Nokia N97 mini: Still Qwerty, still resistive

By Bonnie Cha on 03 September 2009, 11:40am

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Nokia N97 mini: Still Qwerty, still resistive Image 1

Nokia World 2009 began on Wednesday in Stuttgart, Germany, and to kick things off, the Finnish phonesmith introduced several new mobiles, including the Nokia N97 mini.

As the little brother to the moderately well received Nokia N97, the smart phone actually isn't all that much smaller. The mini measures 112mm tall by 51mm wide by 12mm thick (compared to the N97's 117mm by 53mm by 15mm) and features an 81mm (3.2-inch) tilting touchscreen. It's apparently the same resistive screen that gave us such a sadface with the N97 though.

The mini still offers a full slide-out Qwerty keyboard minus the directional keypad, but judging by the press shots, it looks like Nokia hasn't done anything about the wonky placement of the space bar.

The major news about the Nokia N97 mini, however, isn't so much about the physical design but rather what lies beneath. The mini will run on new software that adds improvements to the user interface, including more home-screen widgets and flick scrolling, and incorporates more social-networking tools.

One such tool will be Lifecasting with Ovi, which lets users post their location and status updates straight from the N97 mini (this'll be available on the N97 in October with a software update). In addition, the device will come with loaded with a new version of Ovi Maps, where you'll be able to access content from Lonely Planet, Michelin and Wcities.

Other highlights of the S60 5th edition phone include a 5-megapixel camera, 8GB of onboard memory with a microSD expansion slot, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

The Nokia N97 mini is expected to ship in October with an estimated retail price of €450 (£395). Other announcements from Nokia World 09 include the Nokia X3 and X6.