We’re trying a new, booth-by-booth gallery approach to covering CTIA Wireless Expo. Please let us know what you think in the comments.
Nokia has one of the largest booths at the show, but in terms of showing new technology… Nokia did not have much of substance to show in terms of new products for the GSM/UMTS world. This year, the focus was clearly on WiMAX… with a side of CDMA.
Nokia WiMAX
Nokia’s WiMAX presence was both at Nokia’s booth, and jointly promoted with Sprint XOHM. While the N810 should work fine with Clearwire WiMAX all the same, the promotion was heavily geared towards co-branding the N810 WiMAX Edition with Sprint XOHM… including the high-rise press conference to demo it. Press, including this writer, were lofted into the air via crane to try WiMAX high in the air.
Nokia CDMA
Nokia announced its long-anticipated (and well covered by PhoneNews.com) return to CDMA device manufacturing. Countless readers have asked us if Nokia would be using their tried-and-true Series 40 platform, or use cheaper ODM designs.
We are happy to report that the two Nokia CDMA phones announced at the show, the 1606 and the 3606, are both Series 40 3rd Edition devices. More details on both devices in today’s news, but you can view live photos of both devices below.
Both devices were show, as pictured below, with MetroPCS branding, indicating that these two devices are aimed at a regional carrier release.
We did ask Nokia’s media team about the 6205, which recently appeared on Verizon Wireless rebates, and they declined to comment. They also declined to comment on the 7205; the first EV-DO phone to be manufactured by Nokia.
In addition, we have more news to announce about Nokia CDMA in the coming days, so stay tuned.
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I want to see pictures of this crane thing and more details about it. Seems like a rather neat way to market stuff. Maybe put them up in the Forums
[...] Photoed below include the Asus Eee PC, Samsung Q1 Ultra (though the final version will be a Q1 Premium), and various laptops and WiMAX data cards. The Nokia N810 was featured in our Nokia Booth coverage. [...]
Was the crane involved because Wi-Max has bad penetration?
No, WiMAX coverage was available throughout the convention center. Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition units were usable everywhere I tried. Coverage actually was extended to a good couple of miles around the center with a single mobile base station deployment.
The crane was purely used as a marketing gimmick for a press conference. I think it missed the mark and was just a waste, really. I would have preferred a nice, air conditioned conference room.