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Posts Tagged ‘Handsets’

Nokia N97 and 5800 – an Overview

August 6th, 2009 |

Author: admin

Anyone who likes touchscreen phones should be excited; the biggest brand in the game has waded in with not one, but TWO mobile phones: the sleek Nokia 5800 and the completely awesome Nokia N97.

Early Nokia touchscreens

Most people seem to be under the false impression that the Nokia 5800 is the first touchscreen phone to wear the Nokia label. It's not. Actually, there have been a few touch-based phones released under the Nokia name. Starting with the 7700, there have been a few Nokia mobile phones that are controlled by you prodding and poking the screen. They all shared pretty big touchscreens, but there was a feature they had in common:

Unfortunately, they were all irredeemably awful.

Just one of those handsets, the 6708, showed a modicum potential, but that was destined solely to be sold in China, and thus, it never saw the light of day in these sceptred isles. Unfortunately, that meant that the phones we got were total, and complete toss. However, these unpleasant mental images have now been removed because of the debut of two new Nokia mobile phones, both of which have touchscreens, and both of which are much, much more alluring...

Nokia 5800 - music for the soul

The first phone up is a totally new member of Nokia's Xpress family of music mobile phones, the stunning Nokia 5800. This phone is very obviously made for music and video; you can tell by the separate XpressMusic touch-key that brings up a list of links to music, videos, the web, and more. Then, of course, the Nokia 5800 has a 3.2 inch touch-sensitive display, to actually play with those different media content.

Basically, the Nokia 5800 was designed to be a teeny portable jukebox and movie player, and as music phones go, this is just about the prettiest. The Nokia 5800 has also got a 3 megapixel camera, HSDPA data connection and GPS, making it a wonderful all-rounder, in addition to being a superb media box. Oh, and it has a strap to fasten on a fake guitar plectrum. That's pretty cool, that. Despite all those features, the Nokia 5800 is very definitely a mid-range device; it's not, nor was it ever meant to be, a full-on top-end monster. That position goes to a separate device...

Nokia N97 - mind-blowing mobile computer

With the Nokia 5800 on course to bring touch-based mobile phones to the mid-range market, that leaves a great big gap at the absolute top-end, and yes, there IS a touch-based mobile phone waiting to be unleashed to take its place as the top-end powerhouse: the frankly jaw-dropping Nokia N97. This uses the same Symbian S60 Touch interface seen in the 5800, and crams it inside the frame of a proper, full-on smartphone. So it has a massive, 3.5 inch screen, a flip out QWERTY keypad, and the camera now weighs in at a meaty 5 megapixels. The Nokia N97 is, obviously, destined to be the new flagship Nseries mobile phone, and it's genuinely as hyper-powered as we'd heard from rumours, with HSDPA, sat-nav, digital compass, and built-in Flash, so that you get an internet experience like no other mobile phones! Put simply the Nokia N97 is simple incredible. It easily outdoes other mobile phones and while the Nokia 5800 aims firmly for the mid-range, I'm predicting that the Nokia N97 will totally DOMINATE the world in 2009!