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Nokia unveils N97 touchscreen, could venture into netbooks

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 2 December, 2008

READ MORE: Nokia | Netbook

Nokia has unveiled its second touchscreen smartphone, the N97, looking to breathe new life into its N Series of media-intensive high end handsets, once the gold standard of the sector, but increasingly under pressure from Apple in terms of market profile, and the Koreans in features.

At the same time, rumors are swirling that Nokia will soon unveil a netbook architecture, as part of its drive to control any device that contains a mobile interface and drives mobile internet usage, not just handsets. An extreme example of this increasingly important strategy was seen in its recent announcement of a home control center platform.

The N97 tops up the N Series, whose original N95 model was upgraded earlier this year to the N96. The new addition features a touchscreen and full Qwerty keyboard and was described by Jonas Geust, VP of Nokia Devices, as "the start of the new N Series... really kicking off the next wave". The Finnish giant has already said that its 2009 line-up will feature far more touchscreens, having entered this market late, when it unveiled the 'Tube' XpressMusic phone.

As well as seeking to move the goalposts in the high end mediaphone sector, Nokia will look for the N97 to make some impact on the new breed of Windows-based superphones such as Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 and HTC's Touch Pro, and the RIM Storm, all of which are sitting in the hybrid market between power consumers and enterprise customers (which are more directly targeted by the Nokia E Series of Qwerty units). However, it will be about six months before the N97 ships - likely timing is June 2009 - and by that time rivals will have unveiled their own new units. N97 pricing is unconfirmed but is expected to be similar to that of the N96 when it was first introduced.

The N95 has been a major success for Nokia. It started selling in early 2007 and was head and shoulders above the market at that time in key functionality such as camera/optics and memory. Although overtaken by others since then, it has sold over 10m units. Few expect the N97 to make such a splash, because it is in a crowded field, and is considerably heavier than many smartphones in its class, because of trying to pack in so many different technologies.

Nokia may also enter the notebook market, a move also expected of Google with its Android platform - seeing the potential for the Windows near-monopoly to be broken at the mobile optimized netbook end by Android and various other Linux releases, plus possibly Symbian, though Nokia could also adapt its Internet Tablet architecture and choose a Linux/Wi-Fi/WiMAX design.

In a research note, UBS analyst Maynard Um wrote: "We believe the likelihood of this occurring has increased, although commercial availability is unlikely for 6-9 months. Given the rise of netbooks/dongles sales, convergence between high end mobile phones and laptops, and forays by computer manufacturers (Apple, HP) into smartphones, we think it is only a matter of time before Nokia launches notebook type devices."