When the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic launched, it was easy to see that the price point and feature set would have made it an awesome phone for Nokia to make some moves in the U.S. market. The full touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera, built-in GPS, and standard 3.5mm headphone jack all add up to trump most of the other smartphones, or at least match them. Unfortunately, Nokia wasn’t able to get either AT&T or T-Mobile to carry the phone, though that hasn’t stopped the 5800 XpressMusic from being extremely popular anyways.
Today, though, Nokia announced that T-Mobile has finally agreed to pick up the Nokia 5230, renamed to the Nuron. The Nokia 5230 is basically the 5800 XpressMusic with a 2 megapixel camera and sans WiFi, and Nokia has added support for T-Mobile’s funky 3G band, which is great news. The T-Mobile version of the Nokia 5230 passed through the FCC back in November 2009, and we’re glad to see it finally come to fruition.
Unfortunately, neither Nokia nor T-Mobile have released pricing information, and that’s going to be the key here. If the Nuron launches at $50 or less with a contract, it could stand to make huge waves. Also, I’m glad to see that T-Mobile is taking an open approach to the Nuron, choosing to launch it with Ovi Maps built-in, rather than locking the feature out. It will also have Nokia’s Ovi Store included, which gives access to thousands of apps that are, on average, cheaper than those found even on Apple’s App Store!
The Nokia Nuron is planned to be available from T-Mobile online and in their retail stores in the coming weeks.
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Even though it seems quite old, given its target market, I think the Nokia Nuron will sell well. I’m anxious to see how T-Mobile markets the phone, though. Historically, AT&T has done a horrendous job of marketing their Symbian-powered smartphones as little more than cool dumbphones, but T-Mobile has done better, in the past.
