Nokia N97 Video Unboxing & First-Impressions

Nokia's N97 flagship smartphone began shipping to US customers last week, and a white review unit has dropped onto the desk of our sibling-site PhoneMag.  They've done the honorable thing and put together a full unboxing video and hands-on gallery, as well as sharing some initial impressions about the long-awaited N97. Unboxing video and hands-on N97 gallery after the cut

Getting early praise are the N97's homescreen widgets, with the phone coming preloaded with Facebook, weather and Exchange email apps that can all leave an information shortcut on the main display.  There'll be more to download in the Ovi store, too, which unsurprisingly gets a shortcut on the N97.

Less impressive is the touchscreen, which in the case of the N97 uses resistive rather than capacitive technology.  It's not as responsive as the iPhone or Palm Pre, and that – coupled with S60 5th Edition's odd way of requiring two taps (one selects, the other activates) to load apps – can make for a mildly frustrating experience.  The hardware keyboard, hidden under the tilt-and-slide top panel, is shallow with little key-travel, and has a squared-off layout that's trickier at first than a traditional offset arrangement.

Final judgment will have to wait for the full review, so until then take a look at the unboxing video and gallery below.

Nokia N97 unboxing video:

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