13 September 2009

New Nokia ERDOS:
Luxurious Nokia 8800 Successor Runs Symbian!

Hear No Evil, a London music consultancy (the one behind the cool beatboxing and Tuvan throat singing we heard between introductions at Nokia World 2009), creates musical scores and licenses others for Nokia to use in its presentations and events.

A recent video production just completed by HNE shows quite possibly the most luxurious mobile device available for less than the price of your firstborn child.

The video announces the next iteration of the Nokia 8800, and it makes quite a bold and fashionable statement. Called the Nokia Edos, the sleek and polished device is the epitome of luxury and craftsmanship. No one will mistake this for a low end cheap device, and Nokia will surely offer it at a healthy price.

Directed by Daniel Fagerson for Salt Pictures Productions, the Nokia Edos video, accompanied by a soothing jazz piano rendition, gives the aura of sophistication and class. Boasting a polished stainless steel housing that looks to be carved from one solid block of metal, the scratch resistant screen is also mirrored to blend in with the entire mirrored finish of the device.

The Edos has everything to make it special, including a "revolutionary rising keypad", which raises itself to become flush with the screen when the slider is drawn.

Graduating from previous Nokia fashion models, the Edos runs S60 instead of S40, bringing a smartphone OS to the Nokia luxury/fashion lineup for the first time. All of the features you expect from a decent S60 device are present, such as Assisted GPS, 3G connectivity, plus a 5 MP Carl Zeiss camera with dual LED flash for high end image capture capabilities.

The surprises include activity LEDs, noise reduction technology in the microphone, "go-silver" OLED display which looks mirrored from a distance for privacy, and "tap sensitive commands". Nokia has been making advances in the noise reduction arena with its bluetooth accessories already, to I expect big things in this department. The screen looks similar to the LG Shine's reflective display.

As for the "tap sensitive controls", this looks to be something new, since it doesn't say it is a touchscreen. It could be a gesture area on the surface, but this isn't confirmed at this time, but if you pause the official video at 1:25, the UI looks alot like an Nseries build of S60 5th Edition, with on screen widgets like the N97. So it is possible this will be a touchscreen device, and if so, it is the first known S60 5th Edition model to feature a T9 keypad, good news for those fearing Nokia was leaving T9 keypads alone and going all QWERTY with its smartphones. But it could also be some sort of other touch sensitive mechanism, so I'll keep my eyes and ears open until the facts are clear.

Either way, Nokia has shown once again that it can compete, one upping Apple in the design and materials game while making a decent hardware statement of its own. The Edos looks like the perfect choice for the sophisticated, style conscious consumer that wants his or her device to make a statement. This one says luxury and style, and in a voice all its own.