By Reuben Lee
02/12/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39050603,62048896,00.htm

BARCELONA, Spain--Empowering users to personalize the Internet--this was the key message at this year's annual Nokia World media and industry conference held in Barcelona. And the Finnish company believes it is uniquely positioned to make this happen.

Speaking at the opening of today's show, Nokia's president and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said: "This is a world where you will have the power to tailor and personalize your Internet how and when you like, to make your day-to-day life easier and more fulfilling." He strongly believes that Nokia, with more than a billion customers worldwide, "has the opportunity to put the power of the Internet into the hands of more people in more places than any other company".

	Closeup with the Nokia N97

Also speaking at today's keynote is Nokia's executive vice president of the new Markets unit, Anssi Vanjoki, who finally unveiled the company's best-kept secret, the full-featured touchscreen N97. Nokia's mystery phone has been so secret, even most of the company's employees haven't seen it yet.

In line with its "Transforming the Internet into your Internet" theme at the event, the Finnish giant announced several new initiatives including new Ovi services, Nokia Messaging and Maps on Ovi.

As for the N97, this is slated for worldwide delivery in the first half of 2009, and will be the newest flagship Nseries model. Not surprisingly, it comes with everything you can expect for a top-of-the-line Nseries handset, from Wi-Fi and GPS to a 5-megapixel camera (with Carl Zeiss optics) and the latest Series60 5th Edition operating system. What caught our attention were its slide-out QWERTY keypad, 3.5-inch (16:9 widescreen) touchscreen display, and whopping 32GB onboard memory. Did we also mention that it shares an uncanny resemblance to the HTC TyTN II, with its slideout, flip-up keypad?

	Maps on Ovi

Nokia's Maps on Ovi, together with its latest 3.0 version of Nokia Maps, introduces what the