Phone giant Nokia has announced a plug and play phone able to play back through and control consumer electronics devices such as DVD players and TVs.
The Symbian-based N80 handset is the world’s first UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) phone and will be available locally next year.
Moving away from the idea that these advanced devices are mere phones, Nokia describes the N80 as a mini-computer able to deliver print-quality images; taking camcorder quality videos; listening to, download and transfer high quality music; read your email or browse the Net.
The N80 will be the first in a new range for Nokia, the Nseries handsets focus on convergence and come bundled with add-on software to extend the phones capabilities making it easier to manage device and content with your PC.
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The N80 has a slide mechanism which reveals its keypad and is equipped with WLAN, Bluetooth and 3G wireless technologies. Broadband is also available via the phone’s quad band support which adds EDGE/GSM (850/900/1800/1900) and WCDMA (2100).
Support for commonly-used email solutions and office document tools such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel come standard.
The phones 2.1-inch landscape-capable screen supports a resolution of 352 x 416 and 262,144 colours. But the high quality 3-megapixel 16.7m colour camera is capable of recording images at a maximum resolution of 2048 x 1536 for still pictures and up to 352 x 288 for video.
The feature that really sets this phone apart is its ability to work with consumer electronics devices in the home. The Nokia N80 is the world’s first handset to feature Universal Plug and Play connectivity, which allow it to be used as a remote control for wirelessly sharing content between PCs, audio equipment and TVs equipped with UPnP technology. Images and video stored on the Nokia N80 or on a compatible PC can be viewed on a TV, for instance, while music stored on the device can be played through an audio system.
Pictures can be printed directly from UPnP capable printers wirelessly as the phone supports WLAN, UPnP, PictBridge and Bluetooth. Support for MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA is backed up with an FM stereo radio.
