The Finnish phone-maker Nokia is all set to launch its first touchscreen-QWERTY phone, the Nokia N97, shortly in India. The phone has already started shipping in Europe with mixed responses coming in.

nokia n97 148x300 Nokia N97Key Features :

  • Touch display (3.5″ of it) which slides and tilts to reveal a full QWERTY kepboard plus d-pad for easy navigation.
  • 5 Megapixel Camera
  • Carl Zeiss integrated optics coupled with a dual LED flash
  • A massive 32GB of internal memory with MicrSD support for further memory expansion
  • Integrated Assisted GPS
  • WiFi and HSDPA
  • DVD quality video capture and 16:9 display

Targeted towards the internet-savve mobile users, N97 will be launched nationwide within two weeks at a likely price of around Rs 34,000.

The Nokia N97 supports up to 48 GB of storage, including 32 GB of on-board memory, expandable with a 16 GB microSD card for music, media and more.

This is complemented by excellent music capabilities, full support for the Nokia Music Store and continuous playback time of up to 1.5 days. The phone has a 5-Megapixel camera with high-quality Carl Zeiss optics, 16:9 and DVD quality video capture, and support for services like Share on Ovi for immediate sharing over HSDPA and WLAN.

Jonas Geust, Vice President, heading Nokia Nseries, “From the desktop to the laptop and now to your pocket, the Nokia N97 is the most powerful, multi-sensory mobile computer in existence,”

“Together with the Ovi services announced today, the Nokia N97 mobile computer adjusts to the world around us, helping stay connected to the people and things that matter most. With the Nokia N97, Nseries leads the charge in helping to transform the Internet into your Internet”.

The N97 will be the company’s first phone to come preloaded with Nokia’s just-launched Ovi store. Nokia recently launched Ovi Store to take on Apple and Blackerry’s application stores. The Ovi store has on offer over 20,000 titles from launch, including both free and paid applications and also podcasts, wallpapers and ringtones, etc. n India, the Ovi Store on the N97 will offer a choice of 50 free to download items developed specifically for Indian consumers, by Indian developers.

According to Nokia India marketing director Vinit Taneja, about 5 million people in India use Internet on mobile for various purposes like 58 percent for information and some 55 percent for entertainment. A large number of mobile users use it for a variety of things including blogging, seeking directions, search, pictures and downloading or playing games.

Hailed as an iPhone killer and as Nokia’s flagship model, there’s much hope that it will help the manufacturer reclaim some of its lost status as a trend setter and regain its lost ground among the youth.

Reviews have already started flowing into the internet :

Noknok likes the keyboard and says “The QWERTY keyboard is a great size and allows you to write longer emails and full length word documents with ease. The Nokia N97 is Nokia’s latest flagship device and embodies everything that phrase should mean; fantastic style, great build quality and enough features to over shadow the rest of the smartphone market.”

N97Geeks criticised Nokia’s decision to have a resistive touchscreen when the competition is moving to capacitive technology. Although they had a pre-production version, they found out that “Touch screen technology chosen: some may think that resistive technology is less efficient than the capacitive.” Furthermore, it seems that the single/double click paradigm is a bit difficult to understand at the beginning.