NEC E101 Rumours

Discontinued
4th September 2004

NEC accidentally offered a sneak peek of their upcoming NEC E101 handset with some recent publicity material, comparing i-Mode, 3G and 2.5G handsets.

Out of the three handsets pictured (left) we can see the 3G NEC E228, the i-Mode N410i, which leaves the E101 as an as-yet unannounced handset. This isn't the first time that we've seen a manufacturer release material in this way, Motorola recently did it with the MPx220 handset.
 

From the looks of the E101, it's a pretty conventional clamshell design, and almost completely identical to the NEC N110, which is a handset only sold into the Chinese market (see left). This gives us a pretty good idea of the physical dimensions of the phone, as the N110 is 85x44x24mm, 93 grams and has a 128x160 pixel main display in 65,000 colours. Although not immediately obvious, the N110 has a VGA resolution digital camera "underneath" the phone (on the reverse side to the keypad).

The N110 features dual-band GSM, GPRS and a WAP 1.2 browser. It's impossible to say from the scant information available what the NEC E101 might have, but similar NEC GSM handsets for the western market are generally tri-band.

We also don't know at present which markets the E101 will be released into. NEC doesn't have much of a presence in Europe for 2G phones (most E-series phones currently are on the Hutchison 3G network). We'll let you know more about this phone when we get the information. Subscribe to our newsletter for updates.