Announced at the 3GSM Congress in Cannes on 23 February 2004, the new Nokia 9500 Communicator is what users of previous models and all Communicator series enthusiasts have been waiting for for many months. And, we must say, it was worth waiting!
Nokia 9500 Communicator is based on the latest version of Symbian OS - v7.0s. By still using the Series 80 UI platform, the new Communicator remains compatible with the 92xx series. Many applications will work just fine and only some more advanced ones will require slight modifications like in case of Nokia 3650 to 6600 upgrade. This can be considered an important news for current 9200 series users who will be able to use their existing Communicator applications. The Series 80 UI has been redesigned and "facelifted" so that it looks very modern and stylish.
The new Communicator is equipped with a screen of the same resolution (640x200 pixels) but now it supports 16-bit palette (over 65 thousand colors). Phone screen has also been "upgraded" to 16-bit color and it uses Series 40-like interface. Nokia 9500 Communicator is equipped with a VGA camera (640x480 pixels, 24-bit) and the phone screen can serve as a viewfinder and also will allow you to quickly preview received MMS messages. That's why color is of great use.
9500 finally supports GPRS (up to 53.6 kbps) and more, because it also supports EDGE providing fast data transmission up to 236.8 kbps! What's more, Nokia 9500 is the first PDA-phone to fully support Wi-Fi - up to 11 Mbit/s in Wireless LANs! Now you can take advantage of all these hotspots on airports and in many public places and browse the Web or connect to your server at amazing speed. For local PC connectivity the 9500 provides USB 2.0 port along with Infrared and Bluetooth.
The 9500 is equipped with a huge internal storage memory - 80 megabytes. The memory is, as always, based on Flash chips, which means that it preserves its contents even without any power provided. Users can expand their storage space using MultiMedia Cards (MMC). The size of operating memory (RAM) isn't known yet but the max heap size given in technical specifications (20 MBytes) suggests that it is even higher than that (possibly 32 or 40 MB). There is no information about the CPU speed (the CPU is probably based on the ARM926EJ-S chip) but it is most probably not slower than 150 MHz (i.e. three times faster than 9210i).
The new Communicator offers much improved keyboard which now looks like that of Psion Revo. It also has new five-way navigation key which makes it easier to operate the UI and especially to browse Web pages. Like before, the keybard also contains application keys providing quick access to documents, Calendar, Messages, Phone, Desk, Web browser etc. and also "My own" key that can be assigned to your favourite program so that you can launch it with one key press.
Nokia 9500 generates stereo sound and supports MP3 files. There is no stereo jack connector which means that users will have to use Nokia stereo headsets using the bottom port. Like previous Communicators, the 9500 features loudspeaker mode. 9500 is the first Communicator ever with phone earpiece located on the front cover - current 9110/9210 users will have to change their habits :-)
N9500 PROs AND CONs
PROs (compared to N9210i):
- GPRS, EGPRS (EDGE)
- WLAN up to 11 MBit/s
- two high resolution, 16-bit color screens for phone and PDA
- large (80 MB) internal storage memory
- Bluetooth audio and data
- large operating memory (RAM) and faster CPU
- improved keyboard and navigation key
- stereo sound
- latest Symbian OS v7.0s
- Series 80 - compatibility with existing 9200 series applications and data
- advanced Opera-based Web browser - HTML 4.1, XHTML, Javascript
- Memory card (MMC) slot with hotswap functionality for additional memory
- integrated VGA camera, video and stills capture
- MultiMedia Messaging (MMS), fax, email
- fast USB 2.0 connectivity
- two three-band versions: EGSM 900, GSM 1800/1900 and EGSM 850, GSM 1800/1900 for America
CONs:
- no backlight for QWERTY keyboard
- no stereo jack connector for high quality audio headphones
- low resolution camera
Nokia 9500 Communicator is currently the most advanced Symbian OS device and most probably also the most powerful PDA-phone on the market.
