Nokia N97

(Credit: Nokia)

Twenty-four hours after teasing us with news of a major product announcement, Nokia officially took the wraps off its mystery smartphone on Tuesday at the Nokia World 2008 conference in Barcelona, Spain. And despite some close guesses, no one got it quite right, so without further ado, let us introduce you to the Nokia N97.

Part of the company's high-end N series of multimedia computers, the N97 trumps all previous models with a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard and a tilting 3.5-inch touch screen (anyone else reminded of the AT&T Tilt or Sony Ericsson Xperia X1?). Yes, there's the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, but the N97 includes phone capabilities and is designed for the "needs of Internet-savvy consumers."

For example, the smartphone provides easy access to a number of social-networking sites, and the Web browser supports streaming Flash videos. The N97 also introduces something Nokia calls "social location," which uses the capabilities of the integrated A-GPS sensors and electronic compass to automatically update users' social networks, or let them share their location via photos or videos with friends.

The Home screen can be personalized with widgets of favorite Web and social-networking sites. Finally, the N97 is fully compatible with Nokia's Ovi Internet services, which include the Nokia Music Store, Nokia Maps, and the N-Gage gaming platform--though these services have yet to fully launch in the United States.

The Symbian-based smartphone also features a music and video player, a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, and a whopping 32GB of onboard memory that can be expanded with a 16GB microSD card.

The quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) world phone is HSDPA-capable handset, but it currently supports only the 900/1900/2100MHz bands (AT&T's 3G network runs on 850/1900MHz, while T-Mobile runs on 1700/2100MHz). There is integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, however.

Originally posted at Crave

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Nokia's N97 gets sized up, felt up, and photographed originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Nokia World 2008 is taking place now in Barcelona, and there were a lot of significant announcements during the first day of the show.

For starters, there is a S60 5th Edition new mobile computer, the Nokia N97, which combines a large, bright 3.5" touch display with a full QWERTY keyboard in a very distinctive form factor. Use the Nokia N97 to connect to mobile broadband using WLAN or HSDPA (3.5G). Find directions and locations with the integrated A-GPS and included maps. Additional features include a 5 mega pixel camera with dual LED flash and automatic geotagging of images and videos.

• Watch a video demo of the Nokia N97. 

• View the device specifications for the Nokia N97.

• Read the product sheet for the Nokia N97. (PDF file)

At Nokia World there were also updates about Nokia Messaging, which mobilises consumer e-mail and consumer instant messaging (IM) solutions on Nokia devices. There was also news about the latest version of Nokia Maps, integrated with Ovi as a free service that allows people to pre-plan their journey at home on their PC and synchronise with their mobile device.

And last – but not least - Nokia today announced that it has completed its offer to acquire Symbian Limited, the software company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for mobile devices. Learn more about this significant news announcement.

Additionally, information about the planned Symbian Foundation can be found at www.symbianfoundation.org.

Watch presentations that took place during the first day at Nokia World.

And stay tuned for more updates tomorrow.

What do you think of the announcements coming out of Nokia World today? Let us know your thoughts and ideas. Continue the conversation with us now.  

Nokia world starts off with a big green carpet bang! All the top are here and everyone is talking about the N97, slide screen, every detail such as the orange around the camera protective lense, the touch screen, the hinge everyone is talking about. This is really the season for talking about mobile mapping, advertising, green eco moves by the company globally, new improvements in mobile email and messaging, my top model friend renata came with me to the private dinner with nokia france (that was so cool to finally have a model friend come into this techy world), lost luggage by vueling, relentless tracking of it by the beautiful art hotel with an amazing view. I had a great day with the lovely and intelligent, Darla Mack, and bugged a lot of people about women and mobile...:D I'm meeting a lot of great new people and the wifi is holding up. The press one on one's with the top people in the company is really interesting. I was with the social media group for some meetings and will post the videos tomorrow. I got to talk to the nokia share guy about why sixapart states on it's website that it's compatible with share--and it doesn't work--plus in v3 of share it's not possible to imput your own servers like in v2. hopefully he will find out why they took it out and get it put back in :)

everyone is talking about the hinge on the N97. everyone is talking about the touch screen. it's a slim phone and comes in white and black. every curve on it's shape has a reason and a rhyme for being there such as the raised area on the back cover so that you can grip it easily for taking photos in your right hand. the carl zeis lense got a cover back on it after the N96. this phone is the phone that conjurs up the image of a 30 something startup exec sitting at a table in the morning with his coffe and a briosch reading this feeds for the day and getting his news from the curved up hinged design. they say it's a blogger, multimedia phone, but it seems to be more ready to let you read information or watch internet videos, yet it has a 5 mega pixel camera and facebook, ovi, maps, email, feeds, widgets, inside it's touch vga screen.

off to the nokia party -- and i'm late! 

ps. the backchannels and the twittering is cool. what i miss right now is the great LEIKI software of the past that helped me meet and make appointments during the event. this time around i'm just meeting people by chance. with the LEIKI software is was really great to figure out who to meet of the participants, and the mobile calendar application where you could plan your sessions was fantastic. no one on the twitter or the chat channel could tell me if nokia world had a mobile website this year. it seems that they are all used to getting the regular web on their mini computers. even if wap site days are over, the calendar was really helpful, with the possibility to build your own personalized schedule at the event and the LEIKI intelligent networking tool was truely missed. lets see whom else i will meet at this event!

some videos I uploaded to ovi: