger screen.
The N95 8 GB offers a 2.8-inch QVGA display -- one of the largest available for a multimedia handset. With its expanded memory, the new N95 has enough storage  capacity for up to 20 hours of video or up to 6,000 songs. The N95 is expected to begin shipping in the fourth quarter of 2007 with an estimated retail price of 560 euros.
"The N95 has always had a tremendous amount of technology packed in. If you are an imaging-centric user, there's no question the N95 blows the iPhone out of the water," Avi Greengart, a mobile devices analyst at Current Analysis, said from the Nokia Go Play showroom floor in London. "For an imaging-centric user, the iPhone offers very little," he continued. "It only has a 2-megapixel camera and doesn't record video at all."
Apple iPhone vs. Nokia N95
Right now, the N95 and the iPhone are targeting different markets, Greengart said, noting that Nokia's promise for the future is a device that offers all the technology from the N95 with all the user-friendliness of the iPhone. In fact, Nokia has said it plans to launch touchscreen phones next year.
"If you are looking for an iPod that's also a phone, you'll do good with the iPhone. If you are looking for an extraordinary user interface that's fun to play with, you've got the iPhone," Greengart concluded. "But if you are looking for a camera that is also a phone and has 3G for fast Internet browsing wherever you are, not just at a hotspot, then the N95 is something you really need to look at."
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