Two shiny new smartphones were launched yesterday by Nokia - the N85, devised for gaming and entertainment and the N79, considered by the company "a technology powerhouse."

The N85 is a two-way slider with a 2.6-inch organic LED screen, measuring 4 inch by 2 inch by 0.6 inch and weighing 128 grams. For surfing the Internet, users can choose between a HSDPA connection at 3.6Mbit/sec. and a Wi-Fi connection. Moreover, photos taken with the 5-megapixel camera can be easily stored on the included 8GB microSD card. They can also be geotagged using the built-in Assisted GPS receiver.

Its estimated price is $660 and its likely launch date is scheduled sometime in October.

As for the N79, it is a candy-bar shaped phone with most of the N85 features: HSDPA, Wi-Fi and A-GPS support, an FM transmitter and a 5-megapixel camera. It measures 4.3 inch by 1.9 inch by 0.6 inch, weighs 97 grams, has a 2.4-inch screen and a 4GB microSD memory card. Its price will amount to approximately $515 and it will become available in October also.

Both gadgets run the Symbian Series 60 Version 3 Feature Pack 2 operating system.

Juha Kokkonen, director for Nokia Nseries, sees the N85 as having been created “to be more than the sum of its parts, offering a complete mobile entertainment package designed for connecting, sharing and discovering” and the N79 as a device that “packs cutting-edge technology into a compact”, concluding that “this balance of performance and style means that it is a powerful and defining step forward from the Nokia N72 and Nokia N73"