Nokia shows phones, eyes Facebook access

By Tarmo Virki

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, unveiled four new multimedia phones on Monday and said it was in talks to offer phone access to social networking site Facebook.

Nokia also launched its new free media-sharing service "Share on Ovi", which it opened for live testing last week, and an updated version of its maps software, the world's first pedestrian navigation system.

The media and mobile phone industries have been looking for user generated content boom on phones, but so far limited usage of Internet on handsets has put a lid on the potentially lucrative business.

Nokia unveiled at Mobile World Congress trade show a new N96 top-of-the-range model, successor to its top profit generator, the N95. It comes with 16 gigabytes of internal memory, and is expected to retail for around 550 euros ($800), excluding subsidies and taxes.

"The N96 comes to market in a timely way given the recent release of the 16 gigabyte iPhone," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

Its new N78 model, a successor to the N73, Nokia's top-selling multimedia phone, will start sales next quarter for around 350 euros.

Nokia has sold some 15 million N73 handsets.

The company also unveiled new mid-range phone models 6210 Navigator, to sell for around 300 euros, and the 6220 Classic with a 5 megapixel camera, priced at around 325 euros.