Nokia 701 announced with Symbian Belle

Nokia has unveiled its latest stop-gap smartphone in the form of the Nokia 701, which comes complete with near field communications (NFC) and the newly-announced Symbian Belle OS.

Symbian Belle brings with it six home screens instead of Anna's three, live widgets in five different sizes, a pull down menu and task bar and single-tap NFC pairing.

So it stands to reason that the Nokia 701 would come rocking NFC technology, as well as a 1GHz processor, active noise cancellation, an 8MP rear-mounted HD video capturing camera with dual LED flash and a front-mounted camera to boot.

Silver back

The handset's 3.5-inch screen is a ClearBack display, which means it should be bright as a button indoors (it's the "brightest mobile phone display of any device to the market", says Nokia) but also easy to use outside in direct sunlight thanks to the high levels of contrast.

The NFC pairing will allow users to easily share contact between phones, as well as offering wireless music streaming to compatible NFC-enabled headphones and speakers.

Nokia has saved a few bob on the design of the handset by basing it mainly on the Nokia C7 and as such it looks just the teensiest dated to our eyes – but with the upgraded software and nifty extras like HD video capture it should stand its ground in the mid-range market.

Memory-wise, the 701 will come with 8GB of internal memory as well as a microSD card slot – that means you can pump it up to 40GB with a 32GB microSD card.

Here's a video of the phone in action if you're not satisfied with our written account:

No word yet on the Nokia 701 UK release date, but it looks like we can expect UK pricing on contract deals of around £20 per month.