Nokia Announces Navigator Phone with GPS

In line with its promise made sometime last year that it will focus more on location-based services and launch more services with GPS capability, Nokia has just released its new 6210 Navigator with many promising GPS features. This new product is the company's next version of mapping software and it has already started to offer this beta version of Nokia Maps2.0 the Nokia Beta Labs Web site.

Among the new features embedded in the 6210 is the pedestrian navigation which is called Walked, this component gives travelers visual turn-by-turn directions, location information, and descriptions of surroundings like buildings, streets, and parks. With the built-in compass in the mobile phone, users can easily the direction of which they are heading. Another similar feature is the called Drive present in the Nokia Maps and which is a car-based navigation components. The Nokia Maps 2.0 which provides turn-by-turn visual and voice directions requires a phone with GPS capability, or an external GPS module connected to a mobile device.

The acquisition of Navteq, a digital map maker, has put Nokia in the edge and the company has been busy developing new devices and software to compete with popular GPS system makers like Garmin, which recently launched its own personal navigator-phone hybrid. The company also said it will introduce a mass market version of Nokia Maps in the first half of this year for mobile devices based on the Series 40 platform.
In line with its push into personal navigation, Nokia this week introduced its first GPS-enabled mobile phone with an integrated compass and Nokia Maps 2.0. The phone also comes with a self-mount car kit for car navigation, assisted GPS for accessing satellite views, and local maps pre-loaded on the device's 1-GB memory card.

Expressing his expectation on the 6210 Navigator, the VP of Nokia's location based services group, Michael said "By combining the integrated compass of the Nokia 6210 Navigator, with the speed and accuracy of assisted GPS, Nokia Maps 2.0 provides a unique experience with which other, less accurate, mobile navigation applications can't compete."

In addition to the features mentioned above, the 6210 Navigator comes with a 3G support for high-speed Internet browsing, 3.2-megapixel camera, MP3 player, and FM radio.

Nokia will start shipping the 6210 Navigator in select markets in the third quarter of this year with a somewhat reasonable price of EUR 300 (about $435). Its multimedia phones, such as the N82 and the N95, cost a lot more. Nokia didn't stop there. It also announced the 6220 classic, the N78, and the N96 -- all three phones come pre-loaded with the latest version of Nokia Maps. The announcements were made at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona.