N78, 6220, 6210, and new Nokia Maps Version 2.0 all from Nokia

Other than the new N96, Nokia is dropping the N78, 6220, and 6210 devices and the new Version 2.0 of their Nokia Maps application. They all have their intended audience, the N78 is for the professional who is also into photography, the 6220 is intended for those not looking for something as full-featured as the N-Series, but want some nice functionality in a fairly basic phone, and the 6210 is aimed at those that need direction, as in GPS direction.

The 6220 is a fairly basic candy-bar phone but it adds HSDPA for fast surfing/tethering and aGPS with Nokia Maps 2.0 for navigation. It also has a 5MP cam with Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash, it has quad-band GSM, the S60 OS, a 2.2-inch screen, 160MB of integrated storage, a microSD card slot, FM radio, and the usual array of S60 apps as well as support for MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, and MPEG-4 media files. It has up to 20x digital zoom for pictures or up to 10x zoom for videos and both can be directly uploaded to a few different online services. Overall it's a pretty good phone with some really high-end features for the less feature-oriented consumer; it will be out 3rd quarter this year for $470 prior to any subsidies or taxes.

The N78 doesn't differ too much from the 6220, in fact the only ways it differs, other than in appearance, is the integrated FM transmitter, the lower res 3.2MP camera, the smaller 70MB of integrated storage, the addition of WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, and a second front-mounted camera for video conferencing. There are some other less noticeable differences that make it a more professional phone than the 6220, but at the same time they added access to the N-Gage platform for gaming to keep things fun at the same time. The N78 even looks more professional than the 6220, and has a larger battery to keep things going longer; it will come out second quarter of this year for $507 prior to taxes or subsidies.

The 6210 Navigator ditches the candy-bar form factor of the previous two phones and goes with the slider form factor. As I am sure you can tell from the full title of the device, its made primarily for navigation. It has the new version of Nokia Maps built in as well as aGPS, a compass, and an accelerometer which combine to allow you to use the navigation feature both on and off the road. This phone is running the S60 OS as well and has HSDPA running at 3.6Mbps which can be used with the Nav software to look up people, places, and points of interest. On last interesting part about the navigation is that it can be used without a SIM card, so you could feasibly use this device just for navigation, but somehow I think there are better solutions for that. This phone has a 3.2MP cam, an LED flash, and the ability to do both still and video. There is also Bluetooth 2.0 and micro USB for connecting to your computer and for charging. It has 120MB of integrated storage and a microSD card slot that supports up to an 8GB card. Overall, it's a nice, navigation oriented mobile phone that offers up a lot of features, it will be released the 3rd quarter of this year for $435 prior to taxes and subsidies.

Now for Nokia Maps 2.0, an app that seems to have made its way onto every single device announced by Nokia today. What's the difference? Well they've added multimedia city guides, satellite imagery, better pedestrian navigation, and a new UI. If you have a device with an older version of Nokia Maps, you might be able to get a beta download. There are two modes, walk and drive, in drive mode you get voice directions and on-screen prompts, in walk mode you get almost the same directions, but it includes potential shortcuts that your vehicle probably couldn't make such as through parks and things of that nature, and you also get informed about landmarks as you are walking past them. Some handsets, such as the 6210, have a compass built in so the map can automatically reorient itself with the direction you are traveling. With each device you'll get local maps, but you can buy more maps from Nokia and load them onto your phone. They have maps for 200 countries with 70 of those being able to be used for point to point navigation, there is Metro guidance in 17 cities, and for a fee, you can get real-time traffic info and be directed around jams in 18 European countries. It will work with all GPS-enabled Nokia devices even if it only gets its GPS data from a Bluetooth GPS receiver, and they are working on an S40 version for release sometime this half.

As always, for more details and more pics/vids as they become available, check out PhoneMag as they are covering all of the MWC.

[6220, N78, 6210, Nokia Maps via PhoneMag]