Nokia N77 Now Official: Mobile Widescreen TV, 3G

We had a really cryptic tip about the Nokia N77 last week, but now we have confirmation and actual pictures. It will indeed support mobile TV of the DVB-H variety viewable on its 2.4-inch screen, in addition to the EDGE, GPRS and UMTS standards. It only supports microSD cards up to 2GB in size, meaning that SanDisk's new 4GB beast can't be used here. Nokia also threw in Push-to-Talk and FM radio support. It'll hit Europe 2Q of this year for around $480. – Nicholas Deleon

SanDisk announced today the world's highest capacity microSD HC card, coming in at an impressive 4GB. (It was only six months ago that it released a 2GB microSD card.) Good thing, too, what with all those storage-hungry cellphones that are coming out of 3GSM this week. Not only does it have plenty of space, but it should be plenty fast too, since it complies with the new SD Speed Class 2 spec. Good thing, since current microSD card, I've noticed, can be a little on the slow side. Keep your eyes open for all 4GB sometime later this year. – Nicholas Deleon

Big bad Reuters let it slip that Nokia will unveil at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona next week the N77, a consumer-aimed, moderately priced cellphone with TV capabilities. The N77, which should resemble other N7x phones like the N70 here, will be able to receive TV broadcast by way of DVB-H, a nascent mobile TV technology that is currently undergoing tests in several markets around the world. So what?

Nokia wants to jump start the mobile TV market, which up until now has really only taken off in Korea, if that. And no, we're not talking about downloading hot videoz picked out by your cellphone carrier, but actual programming. One problem seems to be that people just aren't that excited to watch video on their mobile devices if the screen isn't large enough. We should find out more once the Barça conference hits, hopefully with pretty pics of the phone, too. – Nicholas Deleon

In addition to an impressive array of business phones, Nokia has also launched a proper mobile TV phone, the N77, as well as a satnav phone, the 6110 Navigator.

Nokia calls the N77 a multimedia computer, but it's mainly geared toward watching mobile TV in the hopes that it will accelerate DVB-H mobile TV adoption.

Not available in the UK until 2008, it is launching in Ireland in the next month.

It's biggest feature is its 2.4-inch widescreen, which rivals the real estate of digital camera's displays, and integral to its user interface is a dedicated TV key that acts like the power switch on your television.