The Future Is Calling

Nokia’s stylish, teardrop-shaped 7600 may be the ultimate in morphed devices. The 7600 phone is the centerpiece of Nokia’s third-generation (3G) handset push in Europe. (3G is the long-delayed technology designed to deliver video and Internet services to mobile devices.) Plug in the headphones and you can listen to your favorite tunes in MP3 format or in advanced audio coding (AAC), a rival standard that is expected to pick up popularity when Apple’s AAC-based Music Store launches in Europe this year. The 7600’s built-in Web browser allows users to download songs from any compatible music-sharing site, with sound as good as the average Walkman. It stores up to an hour of AAC songs, or 30 minutes of MP3. That’s not all: there’s a 15-frame/sec video camera and a 0.3-megapixel digital camera. Nokia’s suggested price is 3450, but that’s likely to come down once European operators apply their usual subsidies. U.K. retailer Carphone Warehouse is already giving the phones away to those who sign up for a $45-per-month contract. Let the morphing begin.