Nokia N97 Unveiled

Nokia has announced the N97 smartphone. Taking place as the top-of-the-line N-series, it will feature a 3.5-inch, 640-by-340-pixel touchscreen, a slide/tilt QWERTY keyboard, TV-Out, and a host of sensors which enable it to capitalize what Nokia calls “social location.”

Touchscreen Symbian S60

The Nokia N97 will be powered by Symbian S60 5th edition (version 9.4). This operating system is a touch-enabled version of the Symbian S60 operating system featured on Nokia’s handsets.

The homescreen will be a widget-driven interface. Similar to the recently-released 5800 XpressMedia smartphone, it allows for the placing of social network information, links to four contacts, email, and other information on the desktop. All of the widgets can be “swished” away to leave only the desktop view.

Full support for the Nokia Music Store, N-Gage, Nokia Maps, and Nokia Messaging will be included.

More about the Hardware

In addition to the tilting QWERTY and touchscreen, the Nokia N97 will feature 32 GB of internal memory, and come with a 16 GB microSDHC card.

This will be a GSM handset, and tri-band HSDPA support (900/1800/1900) means that North American users are not totally in the dark. 

GPS (with A-GPS) will be standard, as will Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR, Wi-Fi, an accelerometer, and light sensor.

Stereo and TV-Out will be handled by the 3.5 mm headset jack. Dual stereo speakers will also appear on the N97.

A 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Dual-LED flash will be included. A VGA front-facing camera will support video calling and conferencing.

It will have a 1500 mAh battery, which should give it up to 400 hrs of standby time.

The device will measure 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9mm, making it about the same size as Nokia’s N82 candy-bar handset, and considerably smaller than the recently reviewed N96.

Availability and Pricing

The Nokia N97 is expected to begin shipping in early 2009. At 550 Euros, it will debut at a lower price than previous top of the line handsets released in the past by Nokia (N95, N96, etc.).

For more information about the N97, visit the Nokia website.

Related Articles:

• Nokia N96 Review
• A Look Ahead at Nokia’s Devices for the Rest of 2008
• A Look Ahead at Nokia’s Devices for Early 2009