Is it a mobile phone? Is it a portable MP3 player? It's both.
The Nokia 3300 is the latest phone with the ability to play back digitally recorded music. Due sometime in the next three months, the 3300 will come equipped with a portable MP3/AAC digital music player as well as a digital recorder.
It isn't the first time someone has put the two functions together. However, previous models were designed first as a mobile phone and second as an MP3 player, while Nokia says the 3300 is designed specifically for enjoying music.
To do this, the 3300 incorporates a special button that lets you access your music files immediately instead of having to browse through the phone's menu. The unit will also come with a standard 64MB MMC card for storing extra songs and the ability to download new tunes from a PC, complete with software for managing your music files.
Many features from previous Nokia phones have been incorporated into the 3300, including exchangeable covers, a built-in FM radio, a colour screen and polyphonic ring tones.
One new capability is something Nokia calls True Tones, which lets you use real life sounds, including music, sounds from nature and even human speech as the ring tone.
You won't be able to miss the 3300 because it comes in a new distinctive design, although you might mistake it for Nokia's N-Gage, which combines a portable gamer with a mobile phone. While you can still play games on the 3300, it will not come with the optimisation the N-Gage has for playing high-quality graphics and feature-rich network-enabled games. On the other hand, the 3300's size and weight, at 125 grammes, make it just as bulky as the N-Gage.