The Nokia N97 is out in the U.S. now, and it was all set to be the likeliest contender for the title of iPhone Killer of 2009...and they priced the devices at $700 and put themselves completely out of the running.
At least that's what many smartphone customers and industry analysts believe. Pricing the N97 at $700 is putting it in a completely different marketing category than the $99 iPhone, which makes it very difficult for the Nokia device to compete.
Even the Palm Pre, which also bodes well as an iPhone alternative, only rings in at $299--and it has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard to boot. Oh wait, so does the Nokia N97. Well still, flagship smartphone or no flagship smartphone, what is Nokia's logic in the N97's $700 price tag?
One advantage of the Nokia N97 over the iPhone, for some users at least, is that it's not tied to any particular wireless carrier, so people can use their favorite--AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile--as they wish.
This year's Consumer Electronics Show--not typically a place where mobile phones generally stand out--saw a smartphone, namely the new Palm Pre, win the CNET Best of CES Award.
And that was only 1 of 3 awards Palm's new iPhone-killer (the most promising looking contender for that position in 2009) which also won:
the Best of CES Award in the Cellphone category
the People's Voice Award
The LG Watch Phone, however, probably walked away with the Wow-Factor award of the year.
Meanwhile the Motorola Surf A3100 touchscreen smartphone earned itself a Best of CES nomination, at least. Motorola also rolled out its "Green" smartphone--in that it's built from recycled water bottles--the Renew W233 and it's rough-and-tumble AT&T Tundra A76r.
Other highlights of the introductions made at the 2009 CES include:
RIM and T-Mobile's BlackBerry Curve 8900
T-Mobile Shadow
HTC S743
as US version of the Nokia E63
and the eagerly-anticipated Nokia N97
The quietest voice on the CES smartphone stage this year was no doubt Samsung, who barely had a thing to show but for the T-Mobile SGH-T119.
In contrast to its world-renowned line of smartphones, when Nokia announced the next in its ever-popular N-series of handheld devices would be its first and “the world’s most advanced mobile computer.” For anyone who wishes their smartphone to be a portable PC, Nokia has unveiled the N97.
Nokia has just announced its latest handset in the hotly contested smartphone race, the Nokia N97, and early reports suggest that certain aspects of this new device might make some iPhone users green with envy.
For one, the digital camera in the N97 is one of the sharpest – and smartest! – in the mobile community, at 5 megapixels with Carl Zeiss optics, a dual LED frash and DVD-quality video recording capabilities.
The Nokia N97 also adds a choice of keyboard controls where the iPhone lacks it, with both a 3.5” touch screen but a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
The new Nokia sports a Flash-based GPS which makes mapping features even more user-friendly and followable than ever. It uses a convenient location sensing technology that always knows where you are (or it is, really), and it has been designed to integrate with Nokia’s So-Lo service.
So-Lo stands for “social location” and it’s bringing the appeal of social media to smartphones…sorry, we mean “mobile computers”. With So-Lo, friends and contacts on sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. can enhance the way they network and communicate by sharing real-time location-based information, statuses, and relevant video and pictures.
The N97 also comes with built-in WiFi and HSDPA network support.
And the Nokia N97 doesn’t mess around with meager memory allotments, hoping you’ll just spend the extra money on external microSD cards. It gives you 32 GB on-board to start with. And if you still want even more than that, it’s got a microSD expansion slot too, expandalbe to up to 48 GB.
According to its makers, the Nokia N97 has a battery life capable of up to a day and a half of playing music – 37 hours to be precise. That same battery life, they say, will give you about 4 and a half hours of video playback.
Interestingly, the Nokia N97 will not be available in time for the holidays. In fact, its U.S. release date is still unknown. European customers will be able to buy the new Nokia for about 550 euros (which equals about $693 US) starting sometime in early ’09.
written by SmartPhoneWizard
\\ tags: N97, Nokia N97
