AT&T, Nokia Launch New N75 Smartphone

AT&T and Nokia said today that they're officially putting the Nokia N75, AT&T's first 3G Nokia phone, on sale tomorrow for $199.99, with a two-year contract and $50 mail-in rebate.

To call the N75 long-awaited would be an understatement. It was first announced last September , scheduled for a release in the "fourth quarter of 2006" as the top-tier phone in Cingular's new music initiative. Sadly, though, it's been hiding in Cingular's labs ever since.

The N75 is not only the first Nokia phone on Cingular's 3G UMTS network, it's also the first 3G smart phone available in the US to use the Symbian operating system, and the first Symbian flip phone available through a major carrier. Symbian, while tremendously popular abroad, has never caught on in the US because it's closely tied to Nokia, which has had trouble getting high-end phones to US carriers. That's frustrating because literally thousands of Symbian applications are available through online stores like Handango.

The N75 is a chunky flip phone with a big, color external screen and an utterly gorgeous, bright, glossy 320-by-240 internal screen. The keys are large and easy to press, and there's a 2MP camera on the back. The phone syncs with Windows Media Player, playing both purchased and subscribed content, and also plays MP3 and AAC files in its onboard music player, through wired or wireless headphones.

Since it's also a smartphone running Symbian Series 60 version 3, the N75 has PDF and Microsoft Office readers built in, plus IM and e-mail applications, and an excellent Web browser. Other onboard applications include RealPlayer, a Flash player, and an FM radio.

As a UMTS phone, the N75 will be able to download data from the Internet at speeds up to 384 kbps/sec and won't cause the dreaded "GSM buzz" in nearby speakers, but will get much shorter battery life than older GSM phones.

AT&T briefly put the N75 on sale last week by mistake, but it's really here now. We'll have a full review soon.

Copyright 2007 by Ziff Davis Media, Distributed by United Press International