Pre Order your N97

You can preorder your N97 if you are in the USA, Germany, Spain, Italy or Sweden by giving your email address here. Early birds get a Bluetooth headset free with pre-ordering!

On the other side of the Nokia fence

By a mysterious turn of circumstances I am interning at Nokia India for summers. I can play with N97 protoypes and get the inside scoop on how the phone is shaping up almost everyday. You can rest assured that the N97 is absolutely amazing in real life. The hinge design is brilliant and youll really like the feel of the phone moving. Everyone in the top management uses the E71, E75, E90 or the N97. Talk about the pricing and launch date is hush hush but all I can say is that it seems close to what we predicted earlier. The initial versions of the software seem to have a lot of social networking apps preloaded. Moving the widgets around is fun :)

Working with Nokia has made me realize the kind of passion they put into their phones and how Nokia plans and markets its offerings to the market. Whenever I go for market visits or talk to customers and people about Nokia, there is only one word that seems to capture it all -> Respect. Where else can you see people just walking into a store and asking for only one brand. Though my perception may have an India bias, it is what I have developed by spending most of my time in stores and shops developing customer insights. 

I shall keep you posted on the N97 as more info comes up.

Amazing video of the N97 for MWC

I found a cool new video made for Nokia N97 to showcase in the MWC.

A post on the Go!

There is much talk about using smartphones to do day to day online activities on the go. Akhil told me to get into road warrior mode with my 5800 XpressMusic. I am not at the benefit of a full blown QWERTY like the Nokia N97 but am still enjoying thumbing away on my touch screen right in the middle of a lecture discussing ways to conduct a detailed NPV analysis of a firm. Ah. . . The beauty in letting ones mind wander ;)

I plan to walk the complete path on this one.... From writing the complete post to using my campus wifi to login into blogger and post publishing, to try and edit the post and insert a picture of my bench mate taken with it right here in class!

Here goes step 1......!

...Well as it turned out, Step 1 failed as I couldn’t post the article in class. Failed to connect to WLAN :( Now I am sitting in the mess and Akhil & Sonali are huddled close to me trying to get me to post my article ASAP. If this step turns out successful, Ill edit my post again and insert a picture. Here goes ;)

Hmmmm... step 1 failed again. It seems mailing go@blogger.com doesn’t work with my carrier which happens to be Airtel. Sonali is giving me the look and Akhil is playing Bounce on his 5800. Last tactic.. Am gonna log in directly into blogger via my web browser and post. This should work.

IT DID!!! We have a post up. Now we are trying to get a pic loaded - Successful!

Buddy... I told you that you are gonna get famous for sitting with the busiest man on campus!

Its simple. Send a mail using your gmail id from your mobile phone and claim the token at the mobile blogger website. That registers your mobile device. Any subsequent email to blogger automatically posts to the blog. Im loving it!!

Disclaimer: This post is in no way representative of the attitude of students studying at the prestigious IIMs. We attend all classes regularly and work our best to catch all thats thrown at us - be it cash flow analysis, queing theory, or target market segmentation :p

Ringtone for N97 fans

We've composed a ringtone for N97 lovers. All credits to SPSS for helping us on this one. He is a N95 8GB user and cant wait to get his hands on the N97. We cant wait either :). To get an exclusive preview of the ringtone just press Play. (You need to have a QuickTime plugin installed)

You can also download the ringtone here.

Talking about ringtones... the N97 supports video ringtones. So you can have a video or a unique track associated with each each contact. You can see your loved one light up your screen when they call! And did you know that when you get an incoming call on your N97 and you want to silence the tone, you can just turn the phone. Little treasures that show how well Nokia has thought out the N97.

