Nokia hints at new touch-based Communicator

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 2nd 2008 at 7:31PM

Every so often, Nokia will pop out a brick-like beast of a clamshell smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard -- a black sheep in Espoo's lineup in every sense of the word. These so-called Communicators even had their own custom Symbian-based operating system, Series 80, until the E90 came around and brought 'em in line with the rest of the S60 crowd. Of course, S60 just took a big leap to the world of touch today, and that means the E90's starting to fall a bit behind -- so what's next? Nokia dropped a little teaser during its webcast today in the form of a stylized touch-based concept bearing strong family ties to the E90 and its ancestors, suggesting S60 5th Edition won't spell doom for the form factor. If it materializes, history suggests it won't be a mainstream device -- but if the real thing can look as good as this render, who knows?

Filed under: Handsets, Nokia, Symbian

Tags: communicator, nokia, s60, s60 5th edition, s60 touch, S605thEdition, S60Touch

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Highly Ranked

Galen20K @ Oct 2nd 2008 7:50PM

Wow LOoks really Engaging!!!

SHows PROMISE!!!

- D

Neutral

Armo @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:41PM

i wonder if this thing will ever land on T-Mobile (USA). i wouldnt be surprised. at the rate they're going, they might even top sprint and become the 3rd biggest carrier in the next 1-2 years. this wont come out anytime before Q3 2009 tho. but when it does, its gunna own the smartphone world.

Highly Ranked

Galen20K @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:07PM

AbsoLutely!!! I completely Agree with you Armo>>>>

The Future Looks BRIGHT for T-Mobile, I'm Happy i've been with them for over 8 years.

Neutral

squiggleslash @ Oct 3rd 2008 11:00AM

It'll be available unlocked so there shouldn't be a problem putting it on T-Mobile unless they ignore 1700MHz UMTS or something silly. That's not impossible, when they released the 9290 in the US, GPRS was in full swing and the two biggest GSM operators, AT&T and Cingular (for they were separate) were running dual 850/1900MHz networks. Nokia made the utterly bizarre decision to limit the 9290 to 1900MHz, and CSD data.

I've always been a disappointed fan of the 9000 series. I loved my original 9000 though it had limitations, went with the 9290, and gave up on the phones after reading the 9300/9500 specs. The phones are ok, but the lack of a touchscreen (or other pointing device) really limited the UI. The build quality has also always been low, with my 9000's battery expanding and blowing apart, and the 9290 just falling to pieces.

And now they're planning to release this just at the same time as Google is coming out with a decent phone OS and UI. I hope it's the phone that finally lives up to the promise.

Neutral

youngcalihottie @ Oct 3rd 2008 7:25PM

if this has 850/1900 3g then i will get it
i had a 9290, 9500, and 9300.
loved them all
...except the same thing kept happening to me with all 3:
after a drop, the hinge broke. that caused the screens to stop working.
i still think a ribbon cable and new housing wouldve fixed them all,
but i couldnt get anyone to work on them since they were all imported
i really really wanted the e90 but with no US 3g it wasnt worth it
so ill cross my fingers on this one
especially since i still have fax service on my account but have never owned any other phones that worked with it. used to be so convenient!

Neutral

Armo @ Oct 3rd 2008 12:02AM

@ Galen20K

its cool and all that u love tmobile as much as i do but how have u been with them for 8 years if they've been around since 2002 which would be 6 years. LOL

Neutral

Sameer Surampalli @ Oct 2nd 2008 10:55PM

Well, unless he's rocking it over in Deutschland. They've been hanging longer over there.

Neutral

Galen20K @ Oct 3rd 2008 12:41AM

Respectfully Check your Facts, Obviously I was with them back when they were VoiceStream also. SO yeah, think before you post.

Cheers!!!

- D

Neutral

squiggleslash @ Oct 3rd 2008 11:04AM

T-Mobile has been around in one form or another since the mid-1990s and is one of the US's oldest PCS companies (I think Sprint Spectrum's original GSM network predates Omnipoint and Voicestream, but only just.

It started off as Voicestream and Omnipoint, two PCS GSM carriers. They merged, and also bought out most of the independent GSM carriers in a merger spree that went on until the early part of this decade. Voicestream was then bought in 2002 by DT, and renamed to T-Mobile to be in line with DT's other mobile phone networks.

Neutral

Apocalypso @ Oct 3rd 2008 2:45AM

LOL, this Nokia's concept is shown almost two years ago!

Neutral

Richard @ Oct 5th 2008 4:45AM

A typical Nokia phone: very strong on design. But that stunning design will mean a totally flat, single piece "touch" keyboard with zero tactile feedback resulting in zero usability.