Nokia N85 joins Telstra's Next G brigade

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 12 March 2009 15:03

IT Industry - Strategy

Ross Fielding, the Executive Director of the Telstra Product Management division, praised the N85 for combining “style and functionality in a sleek, compact, slider handset.”
 
Fielding made reference to all the Telstra add-ons, noting that: “The Nokia N85 gives customers access to 3G applications like Mobile FOXTEL from Telstra, BigPond TV and Whereis Navigator with in-built GPS capabilities. With a long battery life and plenty of memory, customers can stay connected for longer when out and about.”
 
Playing up the feature set, Fielding fielded the following:

“The handset boasts a 2.6 inch OLED display, ideal for viewing photos taken with the 5MP camera, a DVD quality video camera and player, stereo MP3 player and in-built FM transmitter, and much more.
 
“The Nokia N85 is Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled, and gives customers fast access to friends with instant messaging, mobile internet, widgets and social networking.”
 
Telstra has also taken the opportunity to remind us all of its new “MyConnect” next generation messaging suite for Next G and BigPond customers, which “combines email, voicemail, picture messaging, SMS and multimedia communications in one secure, integrated online and mobile service.”

Costing more than even an iPhone at its “outright price”, the N85 retails for AU $1199, but as usual is also available on a $100 plan for 24 months, spreading out the upfront cost of the mobile as is the case with all smartphones today bought on a plan.

Due to arrive in stores from March 17 (although some stores always seem to get models slightly earlier), it will go head-to-head against its stable mate, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic touch-screen “iPhone-esque” model to come from other telcos, while the Nokia N97 is due to be launched, overseas at least, in mid-year.

That’ll put it squarely up against any iPhone 3.0 to come, along with the Palm Pre and other unknown new models to come.

Still, if you’re an N95 user looking for an upgrade, and you’re with Telstra (or not), the N85 joins the N96 as models available right now to tempt you to upgrade.

Whether you do, to what is one of the most advanced slider phones currently available, or wait for even better models yet to come, is up to you!