Finland’s Nokia—which, let’s not forget, is the world’s leading mobile handset maker—is continuing to chart an independent court in the U.S. market, announcing today that its QWERTY keypad-equipped E63 smartphone is now available from independent retailers and e-tailers, as well as the company’s flagship stores in Chicago and New York. With the E63, Nokia is hoping to tap into the growing U.S. market for smartphones—and, without a carrier partner, appeal to customers who already using GSM services from AT&T or T-Mobile.
“People want a rich experience when using messaging, social networks and the Internet—and with the Nokia E63 you can enjoy the Web, update your status, and work as much—or as little—as you like,” said Nokia North America’s VP for retail Alessandro Lamanna, in a statement.
The E63 runs the Symbian S60 operating system and offers a full QWERTY keypad for email and messaging, along with a 2 megapixel camera, plus Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 wireless networking. The phone supports Microsoft Exchange—the E63 derives from the E71 and E66 which cater to the business crowd—along with POP/IMAP email, media playback capabilities, and a dual home screen function that lets users toggle between (say) work and personal settings. The E63 sports 1 2.3-inch QVGA display and offer 110 MB of internal memory (with microSD expandable storage). The E63 also comes with a free 12-month subscription to Nokia’s Files on Ovi service for managing documents, media, and photos from both a phone and a PC. However, the E63 doesn’t include a GPS, so don’t expect any support from Nokia Maps.
The E63 should be available now for a suggested price of $279—and, again, that’s without a carrier partner so there’s no contract to sign…but you still need to bring some sort of mobile phone service to the device.
