We pretty much gathered that the 6650 was real from that page on Nokia's domain that has since been pulled, but if there was any lingering doubt, this should take care of it. The specs here confirm what Nokia had spilled -- most importantly, that the radio is rocking HSDPA on the 850 and 1900MHz bands, just what the doctor ordered to get some action on AT&T. A quick perusal of the manual shows that it's N-Gage compatible, though we were a bit surprised to see mentions of video calling; our guess is that they just haven't updated it for AT&T's inexplicable aversion to that particular feature yet. It'll also feature S60 3.2, so if you're in the States and S60 is how you roll, this puppy's got to be on your short list. Our money is on it getting official at CTIA next week.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Hey, S60 owners, have you had this nagging sense over the past year or two that you're somehow getting slighted by Nokia, but you haven't been able to put your finger on why? No worries, we've figured it out: it's the calculator. Nokia's mainstream dumbphone platform has featured a far better and more capable built-in calculator app than S60 for a while now, which really doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense; granted, you can get better ones from third-party developers, but the point is you shouldn't have to. Thankfully, Nokia agrees, and they've started to toy around with the idea of replacing the S60 calc with its little brother's -- a relatively easy process, since the latter is written in Java. On one hand, it'd be a shame to see a core S60 app move from native code to Java, but on the other hand, if it's a better app and the JVM is transparent, who really cares? Anyway, the ported app is chilling in Nokia's Beta Labs as we speak, just waiting for customer feedback before the higher-ups make a judgment call on whether to integrate it into future S60 releases. The power's in your hands, people, so you may as well take advantage.

Well, here's one we didn't see coming: it seems that AT&T has wised up to the fact that Americans like their Symbian (well, at least a few of 'em do, anyway) and wants to keep S60-equipped options on the table. Yes, granted, AT&T is a founding member of the Symbian Foundation, but the proof is in the pudding, and the last Nokia smartphone to land there was the N75 in May of last year -- an eternity by mobile standards. More recently, the N75 grew up, got sexy, picked up some brushed metal, and emerged in Europe earlier this year; now, it's surprisingly and unexpectedly been retooled with North American 3G spectrum. It's got a 2.2-inch QVGA primary display, 160 x 128 secondary, 2-megapixel cam, AT&T Navigator (which means GPS), push-to-talk support, and HSDPA 850 / 1900 to compliment quadband EDGE. We don't know exactly when it's coming, but for S60 fans who cringe at the thought of having to blow several hundred on an unlocked set every time they want some fresh hardware, this should be welcome news.

[Thanks, Al and Oscar M.]

For Nokia, WiFi and VoIP have seemingly gone hand-in-hand for as long as 802.11 radios have been offered in S60 handsets. It makes sense, of course -- the internet is a great way to yap at little or no expense compared to plain old cellular voice minutes when a traditional WiFi hotspot is available, and Nokia was really ahead of the curve with jumping on the bandwagon and making sure that the capability has been available out of the box. Unfortunately, it looks like constant carrier pressure may have finally gotten the better of Espoo, with GigaOM confirming that 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 doesn't contain a SIP stack built-in the same way that FP1 historically has. That doesn't mean VoIP products are totally locked out, but it does mean that apps that rely on the native stack are out of luck until they've implemented a new stack of their own. Products like the N78 and N96 are affected by the buffoonery, while the E71, which uses FP1, is not -- a good thing, considering the corporate affinity for VoIP and the Eseries' business leanings.

[Via jkOnTheRun, thanks BFish]

JoikuSpot is one of our favorite S60 apps, turning what is otherwise totally capable smartphone into a pocket-sized WiFi hotspot. Now the company behind it, Joikusoft, is partnering with FON to release a new version called FONspot, which will turn Symbiotes into Foneros. (Symbreros?) Users will be able to share their mobile hotspots with up to 5 friends and, in keeping with FON's business model, access those provided by others Foneros free of charge. No word yet on up-front cost, but the updated app is due sometime in Q3 2008 which is... right now, actually.

[Via IntoMobile]

So Nokia has officially launched the beta process for an app it simply calls "Email," a replacement for S60's in-built Messaging application for managing -- you guess it -- email. Besides a true push service and a slightly slicker interface than what we're used to, it doesn't seem to offer terribly much that the standard client doesn't, and what's more, it sounds like Nokia intends to charge for the pleasure of using it once it exits beta. It'd better be crazy cheap, crazy impressive, or preferably, a combination of the two by the time it launches -- otherwise, Messaging will continue work just fine for us, thankyouverymuch.

Well, we've seen the Nokia 5800 Tube's keyboard, home screen, video player, and uh, Bat-Sonar, so we might as well keep going with these shots of the browser. Kudos to Nokia for delivering something just slightly more impressive this time around than we're used to from S60 Touch, but we're still not feeling the super-90s aesthetic -- check out those icons at the bottom. We're still hoping to be blown away when this thing finally launches, but it's looking less and less likely with each new screenshot.

