Introducing the Nokia N97, the next generation high-end mobile phone from Nokia. Described by Nokia folks as a “handheld computer” this device is a pretty comfortable high-end phone. It has a tilting (resistive) touch-screen display, and is the first N-series phone with a QWERTY keyboard. It has 32 gigabytes of memory, expandable to 42 GB via 16 GB memory card. It has a digital compass, a 1500 milliamp battery, and DVD quality video capture. It’s extremely comfortable to hold, easy to use, and represents a solid solid evolution of the Nokia smarthphone line.
- Size: 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm* *18.25 mm at camera area
- Weight: Approx. 150 g
- Memory: Up to 48GB (32 GB on-board memory, plus 16GB expansion via microSD memory card slot)
- Display: 3.5 inch TFT with up to 16 million colors nHD 16:9 widescreen (640×360 pixels)
- Talk time: Up to 320 min (3G), 400 min (GSM)
- Standby time: Up to 400 hrs (3G), 430 hrs (GSM)
- Video playback: Up to 4.5 hours (offline mode)
- Music playback: Up to 37 hours (offline mode)
- Image capture: Up to 5 megapixels (2584 x 1938) JPEG/EXIF (16.7 million/24-bit color)
Desktop. Laptop. Pocket: The era of the personal Internet dawns with the Nokia N97
Tilting touch display, QWERTY keyboard and personalized home screen – a true mobile computer Barcelona, Spain – Nokia today unveiled the Nokia N97, the world’s most advanced mobile computer, which will transform the way people connect to the Internet and to each other. Designed for the needs of Internet-savvy consumers, the Nokia N97 combines a large 3.5” touch display with a full QWERTY keyboard, providing an ‘always open’ window to favorite social networking sites and Internet destinations. Nokia’s flagship Nseries device introduces leading technology – including multiple sensors, memory, processing power and connection
speeds – for people to create a personal Internet and share their ‘social location.’
“From the desktop to the laptop and now to your pocket, the Nokia N97 is the most powerful, multi-sensory mobile computer in existence,” said Jonas Geust, Vice President, heading Nokia Nseries. “Together with the Ovi services announced today, the Nokia N97 mobile computer adjusts to the world around us, helping stay connected to the people and things that matter most. With the Nokia N97, Nseries leads the charge in helping to transform the Internet into your Internet”.
Sensing your ‘So-Lo’The Nokia N97 introduces the concept of ‘social location’. With integrated A-GPS sensors and an electronic compass, the Nokia N97 mobile computer intuitively understands where it is. The Nokia N97 makes it easy to update social networks automatically with real-time information, giving approved friends the ability to update their ‘status’ and share their ‘social location’ as well as related pictures or videos.
Widescreen – Internet and entertainment
The home screen of the Nokia N97 mobile computer features the people, content and media that matter the most. Friends, social networks and news are available by simply touching the home screen. The 16:9 widescreen display can be fully personalized with frequently updated widgets of favorite web services and social networking sites. The Nokia N97 is also perfectly suited for browsing the web, streaming Flash videos or playing games. Both the physical QWERTY and virtual touch input ensure efficiency in blogging, chatting, posting, sending texts or emailing.
The Nokia N97 supports up to 48 GB of storage, including 32 GB of on-board memory, expandable with a 16 GB microSD card for music, media and more. This is complemented by excellent music capabilities, full support for the Nokia Music Store and continuous playback time of up to 1.5 days. The Nokia N97 also has a 5-Megapixel camera with high-quality Carl Zeiss optics, 16:9 and DVD quality video capture, and support for services like Share on Ovi for immediate sharing over HSDPA and WLAN.The Nokia N97 is expected to begin shipping in the first half of 2009 at an estimated retail price of EUR 550 before taxes or subsidies.
The N97 is comfortable to hold, and the prototype model we examined was easy to operate. It’s not a revolutionary addition to the N-series product line, but offers a decent evolution to Nokia smartphones.
Cool!
Congrates Nokia, Welcome to club!
Are you sure this isn’t just a Silver version of the Nokia that was featured in the Val Kilmer movie, The Saint? I’m pretty sure I saw Friendster on Val Kilmer’s phone too…
Friendster? — get with da times bruddah ….
The Saint? From 1997? That was more than a decade ago.
