Matt Croydon::Postneo

Nice. I don’t think that these are supposed to be live yet, but Symbian has links to details on the Nokia 6680 and Nokia 6681. The 6680 has it all: Tri-band, WCDMA, EDGE, etc. The 6681 is a gem. It’s pretty much a 6680 with UMTS stripped out. This is big news for us in the relative mobile backwater called The United States of America.

Nokia have definitely played their cards right. They have a bleedng-edge Series 60 device that can debut almost simultaneously around the world. The Euros can get their true 3G handset while at the same time we can get the same tech in our hands using EDGE. This is A Good Thing, since we don’t have to wait for the technology to trickle down or wait for lethargic carriers to update their infrastructure before a phone is deemed approrpiate for our market.

Nokia is also able to please the entire US market by releasing the 6681 and 6682. The 6681 will be good for T-Mobile (tho they lack EDGE so will probably not pick it up) that use the 900 frequency. Cingular will (hopefully) eat up the 6882 which runs on 850. Both units are tri-band so they’ll also do 1800 and 1900.

Here’s the timeline:

• Nokia 6680: March 2005
• Nokia 6681: April 2005
• Nokia 6682: Q2 2005

Now that’s a way to launch a phone! It looks like the US version will be a bit behind the others, but should be much less behind than usual. Go Nokia!

More information:

• Nokia 6680 photos
• Nokia 6680 data sheet [pdf]
• Nokia 6681 data sheet [pdf]. Man that thing is TINY!
• The Nokia 6680 User Experience [pdf]
• Nokia’s 6680 Page
• Nokia’s 6681 Page
• Engadget: The dirt on the Motorola E1060: Now I can see why Apple was downplaying their involvement with it. It’s a shame too because the specs are good (big screen, quadtri band, 3g) but it’s hard to look past that altercation with the ugly stick.
• Engadget: Motorola’s PEBL V6

Update: The 6680 is small, but the 6681/6682 is even smaller, as in the smallest Series 60 device to date.