Nokia launches three NFC smartphones

FINNISH PHONE MAKER Nokia has launched its first three NFC enabled smartphones featuring its Symbian Belle operating system.

The first is the Nokia 700, which is "echo friendly" and has a 1GHz processor. It will retail at about $390.

Going against the general trend for larger handsets, the Nokia 700 is tiny, measuring 110x50.7x9.7mm and weighing only 96g. It has a penta-band radio, WiFi and supports HSUPA 3G data transfers. The battery life is rated at up to 7.3 hours talk time or up to 465 hours on standby.

There's a 5MP full focus camera with an LED flash for capturing pictures and video. It comes with 2GB of internal storage plus a MicroSD card slot for up to 32GB of extra storage.

The screen is a 3.2in Clearblack AMOLED display with gorilla glass on top. There's also NFC built in, so users can touch to share pictures and use NFC enabled accessories such as the Nokia Play 360°.

The second phone is the Nokia 701, which Nokia claims has the "brightest display of any device on the market" so it can be used "indoors or outdoors in the sun". It also has a 1GHz processor and it will retail at about $420.

It's got a penta-band radio, with HSUPA 3G, WiFi and NFC, and it measures 11x56.8x117.3mm and weighs 131g.

There's an 8MP full focus camera with a dual-LED flash on the back, and a secondary camera at the front for video calling. Inside there's 8GB of internal storage with provision for up to 32GB of extra storage using a MicroSD card.

Meanwhile, the "affordable" Nokia 600 also has a 1GHz processor and NFC, and is apparently "the loudest smartphone we have ever produced" for users to stream music. It will be on sale for $260.

It has an FM transmitter to blast music through the nearest radio and the FM receiver has an internal antenna, so rather than plugging in headphones, users can continue to annoy people on the bus by playing music through phone speakers.

The display is 3.2in nHD capacitive touch screen with 640x360 resolution. It measures 111x53x 13mm and weighs 100g.

There's 2GB of internal storage with support for up to another 32GB of storage using a MicroSD card. There's a 5MP full-focus camera on the back with an LED flash that can take stills and HD 720p video.

The handsets will launch during this quarter. All three handsets feature Symbian Belle, the latest in a series of planned software updates to Nokia's Symbian operating system that started with Symbian Anna and will continue into 2012.

Symbian Belle increases the number of home screens from three to six, providing more room to display applications and services.

Live widgets now come in five different sizes, giving users more flexibility to personalise their handsets. Symbian Belle also includes a pull down menu and taskbar to access notifications from any of the home screens and enhancements to the web browsing experience.

It also features single-tap NFC sharing and pairing capability, which allows contacts, videos and images to be shared with other NFC-enabled devices and smartphones, as well as pairing with NFC-enabled mobile accessories such as speakers and headsets.

Nokia says gaming fans can also benefit from the NFC capabilities of the new handsets with the ability to unlock additional levels in Angry Birds or find a hidden blade in Fruit Ninja by touching two NFC enabled devices together. µ