Get with the times, chief.
does it have wi-fi
In other words: The sponsored dinner by Nokia has been great ;-)
And you guys think this is a joke?
It looks like the same old low resolution and therefore useless camera in the front of the phone. When will Nokia put a decent camera on the front to cater for bloggers needing to communicate to viewers through video apps like Qik?
The cost would be nominal yet the phone would really be groundbreaking.
Maybe we have to look towards the next generation of google phone.
I don’t think they would be able to fit anything larger in there. 0.3-1.0 megapixels is about as high you can go as far as I know before you have to build a thicker body, which would spoil the N97 somewhat. As much as I like Google’s Android, no one is building phones like this for it yet and no the G1 does not count. A Touch Pro running it should be able to stand up to the N97 any day.
5mp
?
@Ashley
No no, I meant the front facing camera near the upper right corner of the screen. That is used for making video calls. The 5MP sensor would be great for Qik but Documentally wants larger sensor to replace to front facing camera sensor as well which would result in a much taller and wider upper body.
We don’t need a 5mp sensor to capture good video. It is the size of the pixels and not the amount. Two max should do it.A rotating head could do it. Enabling the camera to face both ways. there have been some like that in the past.
Oooh, shiny! Any indication of whether this will include Nokia’s Haptikos technology which makes the touch screen ‘click’ like a real keyboard?
Before we hit the snooze button, especially in the U.S., this is what it will take for Nokia to even compete with the iPhone:
Who can beat iPhone 2.0?
http://counternotions.com/2008/03/10/iphone2-competitors/
iPhone is a piece of nothing, u need to jailbreak it first, if an owner of an iphone doesnt have computer?? whats the use of iphone?? who cracked iphone software??? look for the website iclarified.com…. iphone is directly insulted especially by pineapple icon=)).
@Kontra
There really shouldnt BE competition. The N97 appears to have everything and more than the iPhone except the Apple logo. What the iPhone has is some excellent marketing, too much hype and a huge, and slightly obsessive Mac fan base. Sub par camera, no video recording, restrictive ties to phone companies, no useful bluetooth..only recently got 3G. Come on. Things other phones have had for YEARS. ill take an N-Series anyday, thanks.
This phone looks sexy. Can’t wait.
Viv dont be naive, Apple is where it is because they have a better product thats easier to use. Remember they have 1 product and been in the market for 2 years, their revenues for the iphone is already more than all of sony ericsson. What does that tell you? People are fed up with the same phones in different shells being released year after year.
I’ll have to agree with that- Apple has designed the best phone around. That has 2 killer assets :
- smooth/ergonomic design (phone itself AND software inside)
- APPS development – anyone can build an app for iPhone
Unless Nokia comes up with an easy-to-use SDK for its phone, they’re no match for Apple.
Simbian is now open source and apps will be along shortly…
iPhone may get up to 10% of the market but no more…
It tells me that they are not capable to innovate. iPhone is so legacy stuff, was even when it was released. Their technical skills are really limited and understanding of creating software platforms really lousy. Comparing to Nokia, you can implement sooo advanced applications because almost all the APIs are for your disposal.
“People are fed up with the same phones in different shells being released year after year.”
So they are going to be happy with the iPhone still in a year or so when Apple launch the 4th generation, still lacking basic functionality out of the box, and in the same shell?
Apple will just continue to release the same phone, in the same shell and have it under-specced so they can release another one next year.
Wow nice pictures! I know people are looking high and low for more information on this… nice little organize resource at: http://nokian97.org
The hardware is nicer than the G1 and matches up well with the iPhone too… but I’d still rather have the others.
The phone looks fantastic–maybe too much so? I wouldn’t expect to hear too much about this phone unless it’s priced around $300–that’s what it’ll take to compete against you know what.
Just count this one as another cool, highend phone that would be nice to have, but don’t really need since you already have the iphone.
On aside note–from looking at the videos the phone appears to be chugging through that interface.
32GB + 16GB =/= 42GB …
32GB + 16GB = 48GB, not 42 GB
Completely agree with @Documentally. why staying on 5 Mp while every major are going to the 8MP ?
The 8mp phones on the market are all geared around being just that, ie 8mp phones. They are fairly chunky to get that technology inside – putting it in this, along with everything else, would just have made it thicker. And who needs more than 5mp on a mobile anyway?
The 8mp phones on the market are all geared around being just that, ie 8mp phones. They are fairly chunky to get that technology inside – putting it in this, along with everything else, would just have made it thicker. And who needs more than 5mp on a mobile anyway?
Few points:
a) Files are bigger, require more memory and their handling in the small device fast is really difficult. This is mostly user experience issue.
b) Why you need more megapixels? It is the camera quality, lens etc. that are important, no the megapixels.
c) Biggest PC screens are only 2-3mp, you can’t even watch that 8mp fully anywhere. It is always scaled down.
What about wireless support? Wi-Fi, Wi-Max ???
What’s the operating system. Still Symbian?
uh… is this an HTC Tilt rip off or what??!!?
cool design and format
@ Documentally /5mb with a Carl Zeiss optics for a camera phone is more than enough for a blogger online.. anything more in a phone now is just rubbish and using it as a marketing tool.
I totally agree. It’s about the quality of the optics. I just wish there was some quality on the front side where the screen is. Someone will no doubt do something.. There has been a gap in the market for a while.
I agree with Viv. The Iphone lacks some glaring features that you have come to expect on a phone, and its extremely closed what with Apple breathing down your neck even for something like releasing an application on the app store… But the fact is that they are able to market the features and their USPs well and it is devoured by their fanatic mac user base. Apart from hype and the coolness factor, it really underperforms. Can’t bluetooth files? Seriously. That’s so stone age.
Can’t wait android to take off and lets hope it is backed with some good hardware.
I have some videos of the device here: http://www.kyte.tv/scobleizer including with the designer of the N97.
This is so awesome device. This is how Apple should do also, ADVANCE TECHNICALLY.
I think Nokia Smartphone will die in the future. It may be defeat ed by Apple or Google android
I hate QWERTY. This would be perfect it was just a touch screen. Sigh. Time to wait again.
This won’t compete with the iPhone. Too expensive and lacks a compelling user interface (which will keep it from entering mass market penetration). This is, however, light years beyond the G1.
I agree it is light years beyond the g1 but you r smoking something if you think the iphone is any where near this phone either
Right, 32GB + 16GB = 42GB. Douglas Adams would have liked this. :)
It’s the iPhone killer. Why? Better operating system, less crashing, more than double the current iPhone memory, a wider userbase with Symbian, and a “5″ megapixel camera. What does the iPhone have, a 1.3 megapixel joke of a camera? Only problem is that it’ll be in the $800-$900 range and be unlocked since most of the higher end Nokia’s are unsubsized in the US. Nice phone.
The iPhone’s GUI is much simpler cleaner. Unfortunately the N97 doesn’t have a “multi-touch” screen. The user experience will be pretty painful without multi-touch. Good thing it has a real keyboard to make up for the single-touch shortcomings…
Finally someone gets it. A large touch screen WITH a QWERTY keyboard. If you want a small phone they buy a Razor. I want a 4″ screen with a full keyboard! Size does matter and I want something with some meat to it!
anyone know how much it is going to be?
Anything more than $300-$400 it will fail, period.
From the looks of it so far it seems 10 times better and nicer than the ihpone
Nokia is going to do waht?
http://www.iamlittle.net
This is a great phone and has some great features on it. I cant wait for buy the new nokia n97. I think this will change a lot of things in the mobile phone world.
http://www.nzmobiles.com/phones/34-nokia/61-the-new-nokia-n97-.html
We are getting some QWERTY goodness from Nokia? I say bring it on! Also, the battery life is pretty good.
WOW!!!! Can someone explain why this phone looks like the htc tynt 2? what happened they got lazy and lost all their designers
The race is on to see whether or not there will be an improved Google phone to compete by the end of Q1 2009. If not, then I’ll upgrade from my N95 8GB to the N97, the keyboard and 16:9 display are very enticing. I’m glad I didn’t go for the N96, it seems that one is destined to remain just a turkey. :-)
Maybe my new mobile device (no iphone!).
It is a great gadget, I am yet to review it here: http://www.youtechno.info
Scott,
just a note for your next posting – can you add the Operating system to the list of attributes you display? I had to go to another site to confirm the O.S. is Symbian (Nokia supports several). I know you are catering to a mixed audience – but I am sure developers would like to know if their applications will run on the device.
