Nokia's
8800 is what you might call a sit-there-and-look-pretty phone; despite its stratospheric sticker price, no one ever asked the
Vertu-esque handset (or its North American cousin, the
8801) to lead the pack with its spec sheet. Nonetheless, with over a year of market availability under its belt, we wouldn't mind seeing 'er put out to pasture, and it looks like Nokia's on the same page. The 8800's successor is actually more of a mild refresh than a true replacement; in fact, they didn't even change the model number -- the 8800 "Sirocco Edition" sports a streamlined exterior with a funky-looking dent in its slide, a redesigned keyboard, and not much else. Some folks are claiming the new model will upgrade the cam from SVGA to a full 2 megapixels, which seems believable enough, but the German shop we've got here (currently) shows the same ol' 800 x 600. No word on a GSM 850-friendly 8801 Sirocco Edition in the works, but if the European price of €1099 (roughly $1400) for the 8800 were to carry over, we'd lack the wherewithal to rock it anyway.
[Thanks, Gib]
posted Aug 9th 2006 5:58AM
Looks like they've finally removed the phantom buttons on the keypad that make the 8800/8801's menu system impossible to navigate - that's a huge improvement in usability right there.
I haven't actually seen one of this live yet, but from the pictures, it looks like the Sirocco Edition is an 8800 that's been banged up; hopefully the "dent" looks better in real life.
-avi
i don't get why nokia keeps giving us their mp3-player shpeel and STILL won't integrate a memory card slot. it's only an mp3 player if you have more than 12 songs on it!
I hope the battery is improved as well.
Sexiest phone on the planet.
Maybe this new version will bring down the price of the older models. I've got a Nokia 6170 which I reckon is the second most sexy phone ever.
I have a thing for phones that look and feel like they won't crack to pieces if you stare at them too hard.
Looks like a blinged-up 8800 to me. (If that's possible).
OK, so the camera has been upgraded to a market norm of 2 megapixels but this model is still going to be way overpriced. I understand that all product lines need a premium product but why not manufacture a phone that not only looks the part but features ALL of the latest technologies available to mobile phones?
Andrew