August 27th, 2007

Nokia announces stand-alone GPS system and mobile accessory upgrades

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 7:19 am

Categories: Gadgets, Nokia, On the road

Tags: Nokia Corp., Mobile, Cell Phone, GPS, Matthew Miller

Nokia branched out a bit from their mobile phone business with their Internet Tablets and today just announced another type of product that I suppose could be considered a mobile phone accessory. The GPS market is hot and Nokia will soon have their own portable GPS navigation solution called the Nokia 500 Auto Navigation. This device will compete with the Garmin, Magellan, and TomTom devices that are so popular today. Like some of the other solutions it will also serve as a hands-free Bluetooth speakerphone for in car use.

The Nokia 500 will be preloaded with Nokia Maps preinstalled with regional maps, depending on where you purchase the device, and will provide spoken and text directions. It will have a traffic channel that I imagine gets the data through your mobile phone connection, but the press release isn’t clear about that functionality. Nokia is also promoting the entertainment value of the device with its FM transmitter, music playing, photo viewing, and video playing functionality. It is expected in the 4th quarter for EUR 300.

Nokia also announced several new mobile accessories with this press release. These products are mostly enhancements to existing product lines and include the LD-4W Bluetooth GPS receiver module, the BH-903 Bluetooth stereo headset, the BH-902 Bluetooth headset, MD-7W Bluetooth stereo speakers and DC-1 Nokia Power Pack. The DC-1 Power Pack is a new product and is a portable power station that has the equivalent of three 950 mAh batteries to recharge your mobile devices and is compatible with the now standard 2mm charging interface. You can charge two device as the same time with the two available ports. These new products should also be available in the 4th quarter.