With Nokia World just around the corner, it is a pertinent time for some of us commentators to divvy up some opinions and talking points on how far Nokia have come, and where they are headed.

If you write for a mobile based site or blog, why not join me in making some predictions?  It’s always good to shoot wide of the mark sometimes.  Who knows.

The keynote address from OPK this year is going to be particularly important.  Not only for his own personal role at the helm of the Finnish giant, but for the stock market value of the company as a whole.  The main focus of OPK’s strategy of Nokia has been one of realignment.  To move the company to a more diverse standpoint of being a services company,  rather than the sole hardware company of the past.  Sure, we are going to get the obligatory roundup of the success of services such as Ovi Maps, but maybe the markets will demand something slightly more extravagant than a mere notice of additional content hosts to the platform.  It is the overall performance of Nokia (and Symbian for that matter) when compared to their rivals which is where OPK is going to have to tread carefully.

There is a huge amount of pressure for Nokia to come up with something that will rival iOS and Android, and Nokia have staked their claim, along with Intel, in MeeGo.  That is all well and good, but now is the time to start seeing some fruit falling from the MeeGo tree, or at the very least ripening on the branches.  For this to not happen is unimaginable.  Some evidence of a cold, hard MeeGo device, being almost market ready is where Nokia needs to be.  Nothing less.

A few PowerPoint slides showing the interface is not going to cut it.

The Ovi Store could do with a refresh, and I am confident that there will be at least some announcement in this area.  We reported last week that Nokia were now offering to make the road to the Ovi Store both free and more speedy, and I’m sure Nokia will want to tell us about that, and any analysis of numbers.

We must also not forget the corporate and enterprise users that are shifting to the iPhone in their droves.  Nokia could really steal a march here as companies look to replace their ageing Nokia E71 fleet with something new and different, but not radical.  Maybe incorporating something along the lines of the ‘touch and type’ scenario with the highly popular form factor of the E71/72 would turn out to be a very successful product line.

One market that could really have an effect on Nokia’s future going forward is in the US.  For many reasons, Nokia has never done very well in North America, so any change in policy is likely to have any detrimental impact on their success.  Expect some more news on operator tie in’s, along the lines of the Nokia E73 Mode for T-Mobile.  I think T-Mobile is going to be the main operator of choice for Nokia,  as they have the expertise to overcome some of T-Mobile’s coverage problems with the UMA technology.

Whatever the outcome of Nokia World, I’m sure Nokia will treat us to a few surprises along the way.  Be sure to subscribe to our RSS FEED to keep up to date with all the Nokia news, and follow us on Twitter.

What do you think will be happening at Nokia World?  Care to make your own predictions?   Why not leave us a comment, or write your own blog post and I will update this post with a link to your thoughts.

Last week we reported to you the fact that you were now able to pre-order a Nokia N8 direct from Nokia themselves in many countries around the world.  Even, in the US.  The US!  Nokia and the US have always had a troubled relationship.

So why no pre-order availability in the UK from an official Nokia source?

Of course, any official response to this question would involve the words ‘out’, ‘roll’, ‘worldwide’, and ‘phased’.  Although not necessarily in that order.

Whilst this may well be the case, I’m praying that something more sinister isn’t going on.

You see Nokia like putting different product codes on their devices dependant on the territory they will be sold in.  This has a huge effect on when and how often, a particular device, in a particular country, gets it’s firmware update.

A few years ago, any SIM free unlocked Nokia device sold in the UK would usually come with a ‘Euro’ product code.  This was good.  The Euro product codes would normally be somewhere near the top of the list for firmware updates.  However, in the past couple of years the devices sent to the UK had something known as a UK CV (country variant) product code on them.  I know this because I bought an N82 from a Nokia Shop with the horrible little disease already infecting it.

The problem was evident right from the start.  The rest of the world seemed to be on v20 firmware, with my N82 languishing with V12.  The V20 firmware wasn’t just a couple of weeks behind like some would make you believe.  The Euro N82′s got upgraded to V30 before my N82 got to V20.

This is where I hope Nokia is not going.  Is the delay with the UK because they are up to their same old tricks and developing a country variant product code firmware solely for the UK?

I sincerely hope not.

If there is any official response from Nokia available, please try to word your answer ommiting those examples I used earlier. KTHX.

What do you think the delay is?  Am I just paranoid that Nokia will drop the ball?

Let us know in the comments or via Twitter @thenokianetwork

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Today, Nokia have released details of their latest S60 5th Edition smartphone in the guise of the Nokia 5250.

At a glance it looks like a cross between the 5800 and the X6, but with Nokia being what they are, it’s never as simple as that is it?

The 5250 is not aimed at your discerning mobile phone geek, but instead at the low cost markets primarily in the teen and emerging markets.  With it’s launch price of 115 Euros, this is bringing a touchscreen Symbian experience to a whole new demographic.  Obviously to bring this device in at such a low price point, a few items have been missed off the specification sheet such as WiFi, 3G and GPS.

