The T-Grid: Nokia N97 vs. iPhone 3G

I hope that we’ll soon stop thinking about new touch-screen phones in terms of whether any of them has what it takes to be an “iPhone killer.” For now, though, I can’t help myself. And while I don’t think Nokia’s new N97, which it just announced at its Nokia World show in Barcelona, will murder Apple’s handset, it looks intriguing from a hardware standpoint, at least. (It’s certainly a more interesting phone than the company’s lower-end 5800 XpressMusic.)

The N97 is a souped-up version of Nokia’s more phone-like N95 and N96 models, but its design reminds me a lot of my old AT&T Tilt: It’s got a large touch-screen on the front, but you can slide the phone’s face up and out at an angle to reveal a QWERTY keyboard below. (You can’t really judge a QWERTY keyboard from photos, but there’s nothing about this one that looks exceptional.) The N97 has a screen that’s the same size as the iPhone 3G’s, but with higher resolution; with 32GB of RAM flash memory, it also has double the memory of the highest-capacity iPhone plus a MicroSD slot for up to 16GB more memory at a time. And its 5-megapixel, video-capable camera certainly trumps the iPhone’s camera.

The phone runs S60 5th Edition, the newest version of Nokia’s Symbian-based smartphone OS. I haven’t used the 5th Edition yet, but S60 3rd Edition, used in the N96, is really, really long in the tooth compared to the iPhone OS. (Nokia’s announcement trumpets the N97’s social networking features, including something called “So-Lo” that involves using GPS to determine your “social location,” but doesn’t provide much in the way of real details.) I suspect that reviews of this phone will give it good marks from a hardware standpoint; whether the software experience can come anywhere near the iPhone 3G’s very high standards is another question.

Tons of specs and more after the jump…

The N97 is due for release next June in the U.S., in an unlocked bring-your-own-carrier version for $650. As that price, if neither AT&T nor T-Mobile picks it up and sells it at a subsidized price, it’ll remain a boutique item, not a mainstream success. Then again, I’m not sure why U.S. carriers wouldn’t want this phone, since it might be quite appealing to folks who want both a big screen (the N97 has a larger one than T-Mobile’s Android-based G1) and a large physical keyboard.

Gizmodo has some brief hands-on impressions. Oh, and here’s a video from Nokia, which really doesn’t tell you much at all:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O2Li74EYew]

As usual, the specs below are a first pass, subject to expansion and revision. Nokia’s published specs are fairly skimpy, so I had to guess in some cases…

The phones	Nokia N97	Apple iPhone 3G
Platform	Symbian S60 5th Edition	Apple’s iPhone OS
Availability	June 2009 in U.S.	Now
Price	$650 in U.S.	$199 for 8GB model or $299 for 16GB model with two-year contract
Data plan	Bring your own in U.S.	$30 a month for unlimited data; $5 a month extra for 200 text messages
Locked?	No	Yup, to AT&T
Colors	White, at least; other colors?	Black (8GB and 16GB); white (16GB only)
Size and weight	4.6” by 2.16” by 0.625”; 5.29 oz.	4.5″ by 2.4″by 0.48″; 4.7 oz.
Screen size and resolution	3.5″; 640 by 360 (16:9 aspect ratio)	3.5″; 480 by 320
Input	Touchscreen with on-screen keyboard (not sure if it’s multi-touch); slide-out QWERTY keyboard	Multi-touch touchscreen with on-screen keyboard
Accelerometer	Apparently	Yes
Headphone jack	Standard 3.5mm	Standard 3.5mm
Bluetooth	Yes, stereo	Yes, monaural
Voice dialing	Probably	No
Voice recording	Probably	No
Memory	32GB plus MicroSD slot for up to 16GB additional memory	8GB and 16GB models available; no memory expansion
Camera(s)	5 megapixels; LED flash; “DVD quality” video capable; second camera on front for video chat?	2 megapixels; no flash; no digital zoom; no video; no second camera
Voice	Quad-band GSM	Quad-band GSM
Data	3G (UMTS with HSDPA, if you want to get technical)	Ditto
Use as tethered modem?	Not sure	“Coming soon” from AT&T
Wi-Fi and GPS	Yup and yup; also includes an electronic compass	Ditto and ditto; no compass
Battery	Up to 320 minutes talk time; 400 hours standby; 37 hours of music and 4.5 hours of video; removable	Up to 300 minutes talk time; 300 hours standby; 24 hours of music and 7 hours of video; not removable
Web browser	WebKit based browser; probably supports Flash Lite	WebKit-based Safari; no Flash
Web searching	I would tend to assume so	Yes, via Google or Yahoo
E-Mail	Not stated, but presumably IMAP and POP	MobileMe, GMail, Yahoo Mail, AOL; other services supported through IMAP
Calendar	Yes, with to-do list	Yes, but no to-do list
Microsoft Exchange support	Not sure, but probably	Yes
Instant messaging	Probably	Only through third-party apps
Maps	Yes (improved version of Nokia Maps)	Yes
Turn-by-turn navigation	Yes, possibly at extra cost	No, but may be coming from third party developer(s)
Music	If it’s the same as the 5800 XpressMusic it’s the Nokia NSeries music player and supports MP3, SpMidi, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, and WMA formats; Nokia Music Store	iPod player and iTunes Store; supports MP3, AAC (with or without Fairplay), WAV, Apple Lossless, AIFF, VBR formats
Video	If it’s the same as the 5800 XpressMusic, it supports MPEG4-SP, MPEG4-AVC, MPEG-SP, and WMV9 formats	iPod player, YouTube; movies through iTunes Store; supports H.264 and MPEG4 formats
FM radio	Not that I know of	Nope
Photos	Yes	Yes
Wireless synching	Yes, through Nokia OVI services	Yes, through MobileMe
Desktop synching	Yes, through Nokia OVI Suite	Yes, through iTunes
Games	Supports Nokia N-Gage platform	Scads available, including some good ones
Application store	Not sure, but there’s probably a Downloads feature	Yes, the iTunes App Store