“Whether using it at the beach or in a dusty construction site, the Nokia 3720 classic has been specifically engineered to withstand the splashes, bumps and drops that come with the terrain,” said Markku Suomi, vice president, Connect devices. “While the Nokia 3720 classic is tough on the outside, it is equally functional on the inside – a perfect choice for people who want a long-lasting and reliable mobile phone for any environment.”

The Nokia 3720 classic, a Symbian S40 handset features a sealed, leak-proof design and durable materials in a range of colors. The battery cover, which protects both the battery and the internal circuitry of the device, is locked with a screw, making for worry-free usage in wet, dusty or muddy environments. Other features include -

• 2.2-inch TFT LCD with a 240 x 320 pixel resolution
• LED Flashlight
• MicroSD card support
• Nokia Maps
• GPRS/EDGE
• Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, USB 2.0 (micro)
• 2 megapixel camera with an LED flash
• Stereo FM radio with RDS
• 2.5mm handsfree socket

The Nokia 3720 is expected to retail for approximately Rs. 8,520 (EUR 125) before subsidies or taxes. If it launches here now, it’ll have Samsung’s B1200 to contend with but I’m sure we’ll agree that this is the perfect season for it.

The handset is well equipped with features for the social networker that also integrates its A-GPS functionality for updating your ‘Social Location’ on the fly and a Live Desktop feature for the same.

A quick recap of the handset’s features can be found below -

• A 3.5-inch TFT resistive touchscreen, with 16M colors and a 360 x 640 pixel resolution
• The screen has an accelerometer sensor for auto-rotating the display
• Supports handwriting recognition
• It has a slide out full QWERTY keyboard
• 3.5mm earphone socket that doubles up for a TV out for audio and video
• Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual Radio and an FM Transmitter
• Bluetooth with A2DP and USB 2.0 (micro)
• 3G (with HSDPA), EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi
• a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics
• GPS with A-GPS support, a Digital Compass and geotagging
• 32GB of internal storage as well as support for microSD cards
• Pocket office preloaded

“From the desktop to the laptop and now to your pocket, the Nokia N97 is the most powerful, multi-sensory mobile device in existence. It is an important step towards our vision of delivering a highly personalized Internet experience,” said Vineet Taneja, Director-Marketing, Nokia India. “Fuelled by a multitude of media and applications through the Ovi Store, the Nokia N97 transforms the Internet into an experience that’s completely tailored to the tastes and interests of its user”.
For the first time ever for an Nseries device, Nokia has also worked out an easy EMI payment system for the Nokia N97. It has partnered with HDFC and Citibank to provide a 3 month EMI option at 0% interest rate to consumers in select retail outlets in metros and select cities and towns across the country.

Additionally, on the purchase of Nokia N97, Vodafone consumers will receive an exclusive free data plan over three months for browsing the internet services 24X7. Nokia N97 winners on Vodafone will also get exclusive access to ‘The Groove’, a unique lifestyle widget, which provides users live updates on movies, dining out, shopping, clubbing, cultural events as well as sports. The offer will be valid for Vodafone consumers at all Vodafone Stores retailing Nokia devices, all Nokia Branded Retail outlets as well as Multi Brand Outlets across various cities.

The handset will feature -

• Bluetooth with A2DP and USB (micro)
• MicroSD card support
• a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera
• FM radio with RDS
• 3G (HSDPA), EDGE/GPRS
• GPS with Nokia Maps and A-GPS support

“Feature packed’ describes Nokia 6730 classic really well. With its iconic design – available in sleek black or white – the device is a perfect upgrade for Nokia 6500c or 6300 users or anyone seeking an elegant device, optimized for mobile internet and navigation. What’s more, this mobile comes with industry-leading power-saving features and accessories” says Gustavo Eichelmann, Head of Vodafone Global Account Team, Nokia.

Although the handset has been announced for a June launch there’s still no price tag mentioned so stay tuned.

