Nokia has added Wi-Fi 802.11g support to its 9300 smart phone.

The new device will ship as the 9300i. Like its predecessor, it's a tri-band (900/1800/1900MHz) GSM/GPRS handset with support for EDGE data-transfer acceleration technology. It also sports the 9300's 640 x 200, 65,536-colour display, and incorporates 80MB of RAM, expandable to 2GB using the MMC slot. It runs Nokia's Series 80 UI on top of Symbian 7.0S.

The 9300i has Bluetooth on board, along with infra-red and USB. There's a built-in speakerphone capable of connecting up to five parties simultaneously.

Nokia said the unit will ship with BlackBerry Connect, Nokia Business Center, IBM WebSphere, Oracle Collaboration Suite, Seven Always-On Mail and Visto Mobile mobile enterprise messaging and data applications. Not all of these clients support Wi-Fi connections, however, so you'll still be using GPRS for those.

The 9300 has been available in Europe for some time, but has yet to come to the US, according to Nokia. It looks like the phone giant is skipping a generation for North American buyers, cutting straight to the 9300i, which is scheduled to ship in Q1 2006, the company said. The 9300i will also ship in Asia and Europe, the company suggested. ®