Nokia's 6260 is the company's first phone with support for both faster download and upload speeds using HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), at up to 10.2M bits per second and 2M bps respectively, it announced on Tuesday.
Nokia has been dragging its feet on support for more bandwidth, but there is now enough demand from consumers and support from network operators for the faster upload and download speeds to make it worth the effort.
Users will be able to take advantage of the higher speeds when uploading images and videos to Web sites, blogs and social networks, and the faster download speeds when, for example, watching videos, according to Nokia.
So far Nokia phone users have been limited to download speeds of 3.6M bps and upload speeds of 384K bps.
Other phones that support faster speeds include the T-Mobile G1, Research in Motion's BlackBerry Storm and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1.
The 6260 slide is expected to retail for €299 (US$386) before taxes and subsidies, and will ship at the beginning of next year, according to Nokia.
The phone runs Nokia's Series 40 software and offers quick access to search engines from the home screen. Other features include support for Wi-Fi, a 5-megapixel camera and A-GPS (Assisted Global Positioning System).
"Nokia is looking at the current downturn, and I think it sees an opportunity to really consolidate and capitalize on its scale, and keep coming out with more and more feature-rich, aggressively priced devices to put more pressure on its competitors," said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight.
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