The new Nokia N97 is one of the priciest mobile devices out there. Nokia has packed it with loads of advanced gadgets and are not referring it as a mobile phone or a smart phone; they have deemed this new device to be a “mobile computer”. The Nokia N97 looks like a cross between a lot of different phones from the iPhone to the Google G1 Phone to the AT&T Tilt (HTC TyTN II). Up front, the Nokia N97’s 3.5 inch screen dominates the whole front of the phone except for the little button on the bottom left side corner which serves as the shortcut key to the N series multimedia applications.

Another difference between the N97 and the iPhone is that the N97 also features a slide out QWERTY keyboard. The touch display tilts when the keyboard slides out. This combination of the touchscreen and a full slide-away QWERTY keyboard is intended to unite an intuitive touch interface with the thumb-driven keyboard for heavy duty texting and email.

The N97 will also be able to play the Flash videos used on many websites. It also supports instant-messaging and email on the go and a huge 48GB of memory, capable of storing thousands more songs than the Apple iPhone and many other leading devices. The Nokia N97 also supports TV Out, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio, and a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. The Nokia N97 runs on Quadband GSM networks and supports 3G/HSDPA.

Nokia has fine tuned the Symbian OS to work well with touchscreen. On the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, you won’t get much of the swiping and flicking finger action but they’ve refined it so that you can get that much out of the Nokia N97. The Nokia N97 interface is also quite fast and responsive. You can barely see any hiccup on the accelerometer transition or when you’re navigating the Symbian OS.

All in all, it looks like the iPhone, Google G1 Phone and the Blackberry Storm has a new competitor to watch out for. Though the expected price of Rs. 30000+ may seem a bit high knowing that there are a lot of Nokia fanatics, the Nokia N97 will definitely take a large part of the smartphone market.