Nokia N97 Smartphone Looks to Challenge iPhone 3G S, Palm Pre

by Nicholas Kolakowski

The Nokia N97’s 3.5-inch touch-screen features a 640-by-360-pixel resolution and up to 16.7 million colors. The screen features separate touch foil and touch feedback, as well as a proximity sensor.

Nokia claims that the phone features a maximum talk time of up to 9.5 hours, and a maximum standby time of up to 17.9 days.

In addition to the touch-screen, the Nokia N97 includes a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a four-way navigation key with center select, and dedicated camera and volume keys.

The Nokia N97 includes integrated GPS, as well as a compass and accelerometer for correct display orientation, and maps.

The smartphone’s camera is 5.0 megapixels with Carl Zeiss optics, auto-focus, and dual LED flash and a 4x digital zoom. Images can be stored on the Ovi Store.

The device’s camera can also capture high-quality 16:9 videos, with clips up to 90 minutes in length in either .mp4 (default) or .3gp (MMS) format. Elements such as scene, video light, white balance and color tone can be adjusted.

The Nokia N97 has a built-in stereo FM radio (87.5-108MHz/76-90MHz).

The 32GB of internal memory is expandable to 48GB; there is also a microSD memory card slot, hot-swappable with a capacity of up to 16GB.

The device’s e-mail client includes an e-mail Web widget, Nokia Email, and Mail for Exchange (provided you have an Exchange e-mail account). E-mail and messaging capacity supports SMTP, IMAP4, POP3, MMS and SMS formats; a Unified SMS/MMS editor is also included.