Hasta La Gadget!

If flash animations and S60 5th edition are your idea of a good time then you’ll want to head on over to Nokia’s new interactive N97 landing page. From there you can get as close as you’ll ever get to Nokia’s flagship slider with 3.5-inch, 640 x 360 pixel resistive touch-screen display prior to its expected June launch. So go ahead, take ‘er for a spin and then hit the newly live pre-order button after you’re convinced that this is the smartphone for you. Sure, there’s lots of potential June competition out there but take heart: the Android-powered Samsung i7500 lacks a QWERTY, there’s no guarantee that a next-gen iPhone will launch in June, and the Palm Pre might be a big fat dud. There, feel better about your choice?

Update: Tipster Chris just let us know that the N97 shows a $699 phone-only price on the “find products” tab over at Nokia USA. That’s $6 cheaper than the N96, strangely enough. See screen-grab after the break.

Update 2: Pre-order is go for the US.

[Via mivadika, thanks Nikos K.]

Continue reading Nokia’s flagship N97 gets its own website, pre-order link ($699)

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia’s flagship N97 gets its own website, pre-order link ($699) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 May 2009 05:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is totally unsubstantiated, but also totally plausible — likely, even — so we wanted to pass along a hot rumor out of Italian site hdblog.it claiming that there’ll be a QWERTY-equipped Omnia Pro hitting the market in the coming months, and they’ve even crafted a mockup looking like the offspring of an F700 and an original Omnia to illustrate their point. Specifically, the rumor suggests that the Omnia Pro will run Windows Mobile 6.1 upgradeable to 6.5 — which might explain Sammy’s decision to back off the OmniaHD branding for the Symbian-powered i8950 — along with a 5 megapixel cam and sweet 3.5-inch WVGA AMOLED display. Considering that the old Omnia is widely considered to be one of the company’s better (and more successful) smartphones in recent memory, it certainly stands to reason that they’d want to carry on the legacy — and slapping on a sliding landscape keyboard seems like a no-brainer way to do it. To top things off, gossip has this sucker launching this summer for something in the range of €500 ($662), which throws it face-first into this summer’s superphone smackdown alongside the N97, the GSM Pre, and whatever Apple has up its sleeves. Fun time to be alive, isn’t it?

[Via Slashphone]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Samsung Omnia Pro with landscape QWERTY coming this summer? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This rumor’s got more holes than swiss, but stranger things have happened, so it’ll be an interesting scoop to keep an eye on nonetheless. A tipster to Boy Genius Report claims that Nokia is working on a “swiveling E71-type handset” for — get this — Verizon, of all carriers, featuring a full QWERTY keyboard and running Series 40. Judging from the mockup here, that sorta puts it in the same vein as the Sidekick — a form factor most carriers and manufacturers (especially Nokia) have avoided. Given that Espoo’s still basically dipping its toes in the CDMA waters — and the fact that a Verizon device running Series 40 proper seems implausible at best — we’re going to be shocked if this thing sees the light of day. Pleasantly surprised, yes, but still shocked.

Update: Since originally running this story, we’ve been contacted by a number of individuals who claim to have seen this phone in person; Boy Genius Report also emphatically defends the rumors legitimacy, so we’re more inclined to think it’s real. (Of course, that doesn’t make it any less crazy.)

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia making a crazy Sidekick-esque phone for Verizon? (Update: looks like!) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since the Excalibur and Cavalier, HTC’s shown an unhealthy aversion for the immensely popular portrait QWERTY format — until now, that is, with the introduction of the rumored 12mm-thick HTC Snap. The Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard smartphone features a 528MHz Qualcomm core, 256MB of ROM, 128MB of RAM, 2 megapixel camera, microSDHC expansion, and the requisite QVGA display, all paired with AGPS, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, WiFi, and HSDPA data. “What kind of HSDPA?” is the next logical question in that progression, and the answer is that you’re looking at two versions of the device: one with 900 / 2100 for Europe and Asia, one with 850 / 1900 for North America (interestingly, the North American version won’t be known as the Snap — instead, it’ll simply be called the S522). The new device also marks the introduction of HTC’s “Inner Circle” feature, which can selectively pull emails from certain contacts to the top of your inbox — the perfect way to ignore Terry from Accounting who’s been on your case for the past three weeks about filing expense reports. Look for the Snap to launch globally this quarter, while the unlocked S522 hits “during the summer.”

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

HTC Snap snaps to life, coming to US as S522 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not that we’re blindsided by its official introduction or anything, but it’s still good to see Sanyo’s SCP-2700 in one clear, crisp, cohesive press photo. Available exclusively on Sprint, the QWERTY-equipped handset boasts a 1.3 megapixel camera, Sprint Navigation, threaded text messaging support and Bluetooth. Prospective buyers will need to choose between Impulsive Pink (with a subtle floral overlay) and Deep Blue (which has a tactile square designer pattern on its back), but considering that you’ve got until May 10th to decide, we’d say there’s no real hurry. Oh, and pricing? $29.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and signing away your cellular soul for two long, painful years.

Filed under: Cellphones

Sanyo’s QWERTY-packin’ SCP-2700 lands on Sprint originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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