Smartphone competition hots up ahead of iPhone launch

Posted on 9 Jun 2008 at 17:48

Samsung has launched a touchscreen smartphone - the Omnia i900 - on the day that Apple CEO Steve Jobs prepares to unveil the new iPhone. Not to be outdone, Nokia has also revealed that it is ready to start selling its own iPhone rival, in the N96, as well as a group of E-series enterprise handsets.

Samsung's Omnia i900 has a wide screen for viewing video as well as music capabilities and a 5-megapixel camera. It runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile software and Samsung will be releasing 8GB and 16GB models. It will be on sale in Europe in July 2008.

Meanwhile, Nokia's N96 - the follow-up to the N95, Nokia's 'old iPhone' rival - was unveiled in February 2008. However, today Anssi Vanjoki, senior executive vice president of Nokia Markets, confirmed that the handset will be on sale to the public sometime between July 2008 and the end of September 2008.

"The N96 that we have introduced ... we believe this will be a significant product to the group who define the tone where the market is going," said Anssi Vanjoki, senior executive vice president of Nokia Markets. "Preorders for it are encouraging."

The N96 is expected to retail around £440, excluding subsidies and taxes, and will come with come with 16GB internal memory. Industry sources reckon Nokia's enterprise handsets - the E66 and E71 models - are both expected to feature GPS, a 3.2-megapixel camera and 128MB memory.

Nokia said it had sold six million of the N95 by the end of last year, compared to Apple's four million iPhones that had been sold at the time. However, amidst increasing competition from Samsung and Nokia, Apple has declared that it aims to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008.

Author: Dawinderpal Sahota

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