Nokia Oro is covered with 18ct gold on the outside, tinged with Symbian regret inside

Nokia has just unveiled a strange new beast of a smartphone. Internally, it's your good old C7 -- 3.5-inch AMOLED screen, 720p video recording, 8 megapixel camera, a pentaband radio, and Symbian as your zombie OS -- but externally it's taken on a lick of gold paint and a rear cover made of real leather. The price for a phone built quite so luxuriously is said to be upwards of €800 ($1,126) before taxes and subsidies and launch is expected in Q3 in select countries across Europe and Asia. Russia in particular is called out as a successful market for such "premium" phones, with Nokia's Gabriel Speratti, General Manager for its operations in the country, explaining that:

"We have a large number of users who are looking for products with a build quality and superior materials that attest to their success and social standing. In some areas, possession of such premium products is the passport to being taken seriously."

We have to agree, owning a phone like this will certainly have an effect on your social life, we're just not so sure it'll be a positive one.

Nokia

Nokia N9 gets teaser video, Rick Springfield soundtrack (update: it's running MeeGo)

Sure, we've known of the Nokia N9's existence for some time now, a fact made all the more real by the handset's recent FCC appearance, but is a phone really real until its gets its first dramatic ad spot? Pocketnow managed to score a teaser for the upcoming QWERTY slider -- not the first time we've seen this thing on video, as those who can remember as far back as 2010 will recall. Interestingly, the UI seems to be consistent with the Anna release of Symbian rather than something totally unique to MeeGo -- though elements like the status bar and multitasking appear different from what we've seen of that version of Symbian. Also, if you don't blink, you'll see the 12MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens and the chiclet keyboard. As for the live version of "Jessie's Girl," that's anyone's guess.

Update: General consensus is that the N9 is running Meego. We also noticed after watching the video a couple times that the camera is autofocus instead of EDoF (see enhanced video frame after the break), which is excellent news!

Pocketnow

Nokia X7 gets approved, undressed by FCC

Is there any faster way for a sexy new handset to lose some mystique than by being torn apart beneath the unflattering lights of the FCC's offices? But while all of these shot juxtaposed with a blue ruler might not be precisely the way Nokia wants you to see the X7, the listing does bring the Symbian smartphone all that much closer to reality -- particularly for US users hoping to get their fingers on that 4-inch touchscreen, offering visions of availability via the Nokia US store (especially since our dreams of AT&T coverage have already been dashed). In the meantime, we'll all have to be content to check out some stripped-naked shots of the Samsung-designed SDRAM, Broadcom transceiver, 8MP camera, and hexagonal reinforcement in the gallery below.

Nokia X7 FCC Shots

Wireless Goodness

FCC