Music on the Go

So how capable is the Nokia N97 with music?
For starters, it has 32 Gb + an optional 16GB of memory to store your music. If you want, you can carry extra memory cards with your music loaded on to it. This means that technically you can carry any amount of music with you. I dont know of any suceesful portable music player including the iPod where you can do this. 48 GB of memory translates to about 12500 full tracks of about 4 MB at 160 Kbps. Averaging track length to about 3-5 minutes you get about 1 month 4 days, 17 hours and 20 minutes of continous different music :) Think of it this way - You can listen to one hour of totally new music every day for 2 years and 3 months just by loading up the N97 once.
Dont forget that the N97 comes with a standard 3.5 mm jack so you an use your favorite pair of Sennheisers/ Bose headphones or plug it into your Yamaha ampifier ;) I wonder what makers of music systems are going to come up with next? The Nokia N97 has effectvely made music systems redundant. One only needs to buy an external ampifier to have the latest top of the line music system ready! Combined with the Tv-Out port you can watch album art and song information on your TV. Possibilities anyone??
Lets dig deeper into the design of the music player

Music Menu - You can play tracks by choosing Artists, Albums, Playlists, Podcasts, Genres or Composers. If your music is well tagged, finding the right track should be just a few taps away. It features search for tracks, so you can actually type in the track you want and it will find it for you.
One salient feature of the Nokia N97 is that you can just copy paste your music folder structure onto the memory card/phone and ask the music player to refresh the library. The N97 will automatically find tracks and put them in the music menu. So you dont have to be at a particular software's mercy every time you want to load tracks.
Support for file formats - The following file formats are supported in the Nokia N97: AAC, AAC+, eAAC, eAAC+, MP3, MP4, M4A, WMA, Mobile XMF, SP-MIDI, AMR (NB-AMR), MIDI Tones (poly 64), RealAudio 7, 8, 10, True tones (WB-AMR), WAV. MP3-files with various bit rates, including VBR! You can even take play protected DRM-files (Janus DRM) by synchronizing with Windows Media Player 11 or higher.And dont forget, it has full support for album art!
Equalizer - It comes with 6 presets which except for the default setting are all fully customizable - Bass Booster, Classical, Jazz, Pop, Rock. You can adjust sound balance, Stereo Widening and Loudness in the settings section.
Music Store - You can buy and download the latest tracks and albums on the road by visiting the Nokia Music Store. I personally have been able to download tracks on my 5800 XpressMusic over the web without even using the music store. Just ensure that the tracks you download are legal to be downloaded free ;)
FM Radio - Features a full blown FM radio with support for visual enhancements and auto tuning.
Internet Radio - Dont like picking tracks and making playlists? Still want to be able to control which genre you are listening to? Try the internet radio. You can choose from a multitude of options and tune in to the perfect channel for your tastes.
Podcasts - The N97 has full support for podcasts. You can access Nokia's podcast catalogue or search and subscribe to podcasts over the internet.
Playback time - The Nokia N97 features an amazing playback time of almost 35-37 hours. You wont run out of battery power on this one.
All in all the nokia N97 has delivered the fatal blow to all music player wannabes in the market. There are other phones with music capabilities in the market but the N97 has raised the bar in terms of the complete solution it offers.

Nokia N97 - My Phone, My Desktop

Customization is the order of the day..be it your coffee, your suit, your automobile… its  high time we had customizable desktops. The N97 with its large 3.5 inch screen and Symbian S60 gives users the freedom to customize their desktop the way they want. So if you are hooked on to facebook or just want the latest stock tips, just put the respective widget on your phone desktop and everything is now just a finger tap away.  You can also switch your desktop with your profile. So now when you move out of office, just switch your profile and you have your latest music and orkut application on instead of your email and meeting reminders. Pretty cool, eh?

Earlier Nokia N-Series phones also did provide the feature of customizing and switching desktop shortcuts, but with N97 you can now place widgets onto your desktop so that you don’t need to go anywhere to see your favourite application. Imagine the fun of a cricket scorecard updating right on your desktop while you are in a boring meeting. Well, we didn’t find this widget suggested in the contest so we posted it ourselves. Look for our Cricket Widget in the Nokia Widget gallery.

To get users to design and suggest widget, the N-Series website is holding an innovation contest as indicated in one of our previous posts. Here is the list of top 5 suggested widgets that we found would be a great addition to your Nokia N97

MyFavorite – A simple yet  very popular widget these days jazzes up the favorites section on the desktop and also gives an option of Google search.

MiniFacebook – Be always online and always connected to your friends on Facebook.

Mp3 Player / Radio Widget – This one is for the music lovers. Have your music and FM play in a small and sleek looking player on the desktop. 

GeoSpot – Find out the nearest restaurant, fuel station or ATM using the GeoSpot application.

