Exclusive: Nokia N97 hands on
Tonight I was invited to the post Symbian Partner Event dinner on the 52nd floor of the Glass tower 555 California Street.
Once there, I was able to briefly get my hands on the just-unveiled Nokia N97!
This is a truly phenomenal device. Take a look at my pictures…
Here’s some new (to me) information I gathered:
– The green “talk” and red “end” buttons are touch sensitive (capacitive, perhaps?)
– The N97 features a built-in FM transmitter
– The OS supports the concept of “presence” just like the Nokia Internet Tablets
The device is definitely smaller, thinner and lighter than I expected. The resistive touch screen is surprisingly good, but a capacitive touch screen would still be better.
It’s going to be a long 6-months wait :)
Special thanks to Matthew Bennett for helping out.
tnkgrl Mobile: Tech that Matters 
It’s in good hands ;-)
I assume you tried typing on it. How was it?
@Eliot, it feels a lot like the G1.
yes how was typing, and can you reach the red/green buttons without changing hand positions? that’s the downside of the e90, i can’t reach the mod buttons when typing. that’s the number 1 reason i am sticking with my e70 until the bitter end.
@fbz, yes it can be used one-handed.
“yes it can be used one-handed”
This is a strong point to me ! This N97 seems the perfect ’09 device to me !!:
Thanks for the review TG :)
Cool – I am truly jealous!
What is the one thing that disappointed you about the N97? Or did anything?!
mp/m
Oh I hate/envy you. :)
FM Transmitter? That’s cool. Kinda retro, but I love that. And the presence stuff is totally rad. I wish some other smartphone would do that *coughiPhonecough*
I also am totally jealous. How’s the browsing experience on it compared to iPhone / G1.
@Mike, I’m only disappointed by the lack of capacitive touch screen, and the 6-month wait.
@c.k., as you probably know the Nokia S60 (Symbian) browser is already quite good. It’s WebKit based and supports AJAX+Flash. The N97 features a touch-optimized version of this browser, which looks very nice on the high-res screen. Although there’s no multitouch (the touch screen is resistive with haptic feedback), double-tapping zooms in/out like on the iPhone.
did you try youtube on it? does it work? how about blip.tv? (my guess: both will work w/no probs)
so many questions :-) !
…Roland
p.s. go thkgrl go!
@Roland. no I didn’t get a chance to try YouTube.
Very cool. Thanks for the answers. I can’t wait to get one of these to play with!
Thanks for the update. Will keep looking for calendar advancing applications to get the release date here sooner!
mp/m
I think ‘presence’ built into the device will make this one stand out in the future
Good article a lot of useful it is possible to learn, thanks the author
This phone looks amazing! Any early thoughts on a comparison with the iPhone?
I’d definitely like to get my hands on one of these to see what it performed like. Very lucky!