Nokia has unveiled N97 Mini, a slightly smaller version of the N97 smartphone.
The N97 mini is a bit smaller the original and sports a 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen, full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and 8 GB of storage expandable to 24GB with the addition of a 16GB microSD card. The N97 Mini is catered by a single 434 MHz ARM11 CPU and boasts 128MB of SDRAM.
The frame is 14.2″ mm thin, and its battery supports up to 12 days of stand-by time and up to 28 hours of music playback. The N97 mini measures 113 millimeters x 52.5 mm x 14.2 mm and weighs 150grams. The camera supports video recording at 640×480 resoultion at 30 frames per second. It also includes Nokia Maps 3.0 Touch, digital compass, TV out, document viewer, Nokia Photo Browser.
The mini will run the Symbian S60 OS like its predecessor, but updates the software to make UI improvements like flick scrolling and more home screen widgets and incorporates more social networking tools. It also adds Lifecasting with Ovi, a program that lets users post their location, photos, and status updates to Facebook. The new mini will come with loaded with a new version of Ovi Maps offering services from Lonely Planet, Michelin and Wcities.
The Nokia N97 mini will be available in October 2009 for an estimated retail price of EUR 450 before taxes and subsidies.
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When the N97 mini became available, I was initially put off by the negative reviews, including those that made it seem like less than the n97, but for about the same cost. I’m glad I ignored those reviews. This is a phenomenal phone, starting with the phone. In my opinion, Nokia is matched only by Blackberry when it comes to signal strength and call quality, and I don’t understand why professional reviews just gloss over the phone capability – for me, it’s one of the most important features of a phone. The home screen is highly modifiable – something that was a deal killer for me re: iPhone (I don’t want to know that I have an email; I want to be able to see the email itself without having to dig down through four menus). The web browser is snappy and excellent. The size is perfect. Build quality far exceeds that of the N97, and is on par with the E71. The touch screen is very responsive – I’ve read a lot about resistive vs. capacitive; however, I was never comfortable with the iPhone but feel that mini works very well.