Quick Note – Just thought of something cool or you just remembered someone’s birthday. Scribble it down before you forget.

Some of the other cool widgets like Favorite Contacts, Manager of files, Today's Comics, Chat Notifier, N-gage Widget, Web browser, quick open: office, Nokia StockX Widget are also worth a view. So go ahead and play around with your own cool Phone Desktop. Make your desktop reflect your persona 

Whats your "So-Lo"?

Ask the N97! The A-GPS and Electronic compass on board tell the Nokia N97 where it is and it uses this data to dynamically update social networks with real time information. So your Orkut/Facebook status could have the location of the coffee bar you are sitting at and you could share pics and videos relating to the same with your friends. Chatting and staying online all the time would be like second nature to its owners.

The concept of "So-Lo" or Social Location is another first from Nokia and can only come from a company with years of insight into how people use their mobile phones and expect from them.

Another major insight...? Well the Nokia N97 automatically geo-tags the pictures you take in the EXIF data. So you can almost always know the exact spot where you took a particular photo :-| |

The Official Nokia N97 launch presentation

An amazing video where top management from Nokia tell us what they think about the N97 and what they want to show off about it!

Nokia to launch App store?

There is a lot of buzz that Nokia might just launch its very own app store at the Mobile World Congress to be held in Barcelona from 16 to 19 February. The man behind the buzz is Eldar Murtazin, a Russian editor of the Mobile-Review. If Nokia does launch the app store rumored to be up and running behind the scenes, its defintely going to have all its bases covered in terms of taking on competitors like the Apple iPhone, Sony Ericsson Xperia, Blackberry Storm, Toshiba TG 01, T-Mobile G1, Samsung Omnia or the LG Cookie phone! The N97 is going to shred the competition if app developers start building actively for the Nokia platform.

My question to Nokia is, what happens to this and why cant we have the app store directly integrated into Ovi? Take on any comparison of the Nokia N97 done with any other phone and the only thing that the reviewer would conclude by is saying that Nokia still lacks a functional app store. I wonder what theyre going to say now? Keep your your fingers crossed until MWC 2009 :/

Battle of the Smart Phones - Nokia N97 V/s Apple IPhone

We love to hear what our avid readers and subscribers have to say and this article is entirely dedicated to them! Many of you asked for a detailed comparisons...this one goes out to you! We have picked up THE major competitor of the Nokia N97...you guessed it right, the Apple IPhone 3G. Now you will say what about the Sony Ericsson Xperia, Blackberry Storm and Samsung Omnia etc? Well, lets look at the real competition. The competition which is making friends turn into foes, the animosity between the Nokia users and iPhone users! Both these phones are top-of-the-line products from their respective companies and are in a similar price range. In this comparison what we have tried to do is to interpret the specs from a user's angle and look at the practical aspects of using some of these features. Our team has narrowed down the comparison to top 10 features which we feel make the most difference to users. Sure smart phones are primarily used to make phone calls, but they are more than just that. We envision this comparison to become a real life competition of sorts. Some thing like a new Olympic Decathlon! (Imagine if Olympics really has something like that...Phone users competing against each other for supremacy..there'll be bloodshed!).Here's starting off this debate with an in-depth analysis on using these 10 features given by the team from the point of view of comfort, convenience and usability.

Let the Battle begin!

