The Nokia E6, which was up for pre-order 2 weeks ago, is finally available in India. The handset was launched along with the X7 yesterday. The company believes that the E6 will offer great functionality for business as well as regular users. The handset comes with the fancied Symbian Anna update, which is said to improve web browsing, and the user interface of the Symbian platform. The handset has been priced at Rs 18,679, which is slightly higher than thepre-order price of Rs 17,999. It will be available in Black, Silver and White colours from today in select Nokia stores.
Nokia India's Marketing Director, Mr. Viral Oza, speaking on the occasion said "With the launch of two new devices on the exciting new Symbian Anna, we aim to further consolidate our leadership position in the Indian smartphone market. With the Nokia E6 and the Nokia X7, and a robust line up of exciting new smart devices and user enhancements coming in the next few quarters, we are confident of further strengthening our smartphone user base". He also gave out info about the Symbian Anna update for other Symbian^3 handsets. Handsets such as the Nokia N8, C7, C6-01, and the E7 will ship with the OS update from July onwards. As far as the existing handsets are concerned, the update will be rolled out from August, meaning that existing owners of the above handsets will have to wait for a month or more.
Nokia is looking to consolidate its hold on the Indian cellphone market with the Nokia E6 and the X7, though we think it's too early to even think about that. People will certainly think twice before spending Rs 18,000 of their hard earned money on this smartphone. We would have really appreciated a bigger display on a phone of the E6's calibre; something like the BlackBerry Torch would have sufficed.
After Nokia's recent statement that the company would follow Apple's product secrecy methods for its WP7 devices, we were made to believe that the company would actually do what it stated. But CEO of Nokia Mr Stephen Elop seems to be having a hard time comprehending that, because he has unofficially unveiled the device at an event. The intention was to show the people present, what it looks like. Elop humbly asked the audience to not record or not take pictures, to avoid spreading of the same in the blogosphere or media.
As it turns out, unknown to Elop, one person was recording the whole event, even as he went forward with the unveiling. The new Nokia Windows Phone 7 handset, known as the Sea Ray for now, bears a striking resemblance to the NokiaN9. Elop explained and pointed out at the hardware camera button at the right hand side of the device, which is not present on the N9, before finally switching on the device. This handset was seen running on Windows Phone 7.5 a.k.aMango. The official announcement is still a few months away, but that won't matter to people now, since the device has already been made public, and has been published all over the internet. The latter part of the video shows the features and functions of Windows Phone Mango on the Sea Ray.
The Sea Ray will feature an 8 MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, which is the same as in the N9. Other specs could include a 1 GHz processor (a 1 GHz processor is a must for all WP7 devices) and 512 MB RAM. The back looks similar to the N9 apart from the positioning of the dual LED flash. Apart from these minor differences, the handset has a similar structure to the N9.
Some reports on the web have suggested that this was a staged leak to gain popularity and create hype. This does make sense since there's no loss of focus in the video capture, and the person recording the video doesn't seem to be hiding while recording the video. Nokia could have a couple of more WP7 handsets lined up, but for now it seems like this is going to be the first ever Nokia WP7 handset. Check out a few more leaked photos of the Sea Ray below:
