Nokia might have been better advised not to let hands touch the Nokia N97 yet. Nokia announced the N97 with big fanfare this week. From a design and hardware stand point the Nokia N97 is ready to battle the iPhone, Google phone, and the BlackBerry Storm.
Engadget has published an in-depth hands-on review of the Nokia N97 and finds that behind the swank home page screen with widget support is a dated user interface that is not optimized for touchscreen use.
Additionally the slide out keyboard is not the greatest Nokia has in its line-up. The keyboard will most likely not change before the Q1 of 2009 release of the Nokia N97, but there is plenty of time to improve the software. Or what I suggested already a long time ago: It is time for killing Symbian and going with either Linux or Windows. (Apple does license OS X). It just does not make sense anymore in my opinion to run an operating system that has no desktop install base on a mobile device. Additionally there are already plenty of touch-screen interfaces for Windows (Samsung Omnia, HTC Touch) that are apparently further along.
See More details about the Nokia N97.