Nokia N97 424MHz ARM11 CPU Confirmed: Underpowered?

Nokia have released hardware specifications for their N97 smartphone, and it makes for disappointing reading for anyone hoping the QWERTY handset would pack the same CPU and GPU grunt as recent rivals.  According to Nokia, the N97 uses an ARM11 434MHz processor and 128MB of RAM; that's actually less than the Nokia XpressMusic 5630, which musters up a 600MHz CPU.

Now in our hands-on experience with the N97 – running pre-production code, no less – it's not exactly been sluggish in switching between apps, but neither has it shown the same perkiness as other devices we've seen.  You can see a video demo of the N97 in action below, but bear in mind we shot that footage four months ago at CES 2009.

Nokia told us at the event that they're working on streamlining the OS even further, and we imagine general use won't exhibit too much slowdown when the smartphone launches.  Anything that demands pure hardware grunt, however, might now show up the N97 as being significantly underpowered compared to not only rival manufacturers' handsets but cellphones from Nokia's own range.

[via Symbian-Freak]