While other vendors focus on gateways and PC cards, Nokia is tackling the devices market

LAS VEGAS--Nokia today unveiled the first standalone WiMAX data device for the North American market, a version of its N810 Internet tablet embedded with a WiMAX chip as well as Wi-Fi.

“While the Internet tablet platform is nothing new Nokia, the addition of WiMAX is,” said Mark Louison, president of Nokia North America, at the product’s launch today at CTIA Wireless. “This is Nokia’s first WiMAX device.”

The N870 WiMAX edition will support the Sprint Xohm network at launch this quarter, Louison said, and will presumably be available over Clearwire’s mobile WiMAX network when it launches. Though the device runs the same Linux operating system and Mosaic browser as the N800 and N810 lines it has been optimized with Xohm specific software that searches for Sprint’s 2.5 GHz signal and attempts to register the device automatically.

While vendors like Motorola and ZTE have focused on developing desktop WiMAX gateways, PC cards and USB dongles to feed Sprint’s upcoming launch of Xohm this quarter, Nokia turned its attention to creating handheld devices designed to access the network in their own right. Samsung has created several WiMAX miniature computers and handsets for the Korean market, but it has only created data cards for the 2.5 GHz band used in the U.S.

Sprint’s network launch will start out small, expected to be only in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., this quarter, meaning its mobile WiMAX devices will need to fall back on some other wireless data network when they roam outside those limited footprints. Sprint has said it wants 3G EV-DO chips embedded in WiMAX devices to supplement its WiMAX coverage, but in the case of N810, Nokia is using Wi-Fi has the fall back technology.

Louison said it currently had no plans to embed EV-DO in the N810, but he didn’t rule out the possibility in the future.