For whatever reason, Nokia phones have failed to really catch on here in the states. I know we’ve all seen those junk freebie Nokia’s that just about every carrier has, using them to inflate their bottom line. But the real meat is that of smartphones. Here in the states and even North America as a whole, Nokia smartphones are often left for those with deeper pockets than most thanks to a lack of carrier subsidizing. $5-$600 phones are simply too much for most end users to pay. Even the most diehard tech enthusiasts can’t afford such treats. But for a few of our lucky Canadian friends, getting a subsidized Nokia smartphone — an N97 no less — for half the price is something that will certainly perk a few ears.
According to MobileSyrup, this Thursday, December 10th, the same day that sees Bell Canada launching their first Android device (Samsung Galaxy) will also see them launching the Nokia N97. For now, price is uncertain. But given that it’s a 3-year contract — a full 50% longer than most other civilized nations around the world — I would hope that a fairly generous subsidy is given. Look for the N97 to cost anywhere between $250-$350 when all i’s have been dotted and t’s crossed. Suddenly taking a trip up north doesn’t sound so bad now does it? Now where did I put my snowshoes….
BGR > MobileSyrup
While all the rage yesterday, and more than likely today as well as the rest of the week is going to be Apple/iPhone OS 3.0/iPhone 3GS, their are others players out there who deserve some mention. If you aren’t a fruit lover and instead prefer a more sophisticated device and OS, Nokia will be happy to donate to you (for the small donation price of $699.99 of course) their brand spanking new N97 wonder device. While the iPhone line has lots of visual appeal and eye candy with increasing amounts of functionality, some prefer a tad simpler, more efficient approach to mobile tasks, tasks that require background processing support for instance. In case you have forgotten, the N97 features a side-sliding/pivoting 640×360 pixel touchscreen, 5MP camera, sliding QWERTY keyboard, and 32GB of built in storage capacity all wrapped inside Symbian S60 5th Edition. Solid specs to say the least. So just remember folks, there are other choices out there besides the ever popular fruit. Is the N97 in your future? (If so, are you an organ donor?…..just asking).
Source: BG, Symbian-Guru
As with many high end smartphones/cellphones, coupled with their widespread nonacceptance from carriers, lack of local availability, as well as their sky high price tag, adoption of said units is often fairly low. High end Nokia handsets often to ever get to see the light of day in the U.S. for reasons unknown. However, Nokia, in an effort to desperately make some more money and stop their falling market share is reaching deeper into their pockets to make sure you don’t make a “mistake” and pass on their devices. You may recall that besides being Nokia’s own “Jesus phone” if you will, it also came with an ungodly price tag that just barely kissed the $700 mark. However Nokia is feeling your pain and is trying to help you out. In order to get their devices in to your hands they are now taking off an “instant discount” that takes a surprising $174.75 off of the U.S. bound N97′s price tag. Further sweetening the deal, if you enter CARTP409N at check out time, you can take part in legalized theft and have your very own N97 for a cheap (high end Nokia standards) $454.35. Add it up folks, that’s basically a $250 sale. Not to be outdone, they go ahead and add a cherry to seal the deal by giving you a BH-703 Bluetooth headset ($89.95) for free.99. If this is all the best news you’ve heard all year, then take a seat and start waiting because you have until July of ’09 until you can wrap your clammy little hands around this hot, yet “affordable” beast. Happy Waiting.
Source: Slashgear
The mobile market, particularly the smartphone market is heating up as mobile web usage and data plan usage both reach towards the skies. With the increase of mobile web usage comes a need for more powerful devices that can take advantage of everything the web has to offer as well as slowly replacing our time spend at typical desktop or laptop computers and instead investing that time into our mobiles. One of the biggest parts of the whole *productive* mobile usage is the processor. A smartphone can live or die by how fast its little silicon heart pumps. In the case of Nokia’s much hyped touchscreen + qwerty keyboard combo, one would think that it would be powered by a 600+MHz CPU (as in Nokia’s own Xpress Music 5630) in order to make the most of you mobile time. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Now second to the processor is the GPU or RAM that is included. The more GPU or RAM, the more graphically intense applications and games will be and the smoother they will run. Again, in the case of the N97, it is sorely lacking. The cause? Blame it on the use of the ARM11 434MHz processor and paltry 128MB of RAM. One would think that Nokia, a once (and still more or less) mobile giant who is steadily losing market share would maket he N97 all that it could be and really blow peoples’ doors off. Instead, it appears they went down the road of “just OK” and took a turn at adequate. Nokia claims to be “refining” the OS drastically as to make system based tasks effortless and smooth. However, CPU/GPU intensive tasks such as games, graphically rich websites, and other multimedia content could take its toll on the weak in the knees processor. Maybe they’ll up the ante on the N97′s sucessor. We can only hope.
Source: Slashgear, Symbian-Freak
- February 16, 2009 8:15 pm
Nokia’s bread and butter, pride and joy, cream of the crop, call it whatever you want. The much hyped Nokia N97 is coming! Mark you calendar folks for June 2009. That is the month in which the N97 will be available to mere mortals. If you’ve somehow forgotten, the N97 is a 3.5″ 640 x 360 pixel touchscreen beauty featuring haptic (vibration) feedback. According to Nokia’s announcement at the 2008 Nokia World Event back in December, Nokia will in fact just barely make their 2nd quarter release date as June is the last month in the second quarter. Nothing like waiting until the last minute guys. It isn’t that much longer folks.
Source: Mobile Burn
*Image by Matt Brady > Gizmodo > and finally The Nokia Blog*
File this under wishful thinking and rumor x2. An interesting thought from the Nokia blog written by Mark Guim brings up a very perplexing question: “What if Apple announced an iPhone at Macworld, complete with 5+ MP camera, slide out keyboard and a release of early-mid 2009? Would it be the death of the Nokia N97? Mark thinks so. I don’t think the outcome would be quite as dramatic. iPhone and Nokia users are more or less pretty far apart. Nokia users (of more advanced models anyway) tend to be feature freaks. They want any and every feature under the sun. Now does having all of those features jam packed into a tiny phone make it a jack of all trades master of none?
I will admit, I am a Mac/Apple fan, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am really digging Nokia’s new N97 that was just recently revealed. It has a TON of features, and all of those features are left un touched and open…(Apple are you listening?). The S60 Symbian 3rd OS hopefully is up to the task of this “Personal Computer” as Nokia puts it. Previous versions of the OS haven’t exactly been the most widely praised. The widget homescreen is a pretty cool idea that should allow a fairly high degree of customization by the user. Finally, the core specs of the N97:
- 3.5″ resistive touchscreen (I guess 2007 tech, (capacitive touchscreen) was a bit too much for them…
- QWERTY keyboard
-Tri-band HSDPA
- 802.11 b/g WiFi
- A-GPS and Stand-alone GPS
- 32 GB of built in memory (Come on Apple!)
- microSD expansion for up to 16GB cards
- 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss
- Flash light 3.0 support and Flash video support in the browser
- 36 hour music playback time
- Share and Ovi services support
Nokia has definitely made a true competitor to the iPhone. Although, without carrier subsidies the price is just shy of $700 putting it out of reach for most users. Also the lack of HSDPA support on the 850mhz band will put off some prospective buyers. What remains to be seen is a manufacturer who can recreate the entire ecosystem that Apple has, as that seems to be the soul source of their increasing popularity.
Source: Boygenius
