Today’s big news from Nokia is the introduction of their new flagship Nseries handset – the N97. Being called the “world’s most advanced mobile computer”, the N97 features a 3.5 inch touch-screen display, a slide out full QWERTY keyboard, assisted GPS, a built-in electronic compass, and direct access to social networking content.

With the N97, Nokia is pushing forth a new buzzword – “social location”. The handset, thanks to the built-in A-GPS and electronic compass features, is capable of providing real time status updates to social networking sites about where you are, what you’re doing, and what you’re “seeing” (pictures and video).

The large touch-screen display can be customized with widgets from your favorite web services and social networking sites. Inputting text can be performed either via the physical QWERTY keyboard or via the virtual touch-screen keyboard.

Oh yes, speaking of the Internet, the N97 supports streaming Flash videos.

Other features and specs to the N97 include:

• Live personalization home screen with widgets
• Up to date information via RSS feed
• Fully compatible with Ovi services
• Browse web pages
• Play videos, music, and pictures on TV using TV out
• Access Internet video feeds through Nokia Video Center
• 3.5 mm audio jack
• Built-in stereo speakers
• Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi support
• Built-in music player with  playlist editing, equalizer, and categorized access to music collection
• Nokia Maps with integrated compass and A-GPS receiver
• 32GB of internal memory
• Support for up to 16GB microSD card
• Full support of Nokia Music Store
• 5 megapixel camera with high quality Carl Zeiss optics
• Dual LED camera flash and video light
• 16:9 and DVD quality video capture
• WCDMA 900/1900/2100 (HSDPA)
• EGSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
• S60 5th Edition platform
• Video playback support of MPEG-4/SP, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, up to 30 fps, up to VGA resolution
• Video playback support of RealVideo up to QCIF @ 30fps, Windows Media (WMV9) up to CIF @ 30fps, Flash Lite 3.0/Flash Video
• Audio playback support for MP3, AAC, eAAC+, WMA
• Talk time up to 320 minutes
• Standby time up to 400 hours
• Video playback up to 4.5 hours
• Music playback up to 37 hours
• Measures 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm and weighs approximately 150 grams
• 3.5 inch 16:9 widescreen display with 640 x 360 resolution
• Video playback at 30 fps

Nokia expects the N97 to ship in the first half of 2009 with an estimated price of EUR 550. This probably means U.S. customers will see the N97 by the end of 2009 if we’re lucky.

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