What it does have though, is a 2.8 inch TFT touchscreen running at a resolution of 640 x 360, support for up to 16Gb of storage using a microSD card, and a 3.5mm audio socket.

It has a reasonably respectable 1000mAh battery which should see you with over 7 hours of talk time, and 18 days of standby time, although the usual caveats apply here.

You will find your usual range of applications available from the Ovi Store, and in some countries the Nokia 5250 will be available with the Ovi Music Unlimited service (formally known as Comes With Music).

I am sure this phone will sell by the absolute bucket load, and be an extremely popular device.  I do have my concerns about Nokia omitting both 3G and WiFi when it comes to items such as downloading applications from the Ovi Store, or uploading any photo’s taken with the 2 megapixel camera.

It certainly looks a nice device, and has a fantastic battery life.

The Nokia 5250 will be available to purchase in Q4 2010, and will come in 5 colours, dark grey, blue, red, purple and white.

What do you think of the Nokia 5250?  Will you consider picking one up?

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This is not a smart phone, I realise this, and no self respecting phone nerd is going to be impressed.

However, this device is all things to all men (and women), and definitely has it’s own use case scenario.

Disregard this phone at your peril, almost every electrician, plumber and carpenter in the land will have one of these soon.  Ok, maybe I exaggerated a bit there.

The Nokia 1616 became available to preorder on the Nokia UK website for an insanely low £29.  Yes, that is an unlocked, SIM free, do what you want with, brand new phone.

It has a dust proof keypad, and a lightweight ruggedized exterior, a built in torch function and FM radio with 3.5mm headphone jack.

Sure, it’s lacking somewhat in the specification department to what we are used to, but it makes up for in having a standby time of up to 34 days, and talk time of 13 hours.  So if you are more of a chatterbox then twitterer, this could well be on your list.

As £29 is it’s preorder, unlocked price, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this knocking about for £10 on a PAYG bundle.

This is maybe where it comes in at it’s most useful.  As an emergency phone.  Charge it up, throw it in your bag or glove box and forget about it.  Only to be pulled out in times of emergency.  When you leave your main phone at home, drop it down the toilet or just simply run out of battery.  If you have an Android device, you will be used to this 4 hour battery life phenomenon.

So there we have it.  Completely no frills.  But maybe a lifesaver.

You can find the full official data sheet HERE.

What do you think of the Nokia 1616?  Will you consider picking one up as a backup device?  I certainly will.

Let us know in the comments or via Twitter @thenokianetwork

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Everyone handles their each individual email account differently, so it is vitally important that the user is given as much choice of how they perform tasks as is humanely possible.  Without forgetting to ensure the UI is simple yet effective, and also throw in support for a whole host of the most popular email handlers.

This is where this video from the Nokia Messaging Team comes in useful (there is also an accompanying blog post).  Whilst we must remember that the client possibly still isn’t completely finished, it still looks pretty nice to me.

From the start Nokia Messaging has in built support for Ovi Mail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Hotmail and Mail for Exchange along with a manual setup for any other particular host.

There is kinetic scrolling throughout the application, rich HTML fucntionality and support for up to 10 homescreen widgets.  You will also be pleased to see the multi-touch elements of the capacitive touchscreen on the N8 has been utilised, with pinch to zoom within the email content.

Also a new feature which has been added is remote contact lookup directly from the server on Gmail and Hotmail.

So go ahead and watch the video below, and see what is coming on the Nokia N8.

Do you think of what you have seen in the new Nokia Messaging client for the N8?  Anything they have missed out?

Let us know in the comments or via Twitter @thenokianetwork

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I’d like to think that Nokia heard about The Nokia Network being back up and running, and decided to do us a little favour by announcing a new device the very next day.  I can dream.

Anyway, back to the story.

Nokia today released the all new Nokia X3 Touch and Type.  In overview, it is a mono-block form factor device, with a T9 keypad running Series 40 operating system.  Here’s the killer part though, it also sports a 2.4inch QVGA touchscreen for navigation, instead of the usual d-pad.

A quick run through of the specifications reveal it’s a quad band GSM device, weighing 78g.  It has 802.11n WiFi support, a 3.5mm headphone jack, 5 megapixel camera, and support for HSPA mobile data.

Head on over to the Nokia Conversations blog to watch a couple of video’s about the new Nokia X3 Touch and Type, and check out the official data sheet for some more juicy specifications.

Make sure you check back for any more details as they are released.

One last thing, Nokia have a habit of releasing different devices, but with the same name.  This is not to be confused with the ‘old’ Nokia X3 which is still available.

EDIT: I have also added this AudioBoo to accompany this (and others in the future) blog post, to hopefully provide to some opinion and information.  Or to listen to if you are sick of reading!

Do you think the X3 will be able to fit into your lifestyle?  Who will the target demographic be?

Let us know in the comments or via Twitter @thenokianetwork

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Whilst you may not think that the title of the post is overly interesting, it is rather important nonetheless.

