Nokia Announces New Music & Video Enabled Phones

At least 10 times a day we hear stories of music and entertainment companies scrambling to take advantage of what is certain to be the next wave of music delivery and promotion opportunities: the cell phone.

In a move matching recent cell phones promised from Motorola, Nokia today upped the stakes by announcing a new line with advanced features including hard drives, improved cameras, video, and music storage.

According to a company press release the N91 can store 3,000 songs on its four-gigabyte hard disk, a capacity similar to that of Apple Computer’s iPod Mini and will go on sake by the end of this year. The N70, Nokia’s smallest so-called third-generation, (3G) hone will provide faster data-transmission speeds and will start selling in the third quarter.

Global mobile phone sales rose 10 percent in the first quarter, slowing from a 44 percent increase in the quarter a year earlier, according to a survey from the consulting firm Strategy Analytics according to Reuters.