Reuben Lee | Dec 02, 2008
BARCELONA, SPAIN--The rumors have gotten it right again, almost. For the past several weeks, Nokia, has, taking a leaf out of Apple's product marketing book, dangled a carrot to the tech world by keeping its upcoming product cloaked in secrecy. Since then, the Web has been on fire with speculation about
Nokia's mystery phone, including rumor that it could be a touchscreen phone to rival the
iPhone.
While the N97 announced at
Nokia World 2008 today in Barcelona, Spain, does have a generous 3.5-inch touchscreen (640 x 360-pixel) display, it also comes with a slideout flip-up QWERTY keypad. So, apple-to-apple, this resembles the
HTC TyTN II or even the
Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 far more than the said iPhone.
As the newest flagship model in Nokia's Nseries lineup, and after a glance at the showpiece, expect everything but the kitchen sink here. In addition to 802.11b/g wireless LAN and GPS (with A-GPS), the N97 comes with HSDPA and A2DP Bluetooth radios. There's also support for multiple playback formats, a 3.5mm audio jack, VGA-quality video recording at 30fps, 5-megapixel image capture and the latest Series60 5th Edition OS. Though what's most impressive about the N97 is its huge 32GB onboard memory, which is one of the highest capacities we have seen on a phone thus far. Additionally, the handset also comes with a built-in microSD card slot, which can currently support up to 16GB media, bringing the maximum storage possible on the N97 to an impressive 48GB.
The N97 is expected to be available worldwide in the first half of 2009 at an estimated price of 550 euros (US$694) before tax or subsidies. You can read more about Nokia World
here in our first-hand coverage.
Andrew Lim | Dec 01, 2008

(Credit: Crave UK)
Before O2 got involved with the iPhone and its wondrous touchscreen, it used to shout about its
Xda range of Windows Mobile handsets a lot more. But if you thought the Xda was dead, then think again, because O2 (
branded as MWg in Asia) has been quietly releasing a whole bunch of new handsets, including the Xda Zest.
The Xda Zest is a small chubby Windows Mobile 6.1 handset that packs in a lot of modern features, but can't help looking like a blast from the past. You get HSDPA, GPS, Wi-Fi and a 3-megapixel camera--all lovely, but let down by an inexpensive plastic casing that picks up fingerprints very easily.
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