Nokia Takes On Touch-Screen Rivals With N97 SmartphoneNokia Takes On Touch-Screen Rivals With N97 Smartphone

Nokia holds a dominant share of worldwide cell phones, but Apple and Research In Motion have been the current masters of the coveted smartphone market.

With its newly unveiled N97, Nokia on Tuesday introduced a powerful touch-screen smartphone that it hopes will not only maintain its worldwide dominance but increase its U.S. market share and take a bite out of Apple and BlackBerry.

The N97 will be the company's flagship handset, and it's powered by the Symbian S60 5th edition operating system. More than just a smartphone, Nokia is billing its N97 as a "mobile computer," and it has many features for the mobile professional.

With a 640-by-360 resolution, the large 3.5-inch touch screen outclasses the iPhone 3G and the BlackBerry Storm. The screen will automatically rotate depending on how the user's holding it, and it will be capable of handwriting recognition. The display can be personalized with widgets that give the user one-click access to Web services like social networking sites and RSS feeds.

The handset has a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard that can be used to compose messages and to punch in Web addresses. Users will be able to edit and view certain documents with the handset, as well as receive push corporate e-mail.

For connectivity, the N97 will have integrated Wi-Fi, EDGE, and 3G wireless technologies with up to 3.6 Mbps downlink speed. The WebKit-based browser has Adobe Flash Lite 3, meaning users will be able to watch Internet video on popular sites like YouTube and Hulu.

Nokia's flagship also will sport built-in GPS, which can be used with cellular data networks for assisted GPS. This will figure prominently in what Nokia calls So-Lo, a service that uses a customer's location to update social networks automatically and share their location with friends in real time.

The handset is expected to be a multimedia powerhouse as well, as it will be capable of playing multiple audio and video codecs. It also will be compatible with the company's Ovi services, which offer streaming music, gaming, navigation, remote file access, and other services.

Customers can plug in their headphones to the standard jack or use a Bluetooth stereo headset. Users won't have to worry about running out of space, as the handset comes with 32 GB of memory on-board, and that can be expanded another 16 GB via a microSD slot.

There's also a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, and flash. The N97 is expected to be launched by June 2009 and is expected to retail for $693 before taxes and subsidies.

This is the second touch-screen smartphone that Nokia has announced in the last few months. In October, the company rolled out the 5800 XpressMusic, a midrange handset that's aimed at the casual market.