Feature	Nokia N97	Apple IPhone 3G
Touch Screen	A large 3.5 inch resistive touch screen display of this phone is first one from Nokia that works without a stylus. The power of this screen shall be visible only after launch	A 3.5 inch capacitive touch screen gives IPhone the key edge over its competition. The multi-touch display makes moving around menus quite easy
Messaging	A 30 degree slide out full QWERTY keyboard should make it the fastest SMS device among all smart phones	No QWERTY is surely a disadvantage. Also, some of the basic symbols are not available in the direct keyboard
Imaging and Video	A 5 Mega Pixel Carl Zeiss camera is sure to put old digicams to shame. Twin LED flash adds that extra punch. DVD video recording make this the perfect all in one device	A 2 Mega Pixel camera is good to take pictures in daylight. Compact camera but it’s without any flash light. No Video recording support is surely a major drawback
Music	An audio out port and a high quality built-in speaker is the right ingredient in this phone for the music lover. Album art support and preloaded music albums give it the edge	The IPod legacy continues and all the interactivity and convenience of the IPod are part of the IPhone. The speaker phone is not that powerful and you need to relay on your headphone which are also quite great.
Storage	Inbuilt 32GB memory and support for an additional 16GB make this the largest phone storage on the planet	32 GB IPhone has just been announced but the ones available on the Apple store are only 8GB and 16GB versions.
Internet, Maps and GPS	Nokia’s Symbian platform comes with an in built browser that supports almost all sites. Assisted GPS in the N97 and pre loaded Nokia maps provide it the extra edge	The OS platform supports a mobile Safari version that has a much better browsing experience. Integration of the GPS with Google Maps also gives route info in certain countries
Applications	Nokia doesn’t have an application store for the N-Series yet. As most applications are free or third party, there is a lot of scope for improvement here.	The Apple store is one of the biggest selling points for IPhone. With almost 10k applications to choose from this is one place where IPhone has a clear edge
Gaming	The N-Gage gaming platform has been evolving with the N-Series hardware upgrades. Now touch screen games with accelerometer support such as Asphalt Racing are expected soon	Apple has a number of games running in the IPhone but no tie up with any major gaming labels
Connectivity	The phone has 3G support, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. Support for the OVI platform adds a zing to the connectivity support of the N97	With 3G and Wi-Fi, the phone fulfils the requirements of a smart phone. However absence of any online or Bluetooth sync capabilities is a hindrance in some cases
Vital Stats	150 gms in weight and 6.5 hours of talktime on GSM,this baby can surly survive for long	133 gms in weight and a talktime of over 7 hrs on a GSM network make the IPhone a part of your survival kit
Software	The latest Symbian S60 version 5 operating system has widget support and is faster and better than ever before	No one can write software like Apple does. A mini version of the Mac make the software fast and responsive
Overall Verdict	Nokia N97 is power packed, innovative and a dream device for some one on the move with this music,movies and games. An application store would compliment the abilities of this phone to large extend	Apple IPhone has tested the market for a while but has still devoid its users with the features of video recording and Bluetooth. However, the fun of applications does come out with the IPhone

Sample 5 MP Camera pic

There was a request in the comments section for a pic taken from a 5MP camera. This one is from an N95 which also has a Carl Zeiss 5MP camera. You can check camera details easily by looking at the picture's EXIF data. Im sure nokia will better even this in times to come...

Credits are due to TON70 for the amazing picture

Carl Zeiss and Nokia - the magic of photography

Any trip to the sandy beaches of Goa or the high reaching mountains of Kullu or the gushing white waters of Rishikesh is immortalized for life by the pictures and videos of the location. But what do you do when you forgot to take a camera on the trip.
With a 3.2 Mega Pixel camera as in the Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic or the new 5 Mega Pixel camera in the upcoming Nokia N97, carrying a camera for amateur photographers like me will soon be a thing of the past. A Carl Zeiss lens ensures that you get the same clarity of pictures that you would come in from a standard 3.2/5 Mega Pixel camera. To make life easier, Nokia has integrated a number of image management, editing and printing features in the phone itself, so that your phone becomes the one stop shop for managing all your favourite pictures. You can upload your latest albums on OVI, fire prints directly using Bluetooth, edit photos to increase sharpness and vary colour contrast. A dedicated photo key ensures that your camera mode loads quickly for that instant timeless shot.
A problem experienced by most camera phone users in the earlier versions was the absence of a flash light to take pictures in the dark or low light. With the new N-Series phones such as N96 and N97, a twin LED flash gives you almost the same effect of a real flash light.

Another great part is the excellent video recording quality that comes along with this camera. The 5 Mega Pixel Carl Zeiss lens records DVD quality videos in 16:9 aspect ratio. You don’t even need to download the videos to your laptop. Just plug in the AV cable to the TV out port in the phone and watch all the photos and videos directly on TV. A large 32GB memory card now ensures that you never have to delete another picture throughout a trip. So next time around, forget your camera in the top drawer, cause it seems like you don’t need it anymore.

Smile . Say Cheese !

N97 - Game On

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy !!