But the Ovi and App Stores are designed to be used with very different handsets and so have very different applications etc. to offer the individual mobile user. It’s inevitable that each manufacturer is going to develop and launch its own online application store because that would be the best way to reach out and offer Value Added Services to existing and new customers. BlackBerry only recently launched their App World online store as well. But here’s a quick view of Nokia’s Ovi Store for new users. Now please understand we are not talking about having an Ovi account for data back up and syncing or using the maps etc. but the virtual supermarket of sorts for your mobile phone and how easily it makes shopping for you handset.

The online store via PC looks crisp and easy to navigate. Setting yourself up with an account doesn’t take a Rocket Scientist to figure out so no worries there. Register yourself and select your phone type. You’ll need to enter your mobile number as the only way you’ll be able to download anything off the site is to receive an SMS and then download via the link provided. So you might want to consider switching to an unlimited full GPRS plan or you’ll end up paying something for everything you download even if it is free. What they could have had here is a simple download to PC option like all the other sites for Nokia handsets. It won’t cost you anything and you can simply transfer and install on the handset via the PC suite or just copy paste it onto the handset’s drive and run it from there. While there seems to be plenty of stuff available on the Ovi Store, I did find quite a few popular items like the Nimbuzz application that were for some reason removed or ‘No longer available.’

In case you’re wondering about the Nokia Download Section/Catalogs and MOSH that has been around in handsets for over a year, they are going to be integrated into the Ovi Store. It’s so much easier to download and install apps, games etc. via those servers though rather than the elongated select item-wait for an SMS-click on the embedded link-download-then install. How annoying is to receive an SMS to download something as small as wallpaper? Seriously! The Catalogs will slowly be downsized and the Download section will soon lead directly to the Ovi Store. An Ovi Store client will also be out soon.

Payment is a rather vague scenario as of now. Although the Indian billing segment is not yet in place, you can still buy products off the site. We just don’t yet know how. I presumed it would be via a credit card, but it didn’t ask me for one. I received an SMS nevertheless that stated – Shayne Rana has shared this (the name of the product) with you, followed by a link. Why would it tell me I’m sharing it with myself firstly, and when does the bill come in? The link led me to the Store with the item for purchase, pricing etc. and a Buy option. Since everything’s in Euros, I wasn’t sure I wanted to take this further in case it doesn’t ask for my card and goes right onto my bill or something.

The process is unnecessarily long. While I do believe that Ovi is good service, the store has a long way to go.  There are plenty of goodies already available for download, but I wasn’t too thrilled with the overall content so I intend to keep a close watch on the kind of stuff that becomes available over the next couple of months. Although you may not have an icon for Ovi on your handset just yet, if you’re a current user you can direct your mobile web browser to store.ovi.mobi and make your selections there. You’re still going to have to go through the whole procedure of SMS links etc. till they hopefully bring us a direct download option.  In the long run, I believe people would still prefer to download from other sites rather than here.

Nokia said it had started moving Ovi Store to production servers, preparing for the global commercial launch, and the store was opened to users of a few of its phone models in Australia and Singapore on Monday. Nokia has promised to open the store globally this week.

The Apple App Store has proved extremely popular, with one billion applications downloaded in less than a year, and operators and technology firms including Vodafone Nokia, and Microsoft now want a piece of the pie. However, analysts say firms will likely struggle to match the success of Apple’s store when creating their own stores, hampered by technical issues, a lack of applications and increased competition. “Nokia’s Ovi store is a step in the right direction but Apple is still the king of the hill when it comes to selling applications,” said Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight. “The long awaited arrival of Nokia’s Ovi Store lacks the blaze of publicity Apple was able to achieve when its App Store burst onto the market – Nokia is going to have to spend a small fortune on marketing to make consumers aware of what it is offering,” Wood said.

Nokia, which made its first ever quarterly pretax loss in January-March, is cutting annual costs at its key handset unit alone by more than 700 million euros ($979.7 million) to counter plunging phone demand.

