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Recent reports are claiming that Nokia has begun to make some price cuts on selected music and media phones, in some cases up to 10-percent. In addition to the selected music and media models, Nokia has also made some smaller price cuts across the rest of their models. The Nokia 5310 and 5610 music phones as well as the 8GB N81 saw the largest cuts.

These price cuts come as a response to increased competition in the mobile phone market, however Nokia still holds a solid 40 percent overall, and this news will just make it a little tougher on some of their competition.

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Canadian smartphone users who are either boycotting or simply not interested in the iPhone 3G will now have another solid option to choose from, and at an affordable price to boot.

Rogers Wireless has announced that they have dropped the price of the Nokia N95 down to just $199. Of course that new low price still comes along with the same three-year agreement, but that seems to be the standard with Rogers.

Sounds like a good deal, now you can get the N95, a great smartphone for about half of what it was priced at before and don’t forget, you can also take advantage of that limited time data plan that offers 6GB or monthly transfer for $30 a month.

Via [electronista]

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Nokia, acting a little ahead of the planned schedule for “early June” and released the latest update for the North American N95, bring the firmware to version 20.02.011. Along with the new firmware comes a few welcome changes that include a faster boot time that was cut from 30 seconds down to 19 seconds and a camera start-up time of just 2 seconds. The N95 also sees the addition of Flash Lite 3 support, demand paging, Web Run Time and Idle Screen Nokia search. Nokia also added a few N-Gage demos in for good measure. The update, which is currently available for all Nokia N95 NAM users can be found on the Nokia Software Updater.

Via [IntoMobile]

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N95 users from the US are abuzz with news that the cellphone giant is finally releasing a firmware update soon. Vandelay, an administrator on the official Nokia Discussion Boards, said that he received official word from the Nokia Software Update team that says Nokia is “working to produce the new software” for the Nokia N95 US version (also known as N95-3). The update is estimated to come out by early June. While the company did not release any details on what the update will include, Nokia forum users are speculating that the update may include Flash Lite 3, Demand Paging, Web Runtime support, and perhaps even User Data Preservation (UDP) and built-in Geotagging.

Via [Symbian-Guru]

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In what seems like a big smack in the face towards AT&T, Rogers has officially announced and beat AT&T to the punch with the introduction of the 8GB Nokia N95. The recent rumors circulating about an “early-May” release have proven true and the N95 will be available beginning on May 6. Not only is the 8GB N95 good news for Rogers customers but it also marks it as the first Nseries handset available in Canada.

The Rogers 8GB N95 will retail for $399.99, which comes along with a three-year agreement. Hopefully AT&T will follow up with their branded version in Q2 as promised.

Read [Newswire.ca]

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It may have taken Rogers a year or more to land the iPhone deal, but they are not holding back with the Nokia N95. While the N95 is not a new phone, they are still beating the US giant AT&T, who is not expected to launch the N95 until Q2 2008. The handset will be the standard (non-8GB) model and is expected to be available on May 2, 2008, no word yet on any pricing.

Via [Engadget Mobile]

• Nokia’s unlocked N85 now available with Amazon
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Nokia has officially launched its N-Gage mobile games service. The N-Gage allows gamers to try and buy mobile games directly from their Nokia handsets. As we reported last Friday, the N-Gage service supports Nokia handsets that belong to Nokia’s new generation of mobile phones. These handsets include N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95 and N95 8GB.

For its initial offerings, N-Gage is making available various mobile games such as EA Sports’ FIFA08, Brain Challenge and Asphalt 3: Street Rules by Gameloft; World Series of Poker Pro Challenge by Glu Mobile and Hooked on: Creatures of the Deep and System Rush: Evolution by Nokia’s own mobile game publishing arm. Nokia also promised to release more games in the coming days.

Aside from trying and buying games from N-Gage, users can also create Friend List, send and receive private messages and participate in N-Gage’s IM style chat. Prices of games to be featured in N-Gage will range from $9 to $15, but remember you can always try the games first before paying for them.

Read [Nokia]

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Nokia has finally launched its N-Gage gaming service with high hopes of revitalizing the ailing mobile gaming market. (And possibly earn a few more bucks?) Although an official announcement will be made on Monday, the N-Gage blog took one step in advance and informed the loyal N-Gage followers who were testing the product during its beta stage, that the N-Gage platform is already opened.

The N-Gage is fully compatible with Nokia’s top mobile phone series – the N95, N81 and N82. With Nokia striking a deal with major cellphone game developers such as Electronic Arts, Gameloft and Glo Mobile they should prove to be successful. Nokia hopes to have around 25-30 games available by mid-2008 and add another 25-30 during the second half of the year.

Can the N-Gage re-ignite the dying flames of mobile phone gaming? That remains to be seen.

Read [N-Gage] Via [I4U]

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Thanks to an upcoming firmware update (version 20.0.016), the Nokia N95 8GB should soon be a lot more stable. Unfortunately, only two new features are being added: Automatic Screen Rotation (ASR) and support for “Combo Memory”. Just like the iPhone, ASR gives the N95 the ability to auto adjust the image to landscape or portrait mode depending on the device’s orientation. The “Combo Memory”, on the other hand, is Nokia’s new term to describe the N95’s ability to partition part of its flash memory for ROM use and for user memory. Other than the two new features, the firmware focuses on a slew of fixes and stability issues. Highlights include: stabilized Bluetooth, USB, and WLAN connectivity, improved support for embedded video in the web browser, improved application switching, support for large number of files in the image gallery, and the ability to delete over 6,000 contacts with a single press of a button.

The new firmware should be available for download in a few days. Continue reading for the full change log.

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The N95 from Nokia gave us very little to complain about as far as its innards go, but for some the price may have been a little on the high side. If that was the reason you skipped buying it in the first place, the N95-3 in its fiery red incarnation begs for a change. This limited-edition N95-3 is now on sale at Amazon for $504.99, not a big price to pay for those who know what it’s made of. The N95-3, as you already known, is the American version of Nokia’s successful N95 but offers better battery life, more memory, and is known to work seamlessly with AT&T’s HSDPA network. Apart from this, nothing else has changed, it still retains the 5-megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with autofocus, Wi-Fi, GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, and TV-out.

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