Nokia's N97 will initially be available on Optus and Vodafone in Australia, and carries an RRP of $1129.
Nokia Australia today launched the N97 smartphone, the first mobile phone in the company's line-up to come preloaded with its Ovi application store.
Described by Nokia as a "flagship mobile computer", the N97 smartphone features a 3.5in tilting touch screen, a full, slide-out QWERTY keyboard a 5-megapixel camera, built-in GPS and 32GB of internal memory.
One of the N97's key features is its customisable home screen, which utilises live widgets including social networking feeds like Facebook, news services, weather, sport and a range of Nokia shortcuts. The N97 will come preloaded with various widgets, but more can be downloaded from the Nokia Ovi Store, Nokia's dedicated application store for mobile devices.
As part of the N97's live content capabilities, Nokia has partnered with a number of global partners including Paramount, Facebook, MySpace, eBay, Fox Mobile and Reuters.
"The Nokia N97 delivers on our promise to create a highly personalised Internet experience similar to what you would expect from a PC, but with the benefits of mobility and immediacy," said Emile Baak of Nokia.
The Nokia N97 smartphone runs a touch-screen version of Symbian's S60 operating system, but Nokia is open to the idea of supporting various operating systems in the future, provided they are open source.
"We are looking at open platforms and Symbian is a platform which we have invested a lot in," said Baak. "But moving forward we are also open to other open platforms, as long as it's closed we will not be a supporter of that. We are looking at more platforms than the Symbian OS, but the openness of the platform is very important."
The Nokia N97 will initially be available through Optus and Vodafone and has an outright RRP of $1129. The smartphone will come in white and black versions.
