Nokia N97 Announced, A New Flagship From Nokia

The N95 is becoming a bit too classic and too old, so Nokia needed to release an ultimate flagship handset, again to fill in the N95’s shoes. And here it is, just announced at Nokia World in Barcelona, the new Nokia N97!

The N97 features a slide-out tilt screen Qwerty design, and runs on the new Symbian S60 5th edition: it is the 2nd S60 handset to sport a touchscreen after the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic which has just started shipping. The touchscreen is a widescreen 3.5inch display with 16 million colors and a 16:9 640×360 pixels resolution. The interface is very similar to the 5800 XpressMusic, except that the N97 offers a customizable standby screen where you can add widgets (somehow similar to the Today Screen on Windows Mobile) like email, calendar, music player, application shortcuts, social networks, weather. You can also organize these and create your own if you feel like it.

But that isn’t all there is to love about the N97. It also has 32GB of built-in memory expandable to 48GB or even 64GB later thanks to a microSDHC slot. On the camera front, it has a 5 MegaPixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, dual-LED flash, and VGA video recording. The N97 is also GPS-enabled with an electronic compass. Nokia are introducing the concept of “So-Lo” with the N97, or Social Location: it should allow your handset to be aware of where you are and either help you discover your surroundings, either update your friends on your location.

It also has TV-out, N-Gage support, stereo speakers, microUSB charging, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 transfers, bluetooth with A2DP, WiFi, 3G, a 3.5mm headset plug, and a 1500mAh battery.

One question remains though: When? The N97 should be available in the first half of 2009 for a retail price of 550Euro (Rs.35000 approx.) before taxes and subsidies.

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