The rumours were somewhat true. Nokia has announced that it will begin to offer the Nokia N97 in more than 75 countries this month. Specific dates were not provided though.
The Nokia N97 is powered by the touchscreen-enabled S60 5th Edition. It comes with HSDPA connectivity, a tilting 3.5-inch 16:9 widescreen touchscreen display, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard (virtual touch input also supported), 32 GB of on-board memory, integrated A-GPS/GPS, Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, an electronic compass, a 5MP camera with geo-tagging support, a microSDHC card slot (supporting cards up to 16GB), and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
The N97 is also Nokia’s first device to come with a personalizable home screen, allowing for the addition of a range of widgets. It is also the first device to ship with the Ovi Store, which offers both free and paid applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services, and more.
The N97 will sell for US$699 before carrier subsidies (if any). It is now available for pre-order in a number of countries including Germany, Spain, the UK, and the United States. Interestingly, Nokia USA shows an estimated shipment date of July 2009.