Blogger’s Preview: Nokia N97

Last evening, I was invited to Nokia office at Alexandra Technopark, for a blogger’s preview of the Nokia n97.

Partnering me as a Tech65-er is DK. Lester Chan was there too with several others. It was a pretty exclusive crowd, unlike many other mass bloggers gathering and most are the tech savvy bloggers.

Cherie from Nokia introduced everyone to the phone; showed an introductory video for n97.

She later showed another video, this time, demonstrating how the Nokia development team came together, to conceptualise building a newer set of experiences for the phone. From getting a feel of what the crowd really want from a phone, to the directive of the feeling when you flip open the n97 to reveal the keypad and then closing it shut. The sound was engineered such that it felt crisp, firm and – well you’ve got to feel it to believe it. This reminds one of the days when car manufacturers employ sound experts to ensure that when you close the car door, the sound is crisp and firm – to reflect the overall reliability and handling of the car – or in this case, the phone.

You may view the 7 minutes video showing the designer’s point of view here -> http://u.nu/45q6 

Philosophical conceptualising aside, the n97 features technological advances found on most of the latest phones this year; some of it includes 32GB Solid State Drive on-board with an option to put in an additional MicroSD card going up to 16GB, a 5megapixels camera with Carl Zeiss lens and with flash too, 3g HSDPA, WLAN & Bluetooth 2.0, A-GPS and featuring a very wide display & touch area. You can check out more of the specifications at http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n97-2615.php for now, until it appears on the Nokia site when its officially launched.

This phone is meant to be touched; its resistive interface responds very well to the touch of the finger; not too many buttons to muddle the elegant design. It comes in either black or white.

Usability wise, there are multiple inputs method. You can either use the Qwerty keypads; or if you are like me, you prefer to go through the entire cycle of words via numeric pad entry, thats possible too. The almost tactile feature; where the phone discreetly vibrates when you type in using the numeric method makes it seems like you are using a normal phone without a touch screen. That makes it pretty unique.

More to be said though, are the unique, customised application, designed for Singapore or at least, regional users. There’s the mandatory Facebook, Hi5 & Straits Times application. There’s a Bus@Sg and GV appplication that will allow you to check on bus services information & check for movie schedules respectively.

Through the previous introduction of Messaging services, Nokia has demonstrated its willingness to work with major service providers for seamless integration of mail services such as Windows Live, Yahoo Mail & Google Mail. Now, Nokia has again demonstrated that collaborative energy to work with Facebook, Hi5 and Straits Times, offering users a different but friendly way of using their most favourite web services.

Due to launch in Singapore on the 5th of June, I do not expect the Nokia n97 to be tied down (ala the Apple Iphone) to any particular mobile service providers. This itself is good news; the service providers will war it out amongst themselves for the best bargain they can offer to consumers; in the end, consumers gain all the benefits.

So do look out for it, come 5th June 2009.