3 Free Speakers With The New Nokia N91

Written by Adam Gosling

Wednesday, 05 July 2006

The Nokia N91 multimedia handheld gets rigged up with a free set of $99.95 speakers from 3. With 4GB of storage on board, the Nokia N91 can hold up to 3,000 audio and video tracks. This phone is designed primarily as a music phone, but that doesn't mean Nokia has short changed it in other areas. There's a 2 megapixel camera with a flash for instance. The camera takes pics up to 1600x1200 or MPEG4 video and has a timer as well as a 20x stepless zoom. The device is a smart phone based on the Symbian S60 platform that supports calendar, contacts, to-do list and the like and you can synchronise with wirelessly with Bluetooth. There's a host of connectivity options on this Quad Band phone. Obviously you'll be using WCDMA on the 3 network and the phone supports Bluetooth and has a USB port, but you'll also find WLAN connectivity so if you're in range of a hot spot you can access the Internet via 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. Being on the 3 network you'll get an email addresses and you'll also be able to access regular POP3 email as well. First and foremost, however, this phone is designed as a music player. Apart form the ability to load your own ripped music in a variety of formats, the phone supports DRM protected WMA files, you can download them from the 3 music store, listen to the FM radio, watch Rage Mobile TV or take advantage of the 75 minutes worth of music video that 3 is pre-loading on these phones for you. The dedicated music player software has intuitive controls and can create playlists like a regular MP3 player. Though at nearly a thousand bucks up front, you'd expect a top quality music player, so Nokia lets you view and modify the metadata (tags) right there on the phone. There's a mixer, 5-band equaliser, loudness control and music DRC (Dynamic Range Compression). You can answer calls while listening to music and music pauses and then resumes again when the call is ended all using the hi-fi stereo headset with remote that is bundled with the device. This slider phone is quite as tiny as an iPod nano. It weighs in at a hefty 164 grams, is 113.1 mm in length, 55.2 mm wide and 22 mm thick. But when you consider that apart from using this as a phone, you can surf the Net over Wi-Fi, or use it as a wireless modem to attach your laptop to the internet at broadband speeds, you have to admit it has a few advantages over an iPod. The display (176 x 208, 262k colour) has automatic brightness control, as does the keypad. There's dedicated keys for the music player Talk time is 3 to 4 hours and standby on 3 is rated at 170 hours. Music playback is supposed to last 10 hours, but all these numbers will change depending on how you use the device. 3 is pushing the new phones on pre-paid plans with the cheapest being $36 on a $29 cap for two years. The phone would be $895 to buy outright and you can get it on 3's Bonus plus 77 Plan ($0 with $77 min monthly spend over 24 months) and Business Bonus 100 Plan ($0 with $100 min monthly spend over 24 months). Related news items Nokia E51: Smarter Than It Looks -19/09/2007 Nokia: Smooth, Black, Curvey & 3G -21/08/2007 Nokia Prism Has Mad Mod Look -07/08/2007 Nokia To Release In-Car Speakerphone -05/07/2007 Nokia 3109: The Mobile Phone Refined -23/05/2007 Newer news items Mobile Music - Car Makers Plug Into iPod -05/08/2006 Nokia Sells 1 Million 3250's In Under Four Months -12/07/2006 There's No Pool Here, But I Want One For The Beach -10/07/2006 Via Make Ultra Mobiles 40% Smaller -07/07/2006 Microsoft iPod Rumours Gather Weight -05/07/2006 Older news items Digital Free To Air In Your Pocket -28/06/2006 Let's Face It. The iPod Is Doomed -15/06/2006 M2 Adds Optus, Engin In Quick Succession -30/05/2006 How Mobile Is This? iPod Gets Sporty -28/05/2006 Another Aussie Venture Scores With 3 UK -17/05/2006 Tag This Now: