Preview: Nokia N97 – The Ultimate NSeries Smart Phone

Nokia have announced the latest handset that will carry the title ‘King of the Nseries’, the Nokia N97. With the Nseries range of phones, Nokia have always focussed on the multimedia capabilities of their handsets, and the new N97 certainly comes packed with all the latest must have features.

The first thing that stands out with this phone is the touch screen interface. It is rare that Nokia are first to market with the latest updates, and so it is with touch screen technology. With the announcement of the N97, that has all changed. Not content with having just a touch screen, the N97 also comes complete with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. As you slide the keyboard out the screen tilts into position, allowing the phone to be used almost like a mini laptop. On top of the touch screen interface and QWERTY keyboard, there is also support for handwriting recognition.

The spec list on the N97 reads like a techno-geeks dream. Inside the sleekly designed handset is an internal memory capacity of 32GB, which is a huge amount of memory for a mobile phone. Not withstanding, the memory can be increased further with the addition of Micro SD memory cards, currently available up to 16GB in size. The Nokia N97 is a quad band GSM handset and also offers tri band HSDPA, alongside GPRS, EDGE and HSCSD, maximising the data connection possibilities. The list is completed with support for WiFi 802.11b/g, supporting UPnP. With Universal Plug n Play, the N97 is designed to fit comfortably into your home network, connecting with other devices on your WLAN.

The N97 sports a huge 3.5 inch screen, supporting up to 16 million colours, 360 x 640 pixels. Nokia regularly produce phones with top quality screens and the N97 doesn’t disappoint. The handset has a proximity sensor, which offers turn to silent and snooze options, along with an accelerometer for auto screen rotation. The turn to silent option simply offers you the possibility of turning an incoming call to silent by turning the phone over. Similarly the phone can be put into snooze mode when the alarm goes off in the morning just by flipping the phone onto its front. No more fumbling for the snooze button with half-open sleep filled eyes!

And there’s more. The N97 has a 5.0 megapixel camera, complete with Carl Zeiss lens, auto focus and flash. The flash on the handset is the same as that found on the N96, namely a dual LED flash. Whilst picture purists may lament the omission of a Xenon flash, the big advantage of the dual LED light is the option to also use this when recording video, something a Xenon flash cannot offer. The video recording facility on the N97 records at an impressive 30 fps, and videos can be played back on the handset, or on a TV with the TV OUT option.

The media player on the handset will support WMA, MP3, AAC and eAAC+ music files, and MPEG and WMV video files. The handset has a 3.5mm audio output jack, so you can listen to your music with any standard headphones. The phone also supports Bluetooth 2.1 so you can listen in stereo with a compatible Bluetooth wireless headset. The built in web browser continues to set the standard for native phone browsers, rendering web pages with ease, and with support for Flash Lite 3 you can access the full YouTube service straight from the handset.

As has become standard with most recent Nokia Nseries phones, the N97 comes equipped with a built in GPS chip and support for a-GPS. The GPS chip will connect and maintain a connection with the GPS satellites, for use with the Nokia maps SatNav software. A-GPS assists the connection by utilising the mobile network, which allows for a quicker fix time. It is almost certain that the inclusion of GPS support means the N97 will also support geotagging.

It would be a logical assumption that with so much technology packed into one device that something has to give size wise. However, despite packing in every phone feature currently available, the N97 weighs in at a more than acceptable 150g and measures in at a very acceptable 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9-18.3 mm.

The Nokia N97 is a device that crosses all boundaries. The appeal is wide across a range of different users, from business types to early adopters. Truly it is clear to see that the Nseries continues to set the bar by which other phones are judged by, and maybe Nokia have a device on their hands that is truly a multimedia computer.

To call the N97 a ‘mobile phone’ truly does not do justice to what this device can do; it is a phone, but it is so much more, too. Look out for the Nokia N97 available in black and white.   Nokia N97 deals and pay as you go will be available the first half of 2009 – please check back for updates on N97 pre order and a release date.

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