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Nokia's upcoming N75 smartphone, a compact clamshell Nseries model, has been spotted in the wild with Cingular's logo plastered right on the front. This answers the question as to what mobile operator would soon deliver the music phone.

The N75, which is reportedly supposed to ship this November, should be the carrier's second high profile Symbian operating system (OS), S60 interface handset in only a couple months - after another Nokia smartphone, the E62

Although Symbian and S60, which runs on top of the OS, are the most popular platforms for smartphones around the world, they haven’t done too well in the U.S.

Along with the new E62 and, now it appears, the N75, Cingular may be in the process of helping those platforms' fortunes in this market in another way: through closer application development ties. Cingular has joined the Symbian Platinum Partner Program, which provides early and free access to Symbian reference materials to the carrier, and a Symbian Zone has been created on the operator's own devCentral portal to encourage software development for these types of mobile handsets.

The N75 is Nokia's smallest Nseries model yet - at 3.7 x 2.0 x 0.8 inches (95 x 52 x 20 millimeters) and 4.4 ounces (124 grams). While the N75 is narrow, Nokia still has a way to go before reaching Motorola RAZR thinness of 14 millimeters.

On the outside of the N75 is a small reflective 160 x 128 pixel resolution display and media controls for a music application. Inside, the 3G-enabled quad-band GPRS/EDGE/HTMS/HSDPA phone sports a 2.4-inch 240 x 320 pixel resolution (QVGA) screen that is capable of displaying 16 million different colors.


photos from HowardForums

Unlike the E62, which is messaging focused with its QWERTY thumb-keyboard, the N75, as an Nseries model, is all about multimedia. There's a 2 megapixel camera, micoSD slot, 40 MB of memory, FM radio, and Bluetooth 2.0 with support for wireless stereo headsets. It can handle a variety of audio file formats and record and playback video at 15 frames per second and a 352 x 288 resolution.

Nokia has so far sold over 10 million of its high-end Nseries devices this year alone. It aims to ship 80 million music phones in total before the close of 2006.