The Nokia 6110 Navigator, launched in South Africa earlier this week, has proven its capabilities in one of the toughest environments possible — with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman as they took the ‘Long Way Down’ from Scotland to the southern most tip of Africa on motorcycle. The journey lasted three months and saw the pair ride 24 000km and cross two continents. With the Nokia 6110 Navigator routing the path, best friends Ewan and Charley defied the elements atop customized BMW motorcycles, crossing the finishing line today in Cape Town.
Since those first miles in May 2007 in John O’Groats, Scotland, they have ridden through twenty countries, including Libya, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Rwanda. They have encountered and negotiated blinding sandstorms, searing temperatures, challenging border crossings and extreme riding conditions.
In the struggle to keep on schedule, staying on course and staying in touch has been essential and Nokia has played a pivotal role providing the Nokia 6110 for GPS navigation, map checking, web searches, documenting video, and those all important calls back home.
“The Long Way Down has been an amazing journey and it has been a real privilege to be able to experience these diverse and beautiful places. We’ve had the opportunity to see such different ways of life to ours and have travelled to remote places very few people have access to. The sense of freedom and exploration has been incredible,” says McGregor.
“We were both up for an adventure and Africa has certainly given us that,” says Charley. “There have been times when it has been unbelievably hard going but that has been countered by amazing riding and extraordinary people. Africa is a continent full of undiscovered wonder and we both feel incredibly lucky we’ve been able to experience this together and to have survived with some brilliant stories to tell.”
The Nokia 6110 Navigator brings together GPS (Global Positioning System) and AGPS (Assisted Global Positioning System) with always-on mobile connectivity in a feature-rich, compact device. The phone features video calling and sharing functionality, a 2 megapixel camera and a large and bright 2,2″ QVGA screen, offering up to 16 million colors. The phone has a talk-time of up to 3,5 hours and a standby time of 11 days.