Today we announced six new S60 devices Nokia N96, Nokia N78, Nokia 6220 Classic and Nokia 6210 Navigator. In addition Samsung announced the SGH-G810 and LG-KT610. The Nokia devices are all S60 feature pack 2 and the LG and Samsung are S60 3rd edition feature pack 1devices. Read more about all the devices after the jump.

Nokia has today introduced a camera-free variant of the Nokia E51. The Nokia E51 is an S60 3rd edition, feature pack 1 device This new device, which features all the same powerful functionality for businesses as Nokia E51, was developed in response to demand from professionals who require a high performing mobile device, but work in industries where security reasons restrict the use of cameras. The camera-free Nokia E51 is expected to begin shipping in the 1st quarter of 2008 with an estimated retail price of 250€, before subsidies or taxes.

Read more from here and see specifications for the Nokia E51 here.

Check out the latest Nokia BH-503, it's like my BH-501 (which I love) but now with Play/FF/RW...COOL!!! Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie!

Wow, big day at Nokia yesterday. I just got done watching the big presentation from Nokia's top brass in London. New N-Gage platform, new music service, and three new S60 devices!?! I'm floored!! Although sometimes I wish Nokia could get a spokesperson to show a little more enthusiasm for such an exciting event. And I cringed everytime I heard the words "Series 60" and not "S60". :-)

Fortunately the technology speaks for itself! Check out the latest members of the S60 device family from S60.com - The Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N81, and Nokia N81 8GB...

Jussi-Pekka Erkkola from Nokia Multimedia was nice enough to lend me the new Nokia BH-501 stereo bluetooth headset, I just spent a long intimate weekend with it and am absolutely loving it. My first experience with stereo bluetooth and I'm quite pleased with this first generation device from Nokia.

I won't bother describing the looks, just have a peak at the photos. It comes in either black or white. The speakers are covered in that typical black, soft headset stuff. It's held on your face with two soft rubbery pieces that sit on top your ears, and a rubbery band wraps around the back of your head. The headband isn't adjustable, so one-size-fits all. At first I was a bit concerned, but it sat on my head quite firmly. I went running and cycling over the weekend and it barely moved around at all, although I still wished it could have been a tad firmer. It's nice a light, and after a while you forget you're wearing it.

The headset is quite large so you can't really put them in your pocket, but what's nice is that it'll wrap very firmly and comfortably around your neck if you don't want them on your head. As you can see from the photo below, they look a bit ridiculous on your face. Mono bluetooth headsets took a while before they were visually acceptable to wear in public without people thinking you were from Star Trek, I'm sure these will be no different.

The BH-501 has all the standard bluetooth features. Accept a call, end a call, redial last number, volume up, volume down. Connecting to my N95 was a cinch, reconnecting it was simple as well. What I was really missing was the music player controls (stop, RW, FF, pause, play). It would probably be a bit complicated for some to fast forward and rewind while the device is your head, but geeks like me would quickly figure it out and enjoy it.

Now of course to the most important thing - the sound. I'm no audiophile, and honestly I haven't spent time with a lot of different headsets, but I was quite happy with the sound quality of the BH-501. My music was clear, the bass was deep without distorting at max volume. Since the speakers sit on top your ears rather than inside your ear, you don't get that ear-drum-piercing sensation if you like your music loud.

And speaking of loudness, the maximum volume is very good. I remember my first bluetooth device was basically worthless on a bus or on a busy street. And my Nokia E70's maximum volume was so low, it too was basically worthless. Obviously having the audio come in stereo helps with the overall loudness. While I was cycling on a busy road and listening to an audiobook with a soft-spoken reader, I wished it could have got a bit louder. I turned the "loudness" on in my N95 and cranked up the equalizer, which didn't change it much - but it was still acceptable.

One concern I do have probably has nothing to do with the headset, but with the bluetooth technology itself. The sound would occasionally cut out for a split second or two. At first I thought it was because of my cycling or running, but it also happened while just sitting still. It could be my N95, but more likely it's just bluetooth being, well...bluetooth.

What was very impressive was the microphone built into the right earpiece. While cycling at a fast speed, I was chatting on the phone. Even though I heard the loud wind beating up against me, the people on the other end didn't hear it at all, which was typical for my other headsets. The mic is positioned on the back of the earpiece, so wind wouldn't hit it if you're traveling forward. A very pleasant surprise!

So all-in-all, a great piece of first generation equipment from Nokia, not much I'd improve it it all. Big thumbs up from me!

This is cool - What our handsets will look like a few years from now. And since it's from Nokia, we can probably guess which platform they'll running... :-)

(watch more from NokiaDesign)

Quick demo of 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, but it didn't turn out that well. I need to learn how to take better video on this Nokia N93...

Scientific American lists the "20 Hottest Gadgets from the Consumer Electronics Show". The Nokia N76 featuring S60 is on their list. I love this sentence from their site...

everyone knows Nokia's software is the mad beastmaster of mobile usability—finally, the Razr done right.

Having been using my Nokia N91 for a couple of months I dare say that I don't really have a need for an iPod or any other mp3 player for that matter. Why? Here's a couple of really good reasons why.

1) Transferring music from PC to N91
This is obviously the first and biggest hurdle in using any mp3 player. I must confess that I haven't tried iTunes with an iPod, but I guess you still have to click something at least once before your music is in the iPod.

I decided to perform a quick test with the objective to get songs to the device as easy as possible. With the N91 you have three options to do this:

i) Using PC Suite
The new version has improved music uploading and encoding capabilities. I tried it a couple of times, but must confess that it was a bit too slow for my taste. Would love to hear your opinions on it. Jukka wrote about this earlier.

ii) Synching with Windows Media Player
This I just couldn't get to work in short enough time. (Maybe cause I use Winamp to play my mp3's). I'll have to try it some other time.

iii) Using the USB mass storage feature
Being a lover of all things simple, this is my choice. Begin by plugging in the USB cable and selecting the USB mass storage mode from the phone UI. After that search for the phone as any other hard drive/removable disk on your PC (E:/ in my case). Then simply drag and drop the files to "MyMusic" folder. Wait for a couple of seconds and that's it. Your new favourite songs are with you - anywhere you go.

Selecting the mass storage mode

The next time to you go to the Music application, it asks if you want to refresh the collection. Select OK and the files you added appear to the list of songs. I guess doing the same thing with an iPod is just as easy - I haven't tried. But to me this was simple enough on the N91.

2) Search by song name
A small but very efficient feature is to just type in the song name you are looking. This is a feature you'll start appreciating once you have hundreds of songs on your device hard drive. I guess typing with an iPod is still a future feature...

Searching a Glodfrapp song called "Black Cherry"

3) All-in-one device
Call me a gadget freak or whatever, but having a full-blooded music player in my 3G/2Mpix/WLAN/New Web Browser -enabled phone...I really couldn't care less for another extra device.

...and oh, I forgot to mention that just recently I listened to music on the N91 for 7 hours (two back to back flights) without charging the battery. There was even battery left for reading emails between and after the flights.

Even though the 4GB hard drive is a fabulous thing to have, I don't think that is what makes the N91 such a good music device. Nor does the dedicated player keypad (which is nice ;-)). Getting the music to the device is really easy, finding the songs on the device is very easy and the battery life at least to me very acceptable.

What do you guys think? Would be nice to hear from you guys how do you see the music player's role in S60 devices?

The support pages are up, and you know the rest :) Finnish web stores are listing this at just above 400€, not bad I think?