But you are not jack ? Right. What’s the fun in buying the coolest gadget on the planet without any games to play around. A high resolution 640x480 resolution, 128 MB RAM and MEPG 4 support ensure that the Nokia N97 gives you the most awesome mobile gaming experience. Be it the strategies of Tetris 3D or the fun of twists and turns of racing in Asphalt 4: Elite Racing, the N-Gage platform available on all N-Series phones is sure to blow your mind away with new 3D graphic acceleration, multi-player mode and even online arenas to compete with other players. The new games like Resident Evil and World Series poker challenge are already a rage among mobile gaming enthusiast. The Nokia N97 comes with the largest touch screen till date in the N-Series. Some of the other new features like A-GPS, QWERTY keyboard and MPEG-4 support open a new world of opportunity for N-Series game designers and players as well. Nokia games, Vice President Jaakko Kaidesoja believes the future of gaming is towards touch screen games and we couldn’t agree more. It’s probably time to toss out your Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. Finally, you have one device that does it all and does it all with speed and style.

So let the games begin!!

Check out preview of some of the upcoming games on the N-Gage platform.




Check out what Jaako Kaidesoja, VP from Nokia games has to say about the Nokia N97 and the N-Gage platform here:

Keep your Touch powered!

The new generation of touch screen phones use finger touch, have large 3.5 inch screens and are the latest rage among smart phone users. One will of course worry about the maintenance of their precious darling screens! And your fingers operating the phone means an increased exposure to dust particles causing precision problems due to continuous usage.
Two new technologies for touch screen phones are resistive and capacitive screens which work on different principles but try to achieve the same final outcome। Resistive touch screens, such as the one available in the new Nokia N97, work on the principle of connection between two layers। The connection between the two screen layers helps the controller calculate the strength of the action. Capacitive touch screen are similar to the multi-touch technology in the iPhone that judge user action based on sensors. Ok enough of tech gyan, lets move on to some काम की चीज़ (useful talk)!

Some of the common problems that can occur in touch screen phones, if not handled carefully are

Scratches – A large screen size makes the phone vulnerable to scratches. A major cause for scratches is dust particles that can stick on the screen and create minor scratches in the screen. The resistive touch screen is protected against scratches especially caused by dust particles. However, all touch screen phones are vulnerable to external elements such as sharp pieces of equipment.

Non Response – The response to a user action requires the right calibration in the touch screen. With constant use, the calibration can shift sometimes causing non-response in case of pressing minor screen elements. This happens more in case of phones where stylus is not used. The new touch screen technologies have alleviated this problem to a large extent.

Dirty Screen – Recall the time when you had to pick up your phone while having dinner....aggggg! Doing so could have caused a problem with older touch screens. The new resistive touch screen help users overcome these problems as these screen have been tested and verified to handle most of these conditions.

But all is not wrong in this big bad world and as the old doctor says, prevention is still better than cure ! Hence if you are buying a touch screen phone its important to take a few preventive steps to ensure a long and stable life for your phone.

Install Scratch guard – Scratch guards are available with most mobile phone vendors that install another thin and resistive layer over your standard touch screen. The scratch guard helps prevent your screen from direct scratches and you can replace it easily in due course of time to keep your touch screen as good as always.

Clean with scratch resistive cloth – Every touch screen phone comes with a scratch resistant cloth similar to the ones available for cleaning spectacles. Its advisable to use these on a regular basis to clean the dust from your screen.

Finally, touch screen technology has come a long way in the past few years and with companies like Nokia investing in building high quality and long life touch screen phones.The future of the mobile phone world seems to be simple – Touch!

The fun in getting lost

Take the path less trodden. Explore that inner street. There is fun in getting lost and finding your way back. With the Nokia N97, you can extend your adventure with the A-GPS onboard and the electronic compass inbuilt. Download maps online and be the master of the city. The Nokia N97 puts directions and locations at your command.

A-GPS stands for Assisted-GPS which means that you will never lose signal. Conventional GPS has difficulty providing reliable positions in poor signal conditions. Cases like when it is surrounded by tall buildings (resulting in multipath), or when the satellite signals are weakened when a GPS device is indoors or under trees. An A-GPS uses an assistance server so that it can connect to the server based on which cell site it is in. Also, the inbuilt electronic compass intuitively tells the N97 about directions so that maps start to make so much more sense. 

Find ME!!

Sketchy

There is beauty in curves....

