Nokia's 'Nautilus' to plumb touchscreen depths
Last fall, Nokia admitted it had fallen behind in what proved the key trend in smartphones in 2008, touchscreens, preferably with multitouch functionality. A leaked product roadmap pointed to a hat trick of touchscreen devices to join the 'Tube' that Nokia launched late last year, to great acclaim, and now the mighty Finn is about to make good on its promises of a full-on touchscreen onslaught.
The 'Tube', officially known as the XpressMusic 5800, is about to get a slimmer stablemate, the 5530, also with the Comes With Music unlimited music subscription service bundled. The blogs are full of a phone that will feature a 2.9-inch touchscreen, 3.2-megapixel camera, FM radio, 150Mb internal memory, Wi-Fi and microSD expansion. It will run Symbian Series 60 5th Edition.
However, after bolstering the musicphone range, Nokia is expected to try to shift the goalposts somewhat with devices that push beyond Apple and LG, rather than just playing catch-up. A large 4.2-inch touchscreen device with slide-out keyboard is slated for the second half of the year, plus the more futuristic 'Project Nautilus', apparently scheduled to unleash its first products about one year from now. Insiders say this product family will be superslim, with a QWERTY keyboard that slide out when triggered by sensors, raising the keys up automatically for easier typing.
This would show Nokia seeking a lead in an area that most touchscreen vendors are investigating – new ways to interact with the phone via strokes or gestures rather than direct finger touches. Nokia, according to Pocket-lint, is also expected to release smartphones next quarter with vibration technology from Immersion to improve the responsiveness of touchscreen typing.
In tandem with these smartphone developments, Nokia will push further into the enterprise and Linux areas, planning a netbook jointly created with Taiwanese ODM Foxconn, plus a range of mobile internet devices in its 'E' series (optimized for email and all with QWERTYs), and a new range of products running its favored Linux platform, based on Maemo, and potentially a challenger to Android's bid to be the mobile Linux of choice.
