Nokia N97 - hands-on with Nokia's flagship

Mobile-review have posted a hands on with the Nokia N97. Here is their final inpression.

The N97's reception quality was nothing to complain about. Its ring tones were loud and more than audible in various environments, although it's worth mentioning that you'll need to pay a bit more attention to what ring tones you set, simply because some tunes just sound muffled for no reason, and some are overly loud. The vibro alert is on the weaker side and can barely be felt; and the reason for that is probably the N97's chunky casing.

You can mute any alert on the N97 simply by turning it face-down - be it a call, alarm clock or something else.

The phone is set to land on most market in May and will retail for 550 Euros before subsidies and taxes, meaning that in Germany, for example, it'll be available for around 590-600 Euros (unlocked), while in Russia its price will reach 800-850 Euros. What's more, Russia, along with Hong Kong is very likely to get the N97 first, just like it was the case with the 5800 several weeks ago. The good news is that this time around there will be no dearth, as Nokia will have plenty of time to churn out enough units, plus the N97 won't be that popular.

The main reason why Nokia are releasing the N97 in the first half of 2009 is pretty simple - they need some wiggle room to launch all services that are related to this phone in one way or another. The truth is, it's much more challenging to get in gear a whole array of online services, than roll out one state-of-the-art handset these days. On balance, the N97 is geared more towards active Internet users, and to a certain extent this is the audience Nokia's communicators are aimed at as well. And whether will see another communicator or not hinges entirely on how well the N97 will do in 2009.

So far, we haven't mentioned the N97's 5 Mpix camera, and the reason is that it's little to no different from other Nokia's generic shooters and doesn't offer any new features or improvements in the way of image quality. But on the other hand, it's already one of the finest cameras in its class, so there is not much to tune to begin with.

All in all, it's hard to rate the Nokia N97 today. As far as its technical side goes, it's on a par with some more expensive solutions, such as the HTC Touch Pro and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. Even if they'll decide to bump its price in 2009, the N97 will still have a handful of advantages, including 32 Gb of storage, bigger display, etc. But at the end of the day, the Nokia N97's real flavor is in its software and seamless integration with online services. Not only is it unique for its slide mechanism, it's also the first phone that was designed with Internet-based services in mind, which is exactly what the young consumers are looking for. But while it's a likable phone, it won't appeal to each and everyone. What's more, Nokia haven't revealed all the goodies yet - by the time the N97 arrives, we'll see some more related announcements that will at least surprise you. It's remarkable how other vendors that aren't into services at all, start falling behind, offering similar solutions for more money. But, we are yet to see what kind of uptake the N97 will enjoy in May.