Nokia N900 Arrives in India Officially

Nokia's Maemo 5 based tablet, the N900, was available in India via unofficial channels for quite some time now. Seeing the demand for the handset in the grey market, Nokia seems to have thought of bringing in the handset officially to India and that is exactly what it has done today.
Nokia has officially launched the N900 in India. The N900 boasts of an impressive hardware spec sheet that begins right from the processor - an ARM Cortex A8 that provides 1GB of application memory and Open GL ES 2.0 Graphics acceleration support.

The OS is Linux-based Maemo 5 that provides the device comprehensive multitasking ability. The N900 also features a WVGA touchscreen and a full, slide-out QWERTY keyboard. It comes with 32GB of memory (which really isn't an upgrade over the N97) and an expansion slot - you can add up to 48GB - which should suffice for "normal" users. With a decent 5 megapixel camera, the N900 seems to take photography seriously. All the other features you might expect find their way in as well. We're talking about the A-GPS and FM transmitter support. On the connectivity front, it supports HSPA Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity as well.
The phone will cost Rs. 30,639 in India, which is on the expensive side - but is well below the initial expected cost of the handset - which was just over Rs. 35,000. The N900 was officially launched in August 2009.

Nokia Announces Inexpensive Dual SIM Phones

World's largest phone maker Nokia has been famous for not making dual SIM phones. Well, not any longer! The company has announced a bunch of low-cost phones, including dual SIM handsets, starting at EUR 30. These new devices are slated to arrive on sale later this year in Africa and Asia.
The four new devices launched belong to Nokia's low cost C-Series of handsets. Out of these, two are dual SIM handsets while two are single SIM solutions. The C2 and the C1-00 are the dual SIM handsets.
Along with the C2, three new single SIM phones under the C1 name have been announced. As mentioned earlier, one of the C1 phones is a two-in-one dual SIM phone. The C2 is expected to go on sale by the fourth quarter of 2010.
The most affordable of the Nokia C1 trio (C1-00) is priced at EUR 30 and is the first Nokia mobile phone to feature a 2-in-1 double SIM solution. This phone can take in two SIM cards but only one would be active at any given point of time. Users can switch from one SIM to another with the flick of a switch. The C1 offers users a standby battery time of up to six weeks, the longest ever for a Nokia mobile phone, especially useful in those parts of the world where access to electricity is limited. The utilitarian nature of the phone is highlighted by the presence of a flashlight that can help people wade through darkness should he be in one of the remote corners of the planet where there is no electricity. The entire C1 range comes with color displays, FM Radio and a standard headphone jack.

As for the other two members of the C1 family, they are single IM devices (C1-01 and C1-02)  and are Nokia's most affordable devices offering microSD compatibility supporting up to 32GB of memory.

Nokia C1-01

Both new devices boast of color screens, web browsing over GPRS and access to Nokia web services such as Nokia Messaging. The C1-01 has a VGA camera and is capable of video recording as well.

Nokia C1-02

As for the C2, it happens to be a "real" dual SIM phone where both the SIM cards would be active. The first SIM card on the Nokia C2 sits underneath the battery and the second is 'hot-swappable', a feature unique to Nokia. This means the second SIM card can be removed and inserted when the phone is on. Apart from being dual SIM, the C2 will also offer its users a wide range of information covering healthcare, agriculture, education and entertainment via Nokia's Ovi Life Tools, as well as the email account for the developing world, Ovi Mail. In addition to Ovi Mail, it also supports Nokia Messsaging  - making the C2  a very capable entry level phone. It has an FM radio and music player and guess what? It can take microSD cards of up to 32GB!

Nokia also took the wraps off the Nokia Bicycle Charger Kit, an alternative charging solution built especially for people with limited access to electricity.
The estimated retail prices of the new Nokia mobile phones, before taxes and subsidies, are:

• Nokia C1 (C1-00) - EUR 30 (Rs. 1,700)
• Nokia C1 (C1-02) - EUR 35 (Rs. 2,000)
• Nokia C1 (C1-01) - EUR 39 (Rs. 2,200)
• Nokia C2 (C2-00) - EUR 45 (Rs. 2,500)

The Nokia C1 (C1-00) is expected to ship in the third quarter of 2010, with the Nokia C1 (C1-01) in the early fourth quarter, and the Nokia C1 (C1-02) and Nokia C2 towards the end of the fourth quarter 2010.

Nokia Bicycle Phone Charger in India Soon

On June 3, when Nokia announced its first dual SIM phones and two other low cost phones, it also launched an accessory - a Bicycle charger kit.
The kit consists of a DC-14 phone charger, a phone holder that you can attach to your bicycle, a dynamo, that would be used to power the batteries and a bunch of accessories needed to install the kit on your bike.

After it's installed, the kit will charge your phone when you ride the bike at speeds in excess of 6 km/hour. Nokia suggests that the speed of the bike be over 12 km/hour for best efficiency. 
If you happen to live in a village in India, you might have seen how dynamos fitted on bicycles provide light to the bicycle in the dark. The same principle is being used here - except that instead of lighting, the dynamo is used to charge your phone. If you happen to be alien to this concept, let us explain briefly. The dynamo is a small motor that is uses the movement of your bikes wheels to generate electricity. So, whenever you ride your bike, you have electricity at your disposal! As for the Nokia kit, it is compatible with any Nokia handset that has a standard 2mm charging jack.

To say that this kit is a brilliant idea would be an understatement.  In countries like India and China where bicycles still are a common means of transport, a very reliable source of electricity like this that could be used to charge ones phone could prove to be indispensable. The bicycle charger would be available starting Q4, 2010 and is expected to cost just over EUR 15  (Rs.850).

Google Chrome OS to be released this September

At the on-going Computex 2010 Expo, Google announced that Chrome OS would be released in Fall (September) this year.
Google's vice president of product management, Sundar Pichai said, "We are working on bringing the device later this fall." So now, we have a fixed time frame when Chrome OS will finally be made available on notebooks and desktops. It was in July 2009 that Google had announced Linux kernel based Chrome OS for desktops and notebooks. This open source operating system is based on Google's Chrome browser and is designed to work seamlessly with web applications.
Pichai added, "It's something which we are very excited by ... We expect it to reach millions of users on day one." Untill we come across and use a Chrome OS based device, we cannot say whether Google will beat Microsoft or not. Google Chrome OS would be available on notebooks and desktops from partners like Acer, Asus, HP and Lenovo.