Duh. Darn. Damit. It would seem like Nokia isn’t going to release the rather niftily packaged 7700 to the general pöbel after all. The web page says

Not commercially available
Used only for piloting of mobile media services with key industry partners.

The Nokia 7700 looks like a large sandwich or a pair of hi-tech binoculars, has a giant screen (for Nokia standards) and a bunch of fun multimedia capabilities built in, and a smart but gymmybear-looking user interface. What is radically different with this puppy compared to other “smart” Nokia phones is that this one is controlled with a pen (stylus) on a touch sensitive screen. What makes it radical is that Nokia has been rather loud claiming their phones’ superior usability as you can control them with one hand. Well, with a phone and a pen, you cannot.

The touch screen is also used for dialling, as the phone — thankfully — does not have those sooooo outdated number buttons in that ugly three-by-four matrix. It’s good that somebody finally decided to get rid of it (sidenote: i’ve studied stuff like usability and the keyboard really is just one useless interface between two people, just like the telephone number is. ‘nuther sidenote: bored at some lecture mebbe ten years ago, i drew a “concept nokia” which only was one big handheld screen, and this was when the 2110 was hot stuff).

Nokia has released a bunch of developer material, including a US description and an SDK, on the 7700 on Forum Nokia, already months ago. My guess is that the 7700 will resurrect as a less goofy-looking device later. It contains way too much Good Stuff^TM to be ditched.

Thanks to Tony for the heads-up!

On another note, Nokia refuses to confirm that they are going to start including Mozilla on their phones. Nifty. That is, if they are. OK, so Opera (currently shipped on top Nokia phones) is an excellent browser and is second only to Mozilla Firefox, in my humble opinion.