N97 Wallpaper

Here is a wallpaper for the Nokia N97. The widescreen version is here.

The only thing that looks good on me…

I dont look good in no Armani suits

No Gucci shoes - or designer boots

I’ve tried the latest lines from a to z

But theres just one thing that looks good on mee.. Oh Yeah

The ‘one thing’ that will definitely look good on all the fashionistas and style gurus s is the ultimate integration of both style and sophistication - The new Nokia N97! Imagine…The sleek three inch display with the splash of 16 million colours! Click numerous shades of this world with the 5 Mega Pixel camera and dig into details with the 20X digital zoom with flash and auto focus. Bored with mobile phone cameras? Try advanced mobile video shooting with the frequency of 30 frames per second. Slide on through your picture gallery with the touch of your finger tips. But writing long mails with a virtual keyboard? Naaaaah...! Move on…rather…Slide on ;) The QWERTY slide out retains the charm of you laptop and the convenience of your phone. But that’s not it! Add to your style quotient with the amazing new 30 degrees slide from Nokia. Make heads turn as you change perspective. Did I hear 'Stylish'? Definitely!And of course…don’t leave home without your music. For music lovers, the Nokia N97 gives you the most amazing music experience with its superb 3D stereo sound technology and dedicated music buttons. Song list way too long? Definitely not long enough for 32gb storage space! Need more? Add an optional 16 GB microSD. Be the rock DJ with all the music in your parties with that kinda storage. And don't ya sulk about the battery. This one is made to ensure your phone doesn't ditch you when you need it the most! The Long lasting battery with 400+ hours standby time, 4+ hours talk time and 24+ hours music playback! Wow!
Being fully loaded with so many multimedia functions and damn good looks it can be considered as a perfect combination of style and features. This phone seems all set to make a splash in the mobile world, and one can expect Nokia N97 to be available in the first half of 2009. And after my brush…oops.. ‘touch’ with the Nokia 5800 express music phone, I cant wait to get my hands on to this gadget par excellence!
P.S.: Still on Bryan Adams? Get a playlist!

Widget Widget

A restaurant locater, a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a weather monitor, horoscopes, stock quotes and network games are just some of the applications that you can now install on new smart phones like N97 coming from the Nokia stable. Mobile phone applications are the next big thing in the mobile phone industry and there is an increasing demand for third party applications to be developed similar to the development that happened in the PC industry few years back.The availability of high end features such as A-GPS, high resolution cameras, entertainment tools and large disk space and processing power makes mobile phone application development the next challenge for application developers around the world. These applications are aimed at various user requirements with major categories being productivity improvement, business tools, entertainment gadgets and games.
Nokia is entering the market of mobile phone applications for its N-Series platform with the concept of widgets. Widgets shall help Nokia N-series users customize their phone according to their liking and requirement. Widget stores will see shaping up of selling, licensing and downloading of widgets is in the times to come. The widget store could become the only mechanism supported by the operating system for installation and up gradation of applications. This shall ensure the stability of installed applications, verification of software conflicts and the ability to locate applications at a single point of sale. Apple has already taken a big step in this direction with the Application store launched along with iPhone 3G. The initial 3 months of this store saw more than 5000 applications being posted and over 200 million downloads. The advent of these applications is slowing diminishing the gap between smart phones, PDA and Pocket PCs. Seems like beyond a point, hardware improvements shall give way to software innovations in the dynamic mobile phone industry. Its happening.

Symbian S60 v5

Some comments were left to an earlier post regarding apprehensions about the operating system. We delved deeper into the design of the OS and have this to tell you:

Symbian S60 v5 was released on Oct 2, 2008 bringing new, advanced multimedia and Internet experiences to touch screen interfaces and sensor technologies equipped devices. The user interface has been extended by involving touch and tactile feedback. It also packs in support for wide screen and much better display resolutions. An entire framework has been added to handle sensors on new devices. v5 is an app developers best friend allowing them to push new capabilities and designs. Its the same OS that runs on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

The focus of the OS is on the UI experience. Web experiences are greatly enhanced with Adobe Flash Lite 3 inbuilt. The new OS gives the capability to create widgets. It has much more support for open source technologies. Security and privacy of user data have been improved further.

The guiding principles behind the design of the user interface have been user enjoyment, smart simlicity and expandable experiences. You can read more about the unique UI experience here. 

