Russell Beattie pulled together 2003 sales statistics for Series 60 mobile phones. According to him, 675,000 Series 60 phones were sold in the U.S. last year. That’s not bad considering how few models were on the market.
The model that I’ve discussed on Operation Gadget is the Nokia 3650. It’s got a huge color display designed for video playback, 3.4 Megabytes of on board memory, a camera capable of capturing still images and full-motion video, Bluetooth, and an MMC expansion slot. There are a lot of mini-applications available or under development for this phone because it is Series 60-compatible. The biggest complaint I’ve heard about the 3650 is that it has a non-standard key arrangement.
Overseas, many more Series 60 phones have shipped. Beattie says that articles he’s read indicate that over 2 million Nokia 6600’s have been sold since October 2003. The 6600 also made Stuff Magazine’s Top 10 Gadgets of 2004.
Nokia is expected to release the 6620, which is designed to be compatible with U.S. GSM networks, sometime this spring. The 6620 has a standard keyboard layout, so it may do better than the 3650 on that basis alone.
If you don’t know much about Series 60 phones yet, you can check out Series60.com for general information about the platform. MobileWhack is providing a lot of Series 60 usage tips in its Series 60 section.