Nokia 6131: Nokia announces mid-range clamshell

In an effort to increase the number of ever-popular clamshell phones it sells, Nokia announced the Nokia 6131 flip phone. Clamshell phones, or flip phones, have proven to be a very popular phone format with consumers.

The Nokia 6131 is expected to ship to Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America in early summer, with an estimated pricetag of 275 EUR, and will announce a North American version later in 2006.

Some of the very impressive features for the Nokia 6131 include quad-band GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900, Bluetooth, a QVGA display with 16 million colors, microSD memory slot, Nokia Xpress audio messaging and push-to-talk.

Some market analysts are saying that with the Nokia 6131, the world's largest cell phone manufacturer could prove very good competition to the Motorola RAZR, the cell phone that currently holds top position in the mid-range phone market.