20 September 2008

Is Nokia E72 really an E71-CDMA model?!

Just thought about something. Guys, chime in and tell me what you think. Nokia has lately been of the practice of releasing North American models with a hyphenated number after the model.

So the Nokia E71-2, which I have in my hand, is a US model, I suspect. There is a Euro Model, American model, and Asian model, E71-1, 2, and 3. Now the E72 looks EXACTLY like the Nokia E71. I see no difference other than color. The glossy red surrounding the device is the silvery metal on the E71, and the keypad, besides the red color, is the same as the E71 as well.

It looks like the metal on the lower end and facing has been converted to gloss plastic, and extended out to the edge, but other than the housing, this device isn't new, unless it packs some Carl Zeiss goodness. (yeah right...)

But the device proportions, screen resolution, and button layout aren't very changed, if at all. Now I don't believe Nokia would make an E71 clone with just a simple housing color change and use up a model number to fragment the model more. A simple color listing or hyphenated number would suffice, don't you agree? Or maybe even an alphabetical suffix to denote a major housing and slight hardware update, as an E71i, like Nokia did with the N93 and N93i?

Now this what gets the gears turning. Remember back a few months ago, when news broke of 600 Nokia product specialists and engineers being dispatched to Texas? It was supposedly to meet with carriers to figure what type of devices and services would serve them best and boost Nokia's small US marketshare. Verizon and at&t were specifically mentioned.

Now we've begun to sow the seeds planted with at&t, but nothing has surfaced for Verizon. I know they're a CDMA carrier, but they also have 78 million subscribers and a tech savvy reputation. Nokia, I'm sure, wouldn't have dispatched so many people to Verizon if they had no CDMA plans. America is mostly CDMA, and I don't believe any OEM can have significant market penetration without some CDMA devices. I'm sure Nokia doesn't believe otherwise.

If this is a US device, I doubt it would be an at&t, T-Mobile, or Sprint device. Their corporate colors are blue and orange, T-Mobile's magenta, and Sprint's yellow and black. But do you know what Verizon's nickname is? BIG RED!

Wouldn't this be a fitting model for Verizon? Nokia wouldn't retool their recently released device unless the carriers demanded it. I don't see any 3G video conferencing camera, another telling sign. Verizon is known for demanding specially equipped models, and probably wanted to lower the cost a bit to allow a cheaper subsidized price. Nokia would need to make it cheaper to cover higher costs from lower production runs of CDMA units.

So I'm theorizing that this will be a Verizon release around Christmas. This is great news for the US, and even Sprint, if Verizon doesn't have an exclusive. If it comes true, you heard it here first