First Look: Nokia's Touchscreen-Enabled N97
by Jason Rowan, posted Dec 2nd 2008 at 3:30AM
We are so tired of touchscreens, especially since most of 'em don't really work that well, but we were certainly curious to see the touchscreen on the Nokia N97, which was shown off last night at a small gathering in New York. The N97's 3.5-inch, 16:9 touchscreen (think iPhone) slides up at an angle to reveal a handy QWERTY keyboard that essentially gives you the best of both worlds (sort of like the T-Mobile G1 already does). As with other N series phones, the N97 has many high-end features, including a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, A-GPS sensors and an electronic compass (both of which allow you to share your exact location with friends on your favorite social networks), and an extremely generous 32-gigabytes (GB) of onboard memory (with the ability to expand up to 48-gigabytes).
Besides the location-based-social-networking features, the N97 has a built in camcorder, built-in widgets for easy updating of, say, your Facebook status, and -- unlike the iPhone and its ilk -- the ability to stream Flash videos.
Unfortunately, it's not coming out until the first half of 2009, and only in Europe, and for a whopping 550 Euros (about $700). But if you've got the funds, you can probably just buy an unlocked version of the phone from an import phone site and use it with your T-Mobile or AT&T service, since it works on those carriers' high speed HSDPA networks.
We were able to get an early look last night and took some shots of the N97, which you can check out in the gallery below, or check out this video on Engadget. [From: Nokia]
