Nokia E7 Delayed Until Early 2011

Nokia’s flagship E7 phones will not make it to the smartphone market this Christmas, as shipments are delayed until early 2011.

Initially slated for this month, the rollout of Nokia’s E7 qwerty slider phone has been postponed to next year to “ensure the best possible user experience,” said a Nokia’s spokesman to Reuters without further elaboration.

However, Techdigest has cited “an unspecified hardware issue that is causing durability problems” as the root of the postponement.

Delay dampens expectations

Earlier this year, Nokia unveiled a range of new smartphones – including the E7 – that would boast the latest version of the Symbian operating platform.

However, expectations for the device have not been very high, according to Hannu Rauhala, analyst at Pohjola Bank in Helsinki, who also projected that the delay would bring more “uncertainty over the future of high-end models”.

The news also echoes the unexplained postponement of the N8’s rollout early this year, not long before Nokia admitted the model experienced power problems with some handsets not turning on after recharging.

The rightful successor to the Nokia Communicator

Designed for business users, the E7 sports a 4-inch AMOLED touch-screen display, Microsoft document editing and a full slide-out qwerty keyboard. It also features 8MP camera and HD video, plus fully integrated social networks.

The device is believed to be Nokia’s next top-of-the-range model, with former Nokia mobile chief Anssi Vanjoki calling it “the rightful successor to the Nokia Communicator series”.

However, with its shipments delayed until next year, the company is likely to lose its ground in the high-end handset market to other smartphone makers this Christmas.