Nokia 701 announced as the smartphone with brightest screen, Nokia 700 as the most compact

Nokia has been teasing us with its countdown timer about "something new on Symbian" since Monday, and it just sent us the press release announcing not only the next version - Symbian Belle - but also a few phones to popularize it come the holiday shopping craze.

The Nokia 700's main selling point, according to Espoo's marketing department, is that it is "the smallest smartphone in the world". While not the slimmest, at 0.38" (9.7mm), Nokia might have a point with the 700, as its compact chassis measures just 110 x 50.7 x 9.7mm, and it weighs 3.39oz (96 grams).

Still, it packs a 3.2" ClearBlack AMOLED display, 1GHz processor and 5MP fixed focus camera with flash, plus a front-facing cam, 2GB of memory, NFC, GPS, Bluetooth and FM radio. The battery is rated for 7 hours of talk time in 3G mode, and 19 days on standby. The phone is coming in several colors like "cool grey", silver/white, coral red, peacock blue and purple, and will cost $390 (EUR 270) before taxes and subsidies in the third quarter of 2011.

What piqued our interest more than the claim of the world's most compact smartphone, is the fact that the Nokia 700 is touted as the company's greenest phone to date. We know that Nokia excels among in peers in that respect, but here it has outdone itself by not only excluding harmful materials in its production, but also utilizing bio-degradable or recycled plastics, and recycled metals.


The other newcomer, the Nokia 701, steps it up a bit, with a 3.5" IPS-LCD display, again with the ClearBlack technology, which Nokia claims is the brightest smartphone screen out there in terms of nits. So far that crown had been reserved for the LG Optimus Black with its 700 nits, so the Nokia 701 should be even brighter, which would make for better sunlight visibility, so we can't wait to get one and test it outside.

The Nokia 701 actually looks a lot like a more compact Nokia C7 at the front, has the same 8MP fixed focus cam with flash and 8GB of onboard memory, but it is powered by a 1GHz processor, and has a 11 x 56.8 x 117.3mm body with 4.62oz (131 grams) of weight. The battery is rated for close to 9 hours of talk time in 3G mode, which sounds pretty good, and the phone is pentaband.

These 1GHz processors are a novelty for Symbian devices, and Nokia claims they carry four times the graphic memory of the predecessors, so performance with Symbian Belle shouldn't be an issue, as it runs smooth even on 680MHz. The Nokia 701 will be available in the third quarter of 2011 in steel dark, silver light, amethyst violet, and white versions. The price before taxes and subsidies is pegged at $420 (EUR 290).

source: Nokia