Let’s take a minute to cue in screams of joy and laughter. Done? Ok then, breathe in, breathe out. Let’s go! We already brought you news of the Nokia countdown timer that was hinting at a big announcement today during Nokia World, but of course we had no clue it would be THIS big. Right now, Olli Pekka Kallasvuo and Anssi Vanjoki are announcing the new Nokia Nseries flagship that will leave thousands of people drooling in front of their screens. The Nokia N97 is here, and boy are we excited to see it! The N97 is so many “first”s for Nokia that I really don’t know where to start from.
It’s the first Nseries QWERTY device with a slideout QWERTY form factor where the screen tilts when the slider is open to make it easier to read. It also gives the N97 a laptop-like look, meaning that you can put it on the desk and work on it like you would with a normal laptop or watch videos with it sitting still.
It’s the first Nseries touchscreen device sporting S60 5th edition and all its goodness. The videos we’ve seen so far show that the screen is pretty responsive, which is inline with my last encounter with the 5800 XpressMusic. Also of notice is that the N97 won’t ship with a stylus in some countries, meaning that Nokia is focusing on the finger-based interaction with tactile feedback.
It’s the first high-resolution screen Nseries device with a 3.5 inch 16:9 TFT display that supports 16 million colors and what Nokia likes to call an nHD resolution of 640×360 pixels. We’ll finally see an end to all the moans of people asking for a higher-resolution screen on Nseries!
It’s the first Nokia device to have built-in 32GB memory as well as support for microSDHC cards. This means that the N97 will be able to run 48GB because 16GB microSDHC cards are already available, and even 64GB of memory when the 32GB microSDHC cards hit the market! 64GB is more memory than the laptop I replaced 4 months ago had!
It’s the first S60 5th device announced to feature N-Gage. We still don’t know if this means that N-Gage touch games will be available for the N97. We would bet that they’re coming at one point, but we still don’t know if N-Gage on the N97 will be touch-based or rely on the QWERTY keys.
As far as I can tell, it seems to be the first ScreenPlay enabled device and this is the one I’m the MOST pumped about. ScreenPlay was announced at the same time as S60 5th, and was promising to give users overlays and transparency to be able to run AND see simultaneous applications at the same time (see video demo). ScreenPlay is the reason I’ve been excited about S60 Touch for years even before it was announced: I wanted a customizable homescreen, I wanted to be able to choose what I see on it, to add things to it, and to see developers make use of it, I wanted the versatility of the Today screen on Windows Mobile with the stability of S60. And the N97 delivers! It has support for customized widgets on the standby screen. The operator, date and profile seem to be standard, but you can add to them application shortcuts, an Ovi widget, weather, email, calendar, RSS feeds, a quick 4-contact link like the Contact Bar on the 5800 XpressMusic, a Friendster, Facebook, MySpace widgets, with any 5 of these available at the same time. You can move these around, remove the ones you don’t want, create your own widgets… Finally, it’s the era of Standby Screen freedom on S60! I can’t repeat enough how excited I am about this!
Edit: the N97 doesn’t have ScreenPlay, this has just been confirmed to me. Although this is a big letdown for me, I’m still excited about the customizable homescreen.
Even though the list of “first”s is done, there is a lot more to say about the N97. It features a 5MP camera with Dual-LED and VGA recording at 640×480. It has A-GPS enabled and an electronic compass that is always aware of your location: Nokia is focusing on the Social Location aspect of this, or “So-Lo” as they like to call it, which seems to be an oxymoron slogan for it, since this is supposed to be less solo and more sharing your location and whereabouts with your friends. The N97 also features the whole Ovi services package, sports built-in stereo speakers as well as a 3.5mm plug and bluetooth with A2DP for your music enjoyment. It has TV-Out and WiFi. It also picks a few things from the N85 where it has microUSB charging as well as Hi-Speed USB 2.0 data transfer through the same port, and it comes in a tri-band HSDPA flavor of 900/1900/2100 which means that it will work on European and American 3G! Under the hood is the best battery in the world: the BP-4L 1500mAh battery. For more information, you can download the Data Sheet and the Press Release here (PDF warning).
The N97 is expected to start shipping in the 1st half of 2009, which is pretty vague since it can be anything between January and June (we’re betting on May/June/July), it will retail for 550Euros before taxes and subsidies which is the same retail price of the N96 when it was announced.
Now sit down and let it all sink in. A handset, ONE handset, that offers all of that, in a 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9mm package, a package slightly taller and wider but thinner than the N82!
Stay tuned as Ricky brings you more live footage of the N97 from Nokia World, with hands-on pictures, comparison shots, and even videos. We’re pretty excited about this handset and we hope you are as well. For now, we’ll leave you with some press shots of the N97, as well as some very cool raw sketches of the N97′s design.
