With all the hype on the launch of the iPhone in London today, it's not surprising that Nokia's announcement of the new E51 handset at its Enterprise Mobility Day, also held in the British capital, was somewhat overshadowed.

Likely a direct replacement of the E50, the E51 candy-bar smart phone is the Finnish company's latest addition to its Eseries portfolio. Specifications-wise, it's actually quite identical to the rest of its brethren with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ability to connect to Microsoft Exchange Servers. Targeted at professionals who value the convenience of a single device for both business and personal use, the E51 is capable of integrating with corporate telephony systems (PBX), which will add the benefits of a desk phone such as extension dialing, hold, transfer and conferencing to a mobile handset and also call routing over WLAN networks.

What's new, however, lies mainly on the cosmetic front. From what we can see on the pictures, Nokia has replaced the S60 swirl icon with a house. We're not sure if this would be implemented in all S60 handsets or just on the Eseries devices. According to Nokia, it has redesigned the home screen for easy access to frequently used applications. We're not sure how that looks like, though. There are also dedicated buttons for email, contacts and calendar applications, including a delete button similar to the one on the E90 Communicator. Unfortunately, the E51 is rather bare on the multimedia front with a 2-megapixel camera and FM radio.

The Nokia E51 is expected to be available globally in Q4 at an estimated price of 350 euros.