So I got to play with the Nokia N97 for a while in Barcelona last Tuesday, and left the encounter with somewhat mixed feelings. On the one hand disappointment – at the lack of an 8 megapixel camera, at the relatively narrow screen, at the rather complicated user interface. This is not an iPhone killer – whatever that means – in any way, and in fact may end up looking decidedly pedestrian should Apple upgrade their product significantly in the time before the N97 hits the shelves in the first half of next year.

But on the other hand there are some significant indications from this product launch and the company’s announcement today at the Capital Markets Day event, that this handset could be the harbinger of a new era in mobile phone technology that focuses on consumer usefulness rather than mere fashionable lifestyle glitz. We may be about to hit the Minority Report era faster than we thought.

 

Think about memory for instance. 64 GB of on-board memory (assuming the availability of cheaper 32 GB microSD cards by next year) is huge and makes this product the first really serious challenger to standalone MP3 and MP4 media players we have seen from the mobile phone industry. The keyboard is also a big surprise in a phone of this size, and it is really quite useful. You can actually type on the thing, those spaced out buttons and the unusual 3 row layout do help chubby fingers hit the right keys accurately.

Even though the samples we played with were very pre-production (none of them could make calls for example) it seemed as though things like touchscreen responsiveness and clarity are going to be top notch. Swiping a finger across the screen resulted in an immediate response, although it is going to be interesting to see whether it can match the iPhone in general use. It’s worth noting that the N97 will not feature the Haptikos clicky touchscreen technology we first broke to the world last year. The touchscreen will apparently be similar to the 5800 type, with tactile feedback coming from a bit of vibration (and an optional click noise).

The form factor is also surprisingly good. It comes in significantly thinner and more elegant than the clunky N96, even with the keyboard hiding inside, which is an excellent piece of design. This product won’t lose friends because of its looks, that’s for certain. Sure it’s not iPhone sleek, but the functionality combined with the keyboard makes it a world class handset at this level.

The power supply is also very significant. The phone features a gigantic 1500 mAh battery (with a microSD slot nestling alongside just next to the camera lens). In fact the inside of this phone is almost all battery, which suggests that the real secret behind the handset will be the connected applications, all of which draw power as they broadcast and receive location based data on the move. You certainly don’t need that much juice to call grandma on her birthday.

I had long chats with Soren Petersen, the senior vice president of Nokia who heads up the handset division and Dr Michael Halbherr who’s the VP of Nokia’s location based services and they both made it clear that the real power of the newer generations of the company’s phones was going to come as much, if not more, from the software load as the hardware.

“We lead with GPS handset technology, we own the best mapping system [Navteq] and we’re now introducing Nokia services which deliver location based value to the consumer – we own the whole stack”, says Halbherr, “The law of business says that success goes to those who solve problems better, and we’re learning that GPS makes every service on a mobile phone more valuable.”

Petersen was also up-beat about the company’s overall strategy and vision. “Nokia serves the planet with a huge portfolio of products and we’re now rolling out a new range of services like Ovi email for low end handsets which none of our competitors can match. In a couple of years down the line, very few companies will be able to keep up with what we have to offer.”

Despite the bullish attitude, Nokia executives must be feeling the heat from the surge in competitive activity at the heart of their business sector. With Korean giant Samsung currently snapping at their heels in several handset segments, the iPhone capturing hearts and minds across the world, and companies like RIM bringing increasingly attractive and cutting edge products to market, this is not a time for any Finnish complacency.

Indeed, today Nokia gave a very bearish view of 2009 and beyond in its Capital Markets Day review, citing the economic turmoil for a downgrading of forecasts across the board. But the interesting facts buried in the stats related mostly to the new Internet services focus by the company.

As previously announced, Nokia has adjusted its Internet services
market focus to the areas of music, maps, media, messaging and gaming.
Nokia estimates these targeted portions of the Internet services market
will be approximately EUR 40 billion in 2011.

Nokia targets Services & Software net sales of EUR 2 billion or more in
2011.

Nokia targets its Services & Software business to have 300 million
unique services users by 2012.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that delivering a forecast of a third of a billion service users (and a huge 5% slice of the total revenue pie) within 3 years indicates a pretty interesting road-map for both Nokia hardware and software over the next 18 months or so. Watch this space as they say.

Overall the launch of this handset, while not so earth shattering in obvious ways, carries a few clues which suggest we’re going to see a different emphasis in handset design over the next few generations. Massive amounts of memory, very high capacity batteries, proper inputting functionality and crisp touchscreen real estate speaks to a future with a lot more data interactivity than your average consumer is typically used to on a mobile phone. Here’s a nice video of the handset in action for you to look at.

 Designed for the needs of Internet-savvy consumers, the Nokia N97 combines a large 3.5″ touch display with a full QWERTY keyboard, providing an ‘always open’ window to favorite social networking sites and Internet destinations. Nokia’s flagship Nseries device introduces leading technology – including multiple sensors, memory, processing power and connection speeds – for people to create a personal Internet and share their ‘social location.’