I was invited to attend the sneak preview of, the real iPhone Killer (at least I think so), Nokia N97 in Kuala Lumpur (KL) last week. It was my pleasure to meet up with the people from Nokia, David and Erna. Special thanks to David for getting in touch with me and given the chance for me to have first hand experience with this long-awaited mobile phone.

Well, let me tell you all that Nokia N97 will be available in Malaysia real soon. :-)

Let’s take the first glimpse of 2 black N97 side by side :

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The size of the phone is unexpectedly smaller than I thought and it’s lighter that I thought too. I don’t have a big palm and the phone definitely doesn’t look bulky at all when I’m holding it.

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Below is the side view of the phone. Look how thin it is!
It’s quite amazing how the Nokia team put a 3.5-inch TFT resistive touchscreen, 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss auto-focus camera, full QWERTY keyboard, WiFi, GPS and 32GB built-in storage (and more!) into a device and keep the form factor so compact.

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When you slide open the phone, the angle of the screen positioned will be just nice for viewing from a desk or even on your lap.

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Some highlights of Nokia N97 that you don’t want to miss :-

• Support Quad Band GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) & WCDMA (900 / 1900 / 2100)
• 3.5″ TFT resistive touchscreen (360 x 640 pixels)
• 5MP Carl Zeiss auto-focus camera (2592 x 1944 pixels)
• DVD quality video shooting, at 30fps
• 3.5mm headphone jack (so normal headphone can be used)
• WiFi 802.11 b/g & A-GPS (using super fast Nokia Maps!)
• FM transmitter (so you can play your music through the car sound system too)
• Charging via micro-USB port! (Finally!)

I’ll just cover the physical outlook of Nokia N97 in Part 1 of this sneak preview. Next, I’ll show more photos of this lovely phone while I go into the software, which I think probably is the main factor making this phone stands out from others. After that, I will be sharing some videos that I captured when I was playing with it.

So, stay tuned!