NOKIA, THE country’s foremost handset player, commanding a 60 per cent market share, is manoeuvring to steal Apple’s thunder. The company will be launching its high-end phone, N96; labelled a ’killer’, it will be launched three days ahead of the much-awaited 3G-enabled iPhone’s debut in India. Nokia is now being touted as the iPhone killer. This may be Nokia’s first global launch in India. Though the product is expected to be launched in Delhi on Tuesday, the handset, in all probability, will be available in the market only from the first week of September. Industry experts say that Nokia is speeding up the introduction of N96 in India to counter the hype associated with the proposed introduction of the 3G iPhone, which will be offered by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar.

N96 is the first ever mobile device to offer a memory of 16GB size scalable to 32 GB through an external micro SD card (32GB). N96 is a multimedia computer and is truly optimised for video and TV. According to Nokia, the phone can store up to 40 hours of video. With a large 2.8" screen, it supports high-quality videos in a wide range of formats like MPEG-4, Windows Media Video and Flash Video, thus enabling videos to be viewed easily. For further convenience, the Nokia N96 features a ’kickstand’ on the back cover that allows for hands-free viewing. Above all, the Nokia Video Centre allows access to a variety of mobile content ranging from movie trailers to news from popular sites like YouTube, Reuters and Sony Pictures.

For great, high quality music experience, the Nokia N96 features media keys, a 3.5 mm headphone connector and built-in 3D stereo speakers. Moreover, the Nokia Maps application offers rich maps with city details and satellite views and has upgrade options such as City Guides, turn-by-turn pedestrian mode and voice-guided car navigation. The Nokia N96 has a 5-mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, flash and video light. It allows DVD-like quality video capture at 30 frames per second. The images can be stored in both JPEG and EXIF format. Further, the incorporated A-GPS allows consumers to ’geotag’ their pictures with location data and share them with their online communities. The Nokia N96 naturally supports the Ovi family of Nokia Internet services, including maps, music, media sharing and more. Nokia’s N96 is expected to be priced around Rs 35,000. In comparison, the iPhone is likely to cost about Rs 31,000 for the 8 GB version and between Rs 35,000-37,000 for the 16 GB one.

A quick comparison of features of the two handsets shows that while the iPhone scores over the N96 with its larger 3.5-inch multi-touch screen, it comes only with a 2 mega pixel camera. Whereas N96, which has a two-way slide keyboard and a 2.8-inch screen, comes with a 5 mega pixel camera. N96 comes without touch-screen; however, it is still billed as the toughest iPhone rival. The company is reported to be working on a touch-screen rival reportedly called Tube. Nokia has reportedly said that iPhone’s presence in India would lead to an increased awareness on the many concepts and features available on Nokia’s handsets.