The guys at PhoneScoop have posted a news item about Nokia’s brand-new 6230i mobile phone that plays M4A protected files from the iTunes Music Store. Read More..
As I write this, the only technical informaition I can find is in a PDF, so I will quote some specs from it:
1.3 megapixel camera
MP3/AAC/M4A stereo music player (iTunes compatible)
Supports MultiMedia card up to 512MB
Bluetooth wireless technolog
Push to talk (like nextel)
xHTML/HTML web browser
Stereo FM radio
This phone is tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 with GPRS Class 10 as well as EDGE and HSCSD compatible. The phone also supports H.263 video capture.
As for network compatibility T-Mobile I believe uses the 900MHz spectrum whereas Cingular uses the 850MHz spectrum, so this may not be readily available to us Cingular customers. (Someone please verify network compatibility.)
Recently the 6230 which not long ago debuted with Cingular at $199 was steadily dropped to a $99 price point as of this Monday, so perhaps this may come in at a $199 price point. As for features, my own opinion is that this will beat out the Motorola phone as the phone to have as Nokia has a better UI on their phones than Motorola, and from my own experiences I have found that Nokia phones usually get better reception, at least up here in the hills of New England!
Reader MJK smartly observes:
It looks to me like they’re saying that the phone plays M4A files, which are standard AAC files. The iTunes Music Store files are M4P (“P” for protected), which they don’t mention at all. A lot of devices claim to be iTunes compatible because they play AAC (Apple is really sort of alone in supporting the format), but they can’t play purchased tracks.
