Mobile Phones Blog

We’ve been hearing rumours about this phone for a while, but now that Nokia have taken the bubble wrap off of the specs, we can officially get excited. A post over on the Dial A Phone blog reveals that the Nokia N97 is due to be released in the middle of 2009, and that it comes loaded with a very impressive resume of features.

The first thing that you’ll have noticed from the above pic is that Nokia have decided to grace the N97 with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a backwards-tilting touchscreen display, a configuration that’s reminiscent of the T-Mobile MDA Vario III. The 3.5″ screen of the N97 has a 16:9 widescreen display ratio, meaning that video content is bound to look a treat. The attendant 3G and HSDPA means that you’ll be able to easily watch YouTube clips and stream video from the net. Wi-Fi support also comes included, and did we mention that the screen comes with haptic feedback?

Perhaps the most exciting feature of the new Nokia N97 is the sheer size of the available memory; 32GB of on-board internal memory comes as standard, along with the capacity to expand this up by a further 16GB to 48GB. Yes, 48GB – that’s a lot of storage.

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Today sees Nokia launch the N85 in the UK – the latest addition to the N-Series and one that follows on from the N81, a spirited attempt to revive Nokia’s N-Gage mobile gaming platform.

The N85 combines design elements from the N96, in that it features the same reflective black plastic curves and the dual-slider format, and the same gaming-on-the-go functionality of the N81. The N85 however benefits from the four media keys which slide out from the top-end of the handset; these double as four action buttons for games, as opposed to the two on the N81; we can see a version of Guitar Hero working quite well on the N85.

The directional menu key adopts the mantle of the D-pad, which, combined with the four buttons mounted at the opposite end of the handset, makes the N85 resemble a miniature Atari Lynx handheld console, which may appeal to the retro sensibilities of hardcore gamers and eighties nostalgists.

Whilst mobile gaming is the main thrust of the N85, Nokia haven’t neglected other multimedia features; a 5 Megapixel camera (now the de rigueur camera resolution for N-Series phones, it seems) comes included, bolstered by a dual LED flash and autofocus.

The music player supports all of the main file formats (MP3, WMA and all the AAC extensions) and comes with a 3.5mm jack plug socket, allowing you to use your own headphones, although Bluetooth stereo support is also available. For a more in-depth hands-on look at the Nokia N85 and it’s various features, head on over to the Dial-a-Phone site.

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