I also found an amazing video about the UI experience

Also hear a Podcast with Eero Kukko heading the S60 platform team (11:40 min, 5.33 MB).

Want a prelaunch N97?

A lot of visitors have expressed an ardent desire to own the Nokia N97. Well heres your chance... Nokia is running a kickass widget competition here. All you are required to do is to download the design package and get your creative juices working! Winners get to take home a N97 pre-loaded with a working version of the winning widget. Hurry Hurry... Last chance to steal a deal till February 27!

Were already competing ;)

Axel Meyer - II

We brought you a conversation with Axel Meyer earlier. More from him...

Comes with Music?

The question on all the current fans of the XpressMusic 5800 is whether the N97 will also come with the amazing 'Comes with music' service from Nokia. The idea is that any phone that offers the service will basically give you access to millions of tracks of international and local artists via the Nokia online store which the user can keep for free! Amazing.. huh?? The period for which you can download the music for free lasts a year. The official lowdown from the Nokia is here. If you have any updates, leave them in the comments section. With a boatload of storage at hand N97 users will have their ears ringing to sweeeeeeet music :)

Now how would artists and labels possibly earn any amount of money from the content that Nokia plans to give away? The deals seem to be hush hush and has almost everyone amazed. Probably the fee for the service would be included in making the pricing decision for the device. Even engadget has been wondering. 

Setting up the service on the other hand seems to be pretty straightforward as Dean Pattrick from the Nokia music team shows in this step by step video

More from the Nokia N97 design team

The person who designed the exterior of the Nokia N97 - Eguchi Shunjiro talking about the design process and how he designed the phone to feel. 

The Official Video

This is the official Nokia N97 video. Lets just say that were bowled over!

Office on the go

N97 users should be able to easily edit and view all their Microsoft Office files including the latest .docx, .xlsx and .ppt files. The Quickoffice group has recently launched Quickoffice Premier 6.0 for Symbian S60 v3 and Symbian S60 v5. It is widely regarded as the best office suite available for any smartphone and should be a pleasure to use with the powerful interfaces of the N97. 

You can find more here.

The devil lies in the details

I know, I know... You wanna see the official spec sheets. Find them here and a pdf version here. "NICE" I hear?

The detailed specs have been copied here for reference:

Technical Specs

Developer Platform - S60 5th Edition

Operating System - Symbian OS v9.4

Resolution - 360 x 640

General

Resolution - 360 x 640

Color Depth - 24 bit

Size - 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.91 mm

Weight - 150 g

Input Methods - Qwerty Key Mat, Touch Screen

Frequency Band - GSM 1800 GSM 1900 GSM 850 GSM 900 WCDMA 1900 WCDMA 2100 WCDMA 850 WCDMA 900

Data Bearer - EGPRS HSDPA WCDMA

Consumer Link - Product Home Page

Developer Link - Developer Home Page

Notes - 118.25mm at camera area.

Extra Features

Extra Features - Nokia Maps, TV Out

GPS Features - A-GPS

Browser & Flash - Browser OSS Browser

Web Runtime - Flash Lite Flash Lite 3.0

Flash Lite Feature - Flash Video

Multimedia

Camera Resolution - 2584 x 1938

Sensor - CMOS 5.0 Megapixel

Focal length - 5.4 mm

F-Stop/Aperture - f/2.8

Image Format - JPEG/Exif

Camera Features - Auto Focus, Carl Zeiss Optics, Flash1

Video Resolution - 640 x 4802

Video Frame Rate - 30 fps

Video Format - MPEG-4

Video Formats - H.264/AVC MPEG-4 RealVideo 7,8,9/10 WMV 9

Local Video Playback - 30 fps

Audio Features - Audio Equalizer

Music Player

Audio Formats - AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, MP3, WMA 

Notes -   1Dual LED flash and video light.

              2Also supporting nHD 16:9 video recording, MPEG-4 SP 640x352 at 30fps.

Memory Functions

Max User Storage - 32 GB

Memory Card - Micro SD

Max Memory Card - Size 16 GB1

Notes - 1 16GB Memory Card Included.

