Nokia adds 'social location'

By Leigh-Ann Francis for Nokia

Johannesburg, 17 Jul 2009

Nokia unveiled offerings from its Nseries range to the South African market at an event in Newtown, Johannesburg, this week. The event showcased the Nokia N97 and Nokia N86 cellphones.

“Nokia's Nseries brand is associated with a certain expectation and given the performance of the new flagship device, we are extremely proud to introduce the Nokia N97 in SA,” says Mathia Nalappan, GM of Nokia SA.

“With the introduction of widgets to our devices, users can now experience an 'always open' window to favourite social networking sites and Internet destinations,” he adds.

Showcasing the Nokia N97, the company said the phone would appeal to the Internet-savvy consumer. The device features personalisation capability which allows users to customise their display with preferred widgets. With both a physical and visual touch input, the Nokia N97 can also be used for blogging, chatting, posting, sending texts or e-mailing.

Nokia says the N97 model ushers in a new concept called 'social location'. With integrated A-GPS sensors and an electronic compass, the N97 intuitively understands where it is. This enables the user to update social networks automatically with real-time information, giving approved friends the ability to update their 'status' and share their 'social location' as well as related pictures or videos.

Also introduced at the event was the Nokia N86 8MP camera phone. The device features a wide-angle Carl Seiss optic lens designed to perform in both bright and low light photography conditions.

"People demand mobile cameras that take excellent pictures in all light conditions," says Nalappan. "That's why the aperture of the Nokia N86 8MP is comparable to that of a high-quality, standalone digital camera.” He adds that the Nokia N86 8MP can take clear, wide-angle images which are instantly geotagged so they can be uploaded to sites like Ovi Share or Flickr.

Nokia also used the event to debut its online store, Ovi.com, to the South African market. The service allows users to back up and edit contacts and calendars through Ovi Sync, access files from any location using Ovi Files, share content through Ovi Share, download Nokia Maps, and stay in touch using Ovi Mail.