Nokia N97 here this month!

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 03 June 2009 13:09

Your IT - Mobility

The camera support (must mention that Carl Zeiss lens) includes geotagging and uploading to Ovi Share, Twitter or Flickr.

Nokia's proud of the fact that the N97 is its first phone with a personalisable home screen. Does that mean a mobile phone company has finally grown a pair and is prepared to stand up to carriers that think they have the right to control what's on our phones?

Like Apple, Nokia realises that what you can do with a smartphone depends largely on the software it runs. That doesn't overcome hardware limitations, but it does provide a degree of futureproofing.

As Nokia puts it, "people can constantly improve and refresh their Nokia N97 with new features, functions and fixes so they can do even more with the device. An exciting roadmap of new features and functions is planned to roll out in the second half of 2009."

Apart from those future functions, the main thing we don't know yet is how much the N97 will cost, though that small detail is sure to dribble out over the coming days or weeks.

But I bet it won't be cheap, unless you can afford at least a $100 per month plan. If the projected European price is anything to go by, we'll be looking at over $1000 outright.

And even if the N97 does outdo the iPhone 3G (and given that Apple's handset is a year old, that shouldn't be too difficult for the world's leading handset manufacturer), how will it stack up against the 2009 iPhone that Apple's expected to announce next week?