CES 2006 - Day 3: Playstation 3, Quarter-size Hard Drives, SED and lots of TVs

WLAN Enabled Nokia N80 Phone

One feature we've been waiting to hit more smartphones is WiFi. With the high price of data plans in the US and the increasing number of 802.11 hotspots popping up, the inclusion of WiFi in cell phones makes perfect sense. Nokia's N80 is catering to the power user looking to stay connected anywhere in the world. This phone offers a plethora of network support including quad-band GSM, dual-band WCDMA (3G), EDGE, GPRS, 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.0 and IrDA. The N80 also supports UPnP to allow streaming media between the phone and compatible devices. Along with the third generation of the S60 interface on top of the Symbian operating system, third-party application support is already a given.

The N80 also includes several multimedia features including a 3MP camera, MPEG-4 decoding support, an FM radio, A2DP support for stereo headsets, and miniSD memory card expansion.

Although the phone may seem bulky from the pictures, it actually fits quite nicely in the palm of your hand. Nokia expects this phone to appear in US retailers by mid-2006. Cingular was rumored to carry this phone however the representatives at CES have told us that deal did not go through. Expect this phone to retail for around $600.