[Thanks, Marie]

Adding a feature BlackBerry users have already enjoyed for a little while now, the S60 and Windows Mobile clients for Google Maps have now been imbued with transit directions, making it easier than ever to find the closest ratty upholstered seat with puke stains on it. Actually, that's just a side effect of its real lease in life, which is finding the best way to get from point A to point B via various forms of public transit. Version 2.2, as it's playfully known, also adds business ratings, user-generated search content, and generally makes things snappier, so it seems like a pretty obvious upgrade -- particularly if you enjoy sitting next to a dude with a boombox who hasn't showered in three days.

Just over a month after surfacing in Preview form, Mark/Space has loosed the finalized version of The Missing Sync for Symbian on the world. Yes, Mac lovers, this means you can now get your beloved computer to play nice with your Sony Ericsson, Motorola or Nokia-based S60 / UIQ handset. There's even a swank Proximity Syncing feature that enables your mobile and Mac to exchange hellos (and sync, obviously) whenever they are within Bluetooth (around 30-feet) range. The download is available now for $39.95, while packs with more licenses are available for $169.79 and up. Who's game to give it a go and confess whether or not it was worth the coin?

[Via TUAW]

While Skyfire continues to promise big things on the Windows Mobile front -- a front that needs as many high-quality browsers as it can get -- there's another beta getting underway at the company for a S60 version of its Flash-enabled web viewer. Like Opera Mini and Deepfish, Skyfire renders content server-side -- and in addition to Flash, it's packing support for Quicktime, Windows Media, Silverlight, and AJAX, so it should serve up a pretty PC-like experience. Unfortunately, that's an experience that only a select few in the private beta can enjoy at the moment, but Skyfire's now taking signups for Beta 2, so get in (or at least try to) while the gettin's good.

[Via IntoMobile and Symbian Freak]

You no longer need to know someone who knows someone who knows the founder of a VC firm sinking money into Qik to get in on its rather lovely streaming video action. We're just messing around, of course -- it was never quite that hard to get into Qik's invite-only alpha / beta before in our experience -- but it just got even easier with the popular service moving into an open beta phase. Offering both S60 and Windows Mobile clients (with iPhone allegedly on the way), Qik does a pretty stellar and unique job of streaming live audio and video straight from your handset to your millions of adoring fans glued to their computer monitors around the world (or just your mommy and daddy, as the case may be). So go sign up, paste your username down below here if you're so inclined, and just be sure you're not recording when you... ahem, don't mean to be. If you catch our drift.

[Via All About Symbian]

A heaping handful of fresh alleged screen shots of S60 Touch's user interface are floating around, apparently yoinked off the platform's PC-based theme editor -- not as cool as if they'd been lifted from a Tube, granted, but still good enough to give us some clutch insight into where Nokia's taking this thing. As revolutionary as the move to touch control might be for S60 as a platform, the UI looks shockingly evolutionary so far; in fact, to the untrained eye, there are portions that are virtually indistinguishable from S60 revs of yore. That's good news (we suppose) for S60 diehards who aren't interested in learning a new paradigm -- and we're all for the VGA support here -- but it's bad news for anyone who was planning on having their noodles positively baked by Espoo's engineering manpower and massive R&D budget. Let's all just hold off on the negativity until Nokia gives us something official to ogle; for the time being, though, our boring UI-dar is definitely on high alert.

[Via Symbian Freak, thanks Misha]

Call it a hunch, but you shouldn't have to wait too awfully long (like, hours / days / weeks) to secure Nokia's North American E71 today. Said handset is now available at the company's flagship store in Chicago, complete with a QWERTY keyboard and US-friendly 3G. Eager to grab one? Total cost will be $483 (plus tax) in addition to a roundtrip ticket to Chi-town, considering the store won't ship to out-of-towners (or so we hear).

[Via IntoMobile]

Yeah, we know pixel count doesn't equal picture quality -- but like it or not, it looks like 8 megapixels are poised to become the new 5 megapixels in the upper echelon of the cameraphone world this year. Samsung's never a company to shy away from a challenge like that, and sure enough, details are emerging on a so-called i8510 smartphone that features S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, FM radio, GPS, WiFi, and a whopping 16GB of internal storage -- not to mention a microSD slot that can take you up to 24GB. Oh, and there's the little matter of that camera, which features an dual LED flash and 120fps video capture at QVGA resolution. Add in DivX and DLNA certification, and we're kind of at a loss to figure out what's missing here. Boundless, unchecked hype, maybe? No word on a release date here just yet.

[Via mobil.cz]