Europe : The CarphoneWarehouse is your first and only port of call to check out the much-awaited 3G Nokia 7600 - the first Nokia 3G handset. This cutting edge mobile phone will be available exclusively at The Carphone Warehouse from February 2004.

One drawback. As the phone is not capable of handling 3G video conferencing, 3 will not directly handle sales nor customer services for this model. You could say that the CarPhoneWarehouse is acting as a sub-contractor or virtual 3G operator to promote the Nokia 7600 themselves and handle all aspects of launch, sales and after sales support.

The good news is that users will have access to the 3 network and to most of the 3 services. These include things like news, weather and comedy but won't be able to use the premium content like Barclaycard Premiership Football, Top Shelf and MTV streaming videos.

3 seems to have discounted the phone as they have the much heralded NEC e616 and possibly the drop dead gorgeous Sony Ericsson Z1010 heading into the UK High Streets within the next few weeks.

The Nokia 7600 itself shapes up as follows :

Dual Mode Operation
WCDMA and GSM 900/1800 networks
Automatic switching between bands and modes

Size
Weight: 123 g (with Lithium Battery)
Dimensions: 87 mm x 78 mm x 18.6 mm, 103 cc

Display and User Interface
Bright active matrix TFT color display
65,536 colors
128x160 pixels
Graphical user interface
Built-in HF for speech, music, and polyphonic ringing tones
Three soft keys plus scroll key

Integrated Digital VGA Camera
Image/video resolution: 640x480/128x96
Self-time function (10 sec)
Video capture up to 15 frames per second
Phone display used as a viewfinder
29 MB dynamic memory for contacts, video clips, images, tones, messages, music files, add -on applications, calendar, and to-do notes.
Dedicated camera key for instant capturing of still images or videos

Digital Music Player
Digital Music Player for MP3 and AAC files
Music file download over-the-air or from a compatible PC via Nokia Audio Manager which is included in Nokia PC Suite
Listen with stereo headset or through internal loudspeaker
MP3 and AAC files as ringing tones

High-Speed Data
Up to 57.6 kilobits per second in circuit-switched data networks
Up to 384 kilobits per second (downlink) and 64 kilobits per second (uplink) in WCDMA packet transmission networks
Multitasking: Take and send pictures while you talk

Connectivity
Infrared
Bluetooth wireless technology
USB with Pop-Port™
Wireless phone connection to a compatible PC
Send/receive pictures, video clips, graphics

Messaging
Combine video/picture, text, and voice into multimedia messages
Embedded e-mail client
Concatenated text messages, picture messaging

Voice Features
Voice dialing
Voice recorder
Integrated handsfree speaker

Browsing
Advanced XHTML browser
WAP 2.0 over GPRS data in both GSM and WCDMA modes

Video Services
Video clip download up to 1.4MB
3GPP Streaming ( Please note that the streaming functionality in the Nokia 7600 is an operator dependent feature and requires network support ).

Applications
Pre-installed Java™ based games and applications
Downloadable Java™ applications, maximum download size 348kB per application

Software
PC Suite for Nokia 7600 phone in sales package
Nokia Audio Manager for music file transfer from a compatible PC is included in PC suite for Nokia 7600 phone

Box Contents
Nokia 7600 imaging phone (NMM-3)
Li-ion Battery Cell (BL-5C)
Travel Charger (ACP-12)
Fashion headset (HS-3)
Connectivity cable (DKU-2)
Wrist strap (CP-10)
Pouch (CP-15)
CD-ROM
User's Guide