Up close with the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition

While Nokia's just now starting an up-market push in the States with its older 8801, it looks like the freshened model (pictured right) is starting to filter through Europe in earnest after making some cameos last month. Newly dubbed the "Sirocco Edition" but wearing the same 8800 badge, the Vertu wannabe shares most of its predecessor's characteristics: unusually excellent build quality, hardened sapphire display, and lots of hypnotically shiny metal. Unfortunately, as phoneArena found out, it carries over a number of the original's faults as well, namely uneven keypad backlighting and a crappy d-pad. Oh, and still no expansion slot, though the re-upped internal storage (now 128MB) may hold you over -- but with prices pushing an honest grand US, the real question is whether you want to fork over some serious cash for the privilege of a circa-2005 spec sheet.

Way too many pics of the Nokia 8801

Nokia was in town yesterday, and while we're always happy to spend an hour kicking with them at the W, what really dragged us out of Engadget HQ was the prospect of getting our hands on the 8801, their new stainless steel handset. Like a few of you predicted, the stainless steel did get a little smudgy, but we have to admit that otherwise phone felt pretty nice in the hand, and altogether it felt very solid and had a good center of gravity when slid open. The 8801 won't hit stores until September, but Nokia's rep told us it'll probably cost around $700 before carrier subsidy (though that price could go down between now and then). Power users won't be satisfied with the 8801's lack of top-level features (there's no memory card slot, for instance), but Nokia doesn't care, they're going after the fashionista crowd with this one.