Nokia unveils heavyweight touchscreen gadget

Finnish handset vendor Nokia took the fight to Apple on Tuesday, with the unveiling of its latest flagship touchscreen device, the N97.

Packing a 3.5″ full touchscreen display and a slide out QWERTY keyboard, Nokia’s latest offering seeks to outdo the iPhone with an arsenal of hardware.

The N97 features 32GB of on board memory, which is further expandable with a 16GB microSD card. The camera is 5 megapixels, fitted with Carl Zeiss optics, while the display can handle 16:9 widescreen media and DVD quality video capture.

The internet and multimedia are the focus of the software package, which naturally features Nokia’s Ovi platform for content sharing, a full fledged music and media player including support for the Nokia Music Store and Adobe Flash player.

Connectivity is via HSDPA and wifi, with integrated A-GPS offering ‘social location’ (‘So-Lo’) functionality for social networking.

The N97 is expected to begin shipping in the first half of 2009 at an estimated retail price of Eur550 before taxes or subsidies.

Last month, Nokia stated shipping its first full fledged touchscreen device, the 5800 XpressMusic, and rumours are presently circulating that the Finnish company is also looking at the notebook/netbook market, just as Palm did with the ill fated Foleo.

Nevertheless, analysts at RBC Capital Markets noted Tuesday that, “The early feedback has been favorable for Nokia’s first foray into touch devices.”