E61 discontinued?

I'm actually in Taipei for business this week and I was comtemplating if I should just cancel the Importgsm order and buy it locally here.

But the million dollar question is, does anyone know if the backlight keyboard problem was limited to a certain build of the phone (i.e. certain batches of the UK version, etc?)

The main reason I was going with importgsm was the warranty, so I didn't want to take a chance and be SOL in case anything happened to a Chinese version of the phone.
 
The reason the E61 is so scarce in the US is because the phone was never meant to be marketed or sold here by Nokia. The phones you get off ebay have been imported by resellers from Europe and Asia. The E62 is the US version of the phone. It is the same thing as the E61 except it does not have wifi. Don't ask me why it doesn't because I have no idea. That is why the E61 is not on the US website but the E62 is. GOTO www.nokiaforbusiness.com for more info. Also Nokia only states that the E62 will work with Cingular's network for data only. Now this this is what the designers of the phone say but who knows if it is true. The voice will work with any GSM carriers.
 
The E62 also is missing the 2100mhz UMTs (which doesn't work in North America but greatly enhances Asian roaming) and VOIP. The E61 is found on every street corner in Asia. They are selling well here and I think are here for a while. If there is a sucessor, I would expect that it would keep the same format but add triband UMTs.
 
I sold my first E61 for about $310 to a member on Hofo about 6 weeks ago. Last week I decided I wanted the E61 again and I was just as shocked as you were to find out there is less of them and the increase in price. I bought my second one from x1387 on ebay for $403 shipped. He shipped it to me in 1 day from HK to DC. This E61's firmware was already upgraded too except this time I got a Chinese keypad instead of the Euro one.
 
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