Robert Scoble is in Barcelona, Spain for Nokia World. He has seen, touched, and played with the latest offering from Nokia, the N97, which is aimed squarely at the iPhone. The iPhone has taken the smartphone world by storm these past 18 months. Although Nokia still has the edge (as far as market share is concerned) the iPhone is making great progress for a first attempt.
Well, Nokia has been working on their answer to the iPhone and according to Scoble it will be the next great “ultimate Facebook device”. It isn’t going to be officially announced until later today and details are still coming in, but it is going to be a full touch screen phone (with tactile feedback), full qwerty keyboard, 3.5-inch 640×360 pixel display, 32GB memory (with expansion slot), WiFi, 5 megapixel camera (with flash), removable battery, record 16:9 video, copy & paste, and GPS with turn-by-turn and a built in compass. The customizable home screen is also a very nice feature. Engadget has posted a gallery of photos.
This phone looks impressive and looks like it could be a legitimate challenge to the iPhone. Priced at almost $700 US, we will have to see how it goes. It is scheduled for release in the second quarter of 2009. Does Symbian still have life?
