Nokia officially breaks cover with Nokia N79 and Nokia N85

We’ve been looking for Nokia to bring a new wave of N-series devices to the world for a good while now. The Nokia N79 and Nokia N85 were expected to take offer consumers even more of the glossy-finished N-series goodness that we see on the Nokia N96. The Nokia N85 NAM (North American edition) has been spotted at the FCC, so it’s fitting that Nokia finally bring the Nokia N85 and N79 out in to the open.

Today, missing our expectations by a small margin, Nokia has officially taken the wraps off their new pair of handsets – the Nokia N79 and Nokia N85. As the successor to the Nokia N81, the dual-sliding Nokia N85 offers a newly uprated 5 megapixel camera, fitted with the dual-LED flash and the Carl Zeiss optics that Nokia loves to use on their higher-megapixel cameraphones. Add to that some GPS, 3G (HSDPA), WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, 2.6-inch AMOLED display, and microSDHC card slot, and you’ve got the makings of a serious handset. The Nokia N85 runs on S60 3rd Edition and is fully N-Gage compatible.

The Nokia N79 likewise takes the not-so-old Nokia N78 and bumps things up a notch. The Nokia N79 takes the camera to the land of 5-megapixels, again with Carl Zeiss optics and dual-LED flash in tow. With GPS, WiFi, and microSDHC card slot, the Nokia N79 is a true performer, but don’t let that fool you in to thinking the Nokia N79 is all business. The Nokia N79 is being billed as an N-series fashion phone with swappable back covers.

 

Nokia is looking to bring the Nokia N85 and Nokia N79 to the UK next month for an as-yet unknown price-tag. As far as the US is concerned, the FCC has already green-lighted the Nokia N85 for duty in The States, so we’re hoping to see it sooner rather than later.

Casio teases us with Exilim W63CA FCC filing

We’re not exactly sure why would Casio want to push its Exilim W63CA superphone through FCC, but the Japanese company has done it nonetheless. Maybe they don’t spare the paperwork involved just to tease us what we could get only if we were in Japan…

If you’re not aware, the Casio Exilim W63CA is probably one of the best phones ever made. And it’s not just the 8 megapixel camera it boasts, W63CA’s strengths are also in the WVGA (800×400 pixel) screen and an array of other acronyms, some of which are Japanese-market specific. Still, we do want one of these, at least to play with for couple of days. Uhh… those lucky Japanese with their subsidy-friendly carriers and high-end phones…

Sprint’s Touch Diamond coming on August 28th?

We’ve already reported Sprint will be launching the HTC Touch Diamond. As a matter of fact, we told you the struggling CDMA carrier will be offering the device in quite attractive red color. And now it seems we have the exact release data — “it seems” part is there cause we haven’t seen the official press release.

Apparently, Sprint’s potential and existing users will be able to grab the Touch Diamond starting from August 28th. The device will cost $299 on a 2-year contract, or $549 sans any agreements signed.

Last, but not the least, the CDMA version of the Touch Diamond will come with much larger (than its GSM brother) 1,350mAh battery. Not sure how many hours of web surfing or video playback that includes, but it certainly sounds a lot…

AT&T out with two new international iPhone data plans

Frequent travellers who at the same time happen to own Apple’s shiny handset will be glad to know AT&T has added two new international iPhone data plans.

The two plans involve 100MB and 200MB of data and are available for an additional $119.99 and $199.99 a month, respectively. 67 countries are included with the “discounted international data” plans: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Barbados, The Bahamas, Belgium, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, France, French Guiana, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Martinique, Mexico, Monaco, Montserrat, The Netherlands, Netherland Antilles, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Singapore, Slovak Republic, South Korea, Spain, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Martin, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, United Kingdom and Vatican City.

The other group where rate is rate is $0.0195/KB, include such countries as Algeria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bolivia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Brunei, Faroe Islands, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Macau, Macedonia (former Yugoslavia), Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Venezuela.

Finally, if you happen to be in some other country not mentioned above, expect to pay $.010/KB.

Nokia N96 ready for American 3G

Nokia has announced that its N96 smartphone is now ready for the U.S. market, boasting the right bands to work with AT&T’s 3G network.

The Nokia N96 is arguably the best smartphone Finnish giant has ever made, sporting a large 2.8-inch screen, 5 megapixel camera, WiFi, GPS, 16 gigabytes of internal memory plus a microSD card slot, and “compatibility with a wide range of video formats.” The device runs S60 3.2 (Feature Pack 2) on top of Symbian OS 9.3, allowing users to expand its functionality with any of the third-party apps available.

Not exact release date is known. All we have is “Q4 2008,” when interested buyers will be able to grab the Nokia N96 for an estimated price of $895.