By Stevie Smith Sep 21, 2007, 13:46 GMT
While tech media attention is presently centred firmly around the much talked about European arrival of Apple’s touch-screen iPhone handset, Nokia Corporation, the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturer, is taking the opportunity to subtly slide an Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) unit into the bulging hardware ring.
Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia’s new 6301 phone offers a stylishly sleek stainless steel design that delivers impressive aesthetics alongside voice and data mobility across GSM cellular and WLAN networks via UMA technology. By utilising UMA, Nokia claims its 6301 will "integrate the benefits of landline and a mobile phone, including seamless indoor coverage, sound quality and affordability" in a single package.
"The convergence of mobile and fixed/land-line technologies means consumers are looking for products that can help make their lives easier," said Peter Ropke, senior VP of Mobile Phones at Nokia Corp. "With the Nokia 6301 utilizing UMA technology, worldwide triband GSM coverage is combined with superior indoor WLAN coverage to create a device that people can use in virtually any situation."
Nokia also outlines that with the 6301, users can use the GSM network or a broadband Internet-connected WLAN network for mobile services, which will deliver "excellent indoor coverage both at office and home" environments. And it’s not just the consumer that benefits from the 6301, with the phone’s carriers being able to deliver their voice and data services via WLAN, enhancing the availability of their complete mobile services while also reducing network deployment costs too.
From a specs point of view, the Nokia 6301 handset physically weighs in at a paltry 93 grams and is a slender 13.1mm in thickness. It also comes complete with an onboard 2.0 megapixel camera with an 8x digital zoom function and a 2-inch QVGA view-finding screen. Featuring 30MB of internal memory and a 128MB microSD card – with support for up to 4GB – the Nokia 6301 also offers an MP3 player, integrated FM radio and a hands-free speaker. The 6301 also comes equipped with its own DT-23 desk stand to dock the handset during the charging process while remaining connected to WLAN.
Initially available through Orange as part of its Unik/Unique range, the Nokia 6301 will arrive in selected markets across Europe before the close of Q4 2007 with a retail price of 230 Euros.
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