The N97: Nokia’s Entry Into the Smartphone Race Launches June 16

June 16, 2009

Get ready Hong Kong for the Symbian Love from Nokia.

Ok smartphone fans, here is one of the last contenders in this year’s smartphone race: the Nokia N97. This symbian-powered phone is now available for pre-order in Hong Kong with its on street date next Tuesday, June 16th – one day before iPhone 3.0 is released and a 3 days before the new iPhone 3GS.

The Nokia N97 is Nokia’s first device to feature a personalized home screen with friends, social networks, news and more are all readily accessed with a simple touch of the screen. The 16:9 widescreen display can be fully customized with frequently updated widgets of favorite web services and social networking sites. The Nokia N97 is also perfectly suited for browsing the web, streaming Flash videos or playing games. Both the physical QWERTY and virtual touch input ensure easiness in blogging, chatting, posting, sending texts or emailing.

Instead of “apps,” the N97 has localized “widgets” here are a few that should get Hong Kong buyers excited – well not that excited:

• “Appledaily Mobile Reader” – download summaries or entire stories to your handset at Wi-fi hotspots and enjoy reading Apple Daily online or offline.
• “Hong Kong Weather” – get the latest update and forecast of the weather on your handset’s home screen.
• “Facebook” – Keep up to date and in contact with your friends through the latest Facebook interface.
• “Weekend Weekly Widget” – preloaded in Nokia N97, receive the latest travel information and promotional offers, search and save the locations of recommended restaurants and even share food reviews online.
• Ovi store is already preloaded in Nokia N97 containing the latest Widgets, games, videos and applications ready for download.

Sexiness comes from these iPhone-destroying specs:

• Internal memory of up to 48 GB (32 GB on-board memory, plus 16GB expansion via microSD card),
• Equipped with a 3.5-mm stereo headphone plug and built-in stereo speakers,
• The phone also has a five-megapixel camera with high-quality Carl Zeiss optics, 16:9 video capture, and allows immediate file sharing capabilities over HSDPA and WLAN.

If you pre-order it now with a HK$300 deposit you’ll get a free limited-edition bluetooth headset. The full price is HK$5,498 well within the smartphone price range. We’ll still have to do a head-to-head with all these smartphones as each seem to have strengths and weaknesses and it may actually just come down to personal preference.

Click on the thumbnails below to see bigger photos and watch some videos of the N97 in action below:

and real-world hands on demo: