Nokia N97
Here it is, the infamous N97. It wasn’t Nokia’s first touchscreen device, but it was the first to show an obvious iPhone influence — namely the chrome bezel around the perimeter of the device.
The hidden qwerty keypad was an obvious advantage over Apple. As for the touch factor, the N97 was finger-friendly on the home screen widgets but less so elsewhere — explaining the “one foot in the past” stylus that was included in the box.
Nevermind that the N97 was kind of a dud; it provided me with a once in a lifetime opportunity to take one with me across the USA in July of 2009. The video above is an 11-minute compilation of that two-week tour; I just dropped in some appropriate music.
Note that if the video quality looks like crap it’s because the source material is QVGA — not sure why Vimeo won’t let me embed it at its native resolution…
In December of that year I would finally get an N97 to call my own, courtesy of a contest run by Qik. Unfortunately by this time I was using a non-touch Nseries as my daily driver.
I did manage my first-ever S60 phone hack, though — faithfully following the instructions of other, more clever N97 users.
i still have the white N97, can’t see the keyboard anymore, (my sight got worse) I miss using it though, it was my fave phone of all.. (even though i now use the iPhone 4, (((which i hate for its fragility!!))) the only thing i miss more is my old standby E71 RVI (black E71X) that damm thing was a TANK, it like my 5800 all have fond, & much loved memories!