Connectivity

Local Connectivity - Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR Micro USB Nokia AV3.5mm UPnP USB2.0 High-Speed

WLAN support - 802.11b/g

Bluetooth Profiles - A2DP

Power Management

Battery - BP-4L 3.7V 1500 mAh

GSM Talk Time - 6.6 hours

WCDMA Talk Time - 5.3 hours

GSM Standby Time - 430 hours

WCDMA Standby Time - 400 hours

Max Video Playback Time - 4.5 hours

Max Music Playback Time - 37 hours

Whats in the N97 for you?

"It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman"

One look at the new Nokia N97 would have prompted Lee Adams to repeat his famous words! This new device from the N-Series quiver has redefined the way communication devices will be perceived. The Nokia N-Series platform has been coming up with new features in each version to give its users a true feeling of owning the most awesome phones on the planet! Its latest edition, the N97, features a 3.5 inch touch screen, a 5 Mega Pixel Carl Zeiss camera and a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out a unique and comfortable 30 degrees angle. The Nokia fondle video here shows some of the features that we have talked about.



From the point of view of a N-series loyalist and the prospective buyers of this phone, which are basically smart phone users, there are a number of features that make the phone an experience in itself. As a customer of this phone, you get to ride on a blazing fast processor with 128 MB RAM and an extended battery life that makes you wonder whether you really need a PC anymore! Symbian 5th Edition ensures user enjoyment, smart simplicity and expandable experiences at the centre of your mobile computing experience. Add to this a TV out port and you are all set to show off your escapades to friends and family.

Tired of typing on the keypad? Losing the human 'touch'? The large 3,5", bright nHD (640 x 360 pixels and 16:9 aspect ratio) TFT color display with resistive touch screen and tactile feedback changes the way you interact with your phone. Also, the increased spread of your screen brings in a new world of applications that allows you to do more in a smarter way. Web browsing on this screen coupled with a fully functional QWERTY keyboard is a breeze. The on board web browser works like a charm and for the very first time, users would find the experience of mobile browsing similar to a full sized desktop. Couple this with high speed 3G network capabilities and you remain connected. On the Move Always !!!.

With the Carl Zeiss ® 5 Megapixel camera the world is yours to capture. Immortalize life in DVD quality 16:9 video with dual LED flash. Another extremely interesting feature of the phone is the ability to Geo-tag all images through the on-board GPS. Coupled with this is a powerhouse of multimedia capability starting with a 32GB internal storage memory to archive all the latest music and videos in your collection. A 3.5 mm audio jack and a next generation interface supporting album art, its your very own DJ console station. See your So-Lo (Social Location) change as friends keep track of you. Update social networks with your status and real time info. Share images, videos and messages on the Ovi network.

With all these features, the phone is surprisingly sleek and Nokia design has ensured that even with the QWERTY keyboard the thickness of the screen remains at a sleek 16 mm. Weighing 150gms, the N97 has the right mix of substance and style to dazzle off competition. Watch as people stand up and take notice.

Axel Meyer

Came across this interesting video of the designer of the N97 answering questions from bloggers. He tries to explain some basic design principles of the Nokia 97 and answers question about the QWERTY and other aspects of the phone.

N97 Announced

On December 2, 2008 Nokia announced the release of its flagship device in the N9X range – the N97 mobile computer. Its feature list is nothing short of impressive. QWERTY keyboard, a 3.5” touch screen interface, A-GPS with an electronic compass, TV Out, 5 MP Camera and (32+16) GB of storage ensure that there is not even a single feature that you could possibly want that is not provided. Just looking at the spec sheet fuzzes out the competition.

This device should change the way people connect to the internet and to each other. Tagged as the ‘Facebook phone’, this device is the weapon of choice for social networking freaks. It offers status updates from social networking sites right on their home page in an always on mode. This makes keeping tab of your friends kids play. Choc a bloc with sensors and interfaces this device is any gadget lover’s dream come true. It’s a mobile computer on steroids.

But the beauty of the phone will not be its technology or its hardware but the seamless integration with Nokia’s Ovi service which shall take the possibilities to a new dimension. It is definitely one of Nokia’s more significant flagship launches reiterating Nokia’s faith in its new Symbian 5^th edition platform. The game changer now is the software and apps that will be offered for the device.

Estimates of launch in Europe are first half of 2009 at an estimated retail price of EUR 550.