Nokia's 6670 Smart Phone
Nokia's 6670 smart phone's accessories (external link) should foster brand loyalty and creativity. Do I sound like a press release? Let me make a comparison. A camera's practicality and professionalism relies on a system, not just the camera itself. Nikon, Cannon, and Leica's lenses, film backs, flash accessories, autowinders, and so on make their basic cameras do an amazing host of jobs. You start collecting these accessories and pretty soon you have a bag of brand specific gear that works together well. You have a system.
Unretouched Nokia photo taken with a 6670. Resolution is 1152x864 pixels. Good enough for web work.
Nokia and others are now moving toward this camera model, coincidentally, and happily enough, with mobile phones that take pictures. Nokia's 6670's accessories include a wireless keyboard to compose documents on, a GPS unit, a flash unit, a wireless headset, no more stupid cords, and best of all, a remote monitoring camera.
The remote needs a power supply but connects wirelessly over the same GSM network your 6670 uses. Dial the remote with your mobile and see what it sees. Or have it send you an image on schedule or taken when activity trips its built in motion sensor. Has an infrared source to take low light or night time images, as well as a microphone to send you audio. Very cool. Read more by clicking here (external link).
These products may seem like vaporware now, Nokia won't introduce them for some months and then not in the America's just yet, I do think the company will gather a following. I don't expect my phone to do everything, I mainly want it for voice. But this a la carte approach, one accessory here and there, is very compelling. It lets us make the phone be what we want. Good things will have to follow.