To cope with slowing phone demand Nokia is trying to build a new business from mobile Internet services – like games or maps. “Ovi Store is in some ways the last castle for Nokia – both N-Gage and ‘Comes with Music’ are industry laughing stocks,” said Global Crown analyst Tero Kuittinen. Games and music have been spearheads of Nokia’s services push, but its mobile gaming offering has had little success, and its much-hyped music offering, which bundles free music downloads with a sold phone, has also found few clients. Nokia will also sell games and music through the Ovi Store. “Ovi Store is where Nokia tries to re-group and muster its forces for a counter-offensive,” Kuittinen said.

Analysts said Nokia’s key opportunity in the battle between mobile software supermarkets lies in the scale of its phone business – it sells more than 400 million phones a year, compared with Apple’s total of some 20 million iPhones. Gartner’s Carolina Milanesi said Nokia has to simplify its offering to consumers, while focusing on the social networking aspects, like friend referral, in the store. “This is a much better way to help find the right app than the ‘top 25′ list,” she said. In late April, Nokia said it would have operator billing – something it expects to boost takeup – in place in eight countries for its launch, but dropped an earlier goal of including the key U.S. market from the start. Research firm Strategy Analytics has forecast the value of the mobile content market – including downloadable games, ringtones, wallpapers, video, mobile TV, text alerts and mobile Web browsing – to grow 15 percent this year to $62 billion.

The Nokia 6208 Classic, priced at Rs. 13,259, features a pen input along with an alphanumeric keypad and handwriting recognition features. It also features a 2.4-inch QVGA display, 3.2 mega-pixel camera with dual LED flash, Stereo MP3 player and FM radio, 64 MB internal user memory (13 MB free) and a 5-way navi-key.

Vineet Taneja, Marketing Director, Nokia India said, “We are extremely excited to launch the Nokia 6208 Classic truly designed for convenience. This is our first series 40 touch input aimed to give our consumers an enhanced messaging experience. With a 3.2 megapixel camera, dual LED flash and 8x digital zoom, the Nokia 6208 Classic makes capturing memories and sharing moments simple, fun and easy.”

The Nokia 6208 Classic is made from materials such as stainless steel and features larger fonts for messaging and browsing as well as viewing pictures and web pages. The Nokia 6208 Classic also supports optional microSD cards up to 8GB.

A small hack in the handset’s programming would allow criminals to use someone else’s phone number and receive their SMS. Thus, in certain countries where banks would send a one-time password called an mTAN (mobile Transaction Authentication Number) to a person’s phone in order to allow the transfer of money to another account etc. the hacked cell phone users would gain access to accounts. The company in charge of the investigation, Ultrascan, managed to acquire a handset from the specified factory with specified firmware for testing and successfully reprogrammed the device to do exactly what the criminal would have it do.

Announcing the launch, Sanjay Kumar, DGM-Telecom, Intex Technologies, said, “Out of the total subscriber base for mobile phones, more than a quarter comes from rural India. INTEX Hero promises to address their basic needs of convenience and communication and signifies a focused brand line expansion to offer more value to our customers.”

The Hero has 1800mAh rating battery that should provide more than adequate battery back up. The company is actually claiming that it will be able to offer users, on a full charge, a talk time of up to 9 hours. This would make it particularly apt for the consumers in tier II & III regions. Other features include an FM radio, camera, expandable memory, MP3 audio player, a 1000 contacts phonebook memory etc.

The handset is priced at Rs. 2,999 (MOP) which seems a like a great deal if it comes through with the battery life.

The brushed steel covers and chrome center key do make the handset look quite elegant as compared to the previous model. It’s equipped with a function for discreet tap commands that bring the display to life and also be used to snooze alerts and silence or reject incoming calls.

Other features include -

• 2.2-inch TFT LCD display with 16 million colors
• Series40 UI
• 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash
• MicroSD card support up to 16GB
• FM radio
• 3G, EDGE/GPRS
• Bluetooth with A2DP, USB 2.0 (micro)
• 3.5mm audio input

The Nokia 6600i slide has an estimated retail price of Rs. 12,972 (EUR 200) excluding taxes and subsidies and it is expected to start shipping in select markets in the third quarter of 2009.