Thanks.
Viv is absolutely right. iphone is so overrated. But as a recent purchaser of the n96 i am a little annoyed that my “expensive” purchase is obsolete already.
OMG…you all guys need to wake up….someone said 32+16 is 42??? and another one said N97 looks like HTC tynt ii? Do some research folks….Nokia has got 50% of the smartphone market…and its gonna remain that way for a looooooooooong time.
Huh what’s up with this iphone stuff going on? Iphone is great and all, but don’t you think that the top 2 are in a bit different league(Samsung and Nokia). Apple isn’t even after for Nokia’s market share(39%). It’s there to kill American Motorola that’s already totally out of game in Europe and Asia. Plus iphones biggest impact is still in North America. Just remember that E71 has been overselling iphone in Europe smartphone market(where Nokia ins’t playing the American way of locking and shitt1ing the UI by carriers) for past 3 months. I got ipod touch and love it, but just sometimes this Apple stuff goes a bit too far.
Oh and someone mentioned that he’s E71 is slow… just tells that you haven’t actually used it. Just go ahead and find me review where they blame UI speed or better yet try E71 in real life not looking at the picture in net. E71 got as responsive UI as you can have.
I’m not here to prace the S60 and my ipod toch surely got some eye candy and nothing to complain, but i feels there’s many who haven’t actually tested S60. Especially when when 70% of American in these forums/blogs say it sucks and all, but only place where you can actually test high end S60 phones in USA are Nokia flagships, i believe there’s even 2 of them in states!
Dipock…
There’s S30(super duper low end phones for Africa and so on, not based on Symbian) S40(dumb phones and not Symbian based) and then there’s S60 for smartphones. So i wouldn’t say Nokia supports many. Linux based Maemo is only for 3 products N790, N800 and N810 that are tablets, not phones.
Samsung does use many OS’s thought.
Samsung, SE and Nokia use Symbian. Symbian owns 99% of Symbian now and making it totally openplatform next year. SE has confirmed of making phone for the Symbian Foundation OS(that’s not out yet) for end of next year. Nokia is of course making them first probally and Samsung that’s attacking Nokia’s dominated S60 market is surely following Nokia closely.
intresting to see how WM does with it’s 13% market share and if it’s getting hit in USA by iphone it means whole WM is in trouble as in Europe it represents 7% of smartphones (Symbian with 85%).
hey arol, you fuck face
S30 phones are for Africa? please come to S.A to check what we using,S60 is the norm, our local app’s are freakin amazing(jus check out mxit) so screw you and your biased, backward opinions
Nokia Rules!
this phone doesn’t stand a chance the only people that will buy it are hard core nokia users and rich little kids, people use 2 ok phones and go this is the best phone ever,, i have used almost every phone out because its part of my job and the best phones out right now are the sidekick lx its the fastest os out right now, easiest to use and its only 50$ a month and the keyboard is the best one out , next is the t-mobile g1 its 55$ a month its open source it has a keyboard unlike the piece of crap iphone witch i am made to use for work and hate every moment of,and yes i use a macbook,, people really need to try more phones out there my friend was a nokia fan boy and had the E71, and i got him to buy a sidekick and he makes fun of nokia alllll the time now and says he will never get any other phone, he also tests out phones,,, oh and yes my first thought was HTC’s tilt
I’m GLAD to see that Nokia finally got their QWERTY keyboards aligned properly! With the past models released (i.e. E71), the keyboard seemed to be aligned to the left making the Z key fall directly under the A key.
THANK YOU FOR FIXING THAT NOKIA! ^__^
WOW, finally
congratulation nokiaabout this modle . I am waiting for such a modle ,i really want to have this N97.
niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice mobile
waiting for it
thank u ,
Wow, superb modal, it looks great but i think it must be very costly modal
makes me feel interesting stuff, and i want to buy
umm cant wait when nokia goona launch it in pakistan i wonder if its a master piece or still nokia working 2 make 9 wonder
N97 is the best phone in this moment. Ilove this phone….
this mobile very very attractive
plz send us the prices of this mob & all the news
wait for you
may it is very very great model and have a lot of new options
plz send me the rate for the mob and from where can i buy it
waiting yr prompt reply
Rgds
Logina
I’m realy like this phone model & I want to buy it
selle
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