Application development is where all the money is right now, and vendor wars are won and lost on the amount of applications they have in their respective stores.

The Ovi Store, which is Nokia’s version, is lagging behind somewhat, and Nokia are working to address this.

Some great news for this has just became available, that as of yesterday, 16th August, the Symbian signing process has been made free by Nokia.  Of course your first question is going to be ‘What’s the catch?’.  Well the catch is that they are only going to be providing the free Symbian Signing for applications that are submitted to the Ovi Store.  Your application, must also be able to stand up to scrutiny.

Whilst this will no doubt upset some, it’s actually very fair, as some developers will try to sell their applications outside of the Ovi ecosystem to undercut it.

The Symbian Signing process used to take around four weeks and cost $215.  As of today, it is free, and only takes around 2 weeks.  Full details can be found here.

This really is great news, and is a very positive step for both Nokia and the Ovi Store.  Lets just hope the quality assurance side to the signing process is not bypassed in any way to help speed up the process, or else this will have a detrimental effect.

Do you think this reduction in cost will be welcomed by developers?

Let us know in the comments or via Twitter @thenokianetwork

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As I realign myself with where in the world we all are with Nokia, I decided to head on over to our lovely mobile network operators in the UK and see what up and coming Nokia devices are on the cards.

The normal fashion of releasing handsets to carriers is that they usually get a set period of being the sole carrier to deploy a specific device.  We can see this quite obviously in contention I would imagine, from the results I found tonight.

Lets start with the device I think will be out the soonest, the Nokia C6.  In fact, by what is written on T-Mobile’s website, it would seem they are already shipping it, but I’ll stand to be corrected on that.  You will find the Nokia C6 for free on selected plans from £20 a month.

Next up is the Nokia E5.  This is a budget business device running Symbian S60 3rd Edition, and continues on in the arena dominated by the E71/72 and the Blackberries.  You will find the E5 on the Orange website, in the definate ‘coming soon’ section.  This is one to watch out for, if it get’s priced right.

O2 don’t have any Nokia devices in their ‘coming soon‘ section, and it’s the same with Three.

The big one though is Vodafone.  They proudly display that they will be releasing the Nokia N8 ‘soon‘, and that you should register your details to keep up to date.  I would expect them to start letting you have an N8 for free on a 24 month contract from £35 a month, although we shall wait for confirmation.

Which one will you be going for?

Let us know in the comments or via Twitter @thenokianetwork

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News has been slowly trickling out over the past few days in different countries of the Nokia N8 becoming available for pre-order.

Italy, Spain, France and Germany were last week, with an average price between them all of around £390.

Today, it looks like the USA became the next market to have the pre-order functionality made available from official Nokia sources.  It is also the bargin of the bunch at $549 or £350.

So what about the UK?

Well, upon checking the UK online Nokia store tonight, it would seem that it still isn’t available.  However, Play.com do have the N8 available for pre-order on their website sporting a fairly hefty £419.

What is slightly more alarming is that Play state that the RRP of the N8 is actually £479, and due for release in the UK on 8th October!  Now, this date is sure to change in the near future, so don’t worry too much.

If you want something to worry about, then it’s the price.  We know the N8 isn’t likely to be the all-out flagship for Nokia, but they are certainly starting to look like flagship prices!

Are you planning on getting a Nokia N8?  Have you already placed your order?

Let us know in the comments or via Twitter @thenokianetwork

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Yes, you read the title correctly.

We are finally back!

I have firmly came to the opinion that Nokia may well be back on the path to the good old days.  First off is the Symbian Foundation.  I was very sceptical to start with, but now that it’s fruits are finally about to come into season, from what I have seen so far the harvest will be mediocre this autumn.  But a marvellous bumper harvest next year!

Now, I am not going to sit here and blow smoke up your proverbial that Nokia is now perfect and can do no wrong.

Their services strategy in the form of ‘Ovi‘ is brilliant in some areas, and enormously wide of the marker in others.  Think Ovi Maps, and Ovi Share for this.  I don’t need to explain.

Their marketing team (at least in the UK) in the form of WOMworld, ran by the guys n gals at 1000heads have done a great job of trying to keep the buzz alive surrounding Nokia, even in the dark ages about 6 months ago when nothing positive seemed to be coming from the Finnish behemoth.

I am also very excited about the upcoming release of the Nokia N8.  The first Symbian^3 device to hit the mainstream market.  Sure, the software will not be point perfect on the first attempt, but the hardware?  Wow!  That hardware looks phenomenal!

I look forward to getting my sticky fingers on one sooner rather than later, but I doubt I will be top of the list for the review devices seeing how critical I have been of Nokia over the past 12 months or so.  Maybe I should try the blackmail, or blatant bribery route with the WOMworld folks and see how I get on.

So for now, stick around and lets hope the future is bright.  I REALLY need a decent Nokia device back in my possession.  Android really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

We also have a brand new Twitter account @thenokianetwork so please head on over and add us as a friend, so our follower number doesn’t look too pathetic.

Thanks.