Nokia, Vodafone Launch N97 in Mumbai

Nokia and Vodafone today launched the N97 in Mumbai.

As part of the tie-up, on purchase of the N97 Vodafone customers will receive an exclusive free data plan over 3 months for browsing internet services.

The offer will be valid for all Vodafone customers at all Vodafone stores retailing Nokia devices, all Nokia branded retail outlets as well as multi-brand stores in nine cities - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad and Jaipur.

The N97 is expected to start shipping in India next week, for around Rs. 35,000. Official pricing hasn't been disclosed.

Vodafone users who purchase th N97 will also get exclusive access to The Groove a lifestyle widget that provides live updates on movies, dining out, shopping, clubbing, cultural events and sports.

The N97 features A-GPS sensors and an electronic compass so it intuitively understands where it is. It is the first device to ship with Ovi store. In India, the Ovi store on the N97 will offer a choice of 50 free to download items developed specifically for the Indian consumer, by India developers. Users will also have access to global items, a mix of paid and free download content.

The handset will run on an ARM 11 434 MHz processor on a Symbian OS (v9.4) with a Series 60 UI. It’s going to be ready for social networking and connectivity to Nokia’s new Ovi store. Other features will include -

• A 3.5-inch TFT resistive touchscreen, with 16M colors and a 360 x 640 pixel resolution
  o The screen has an accelerometer sensor for auto-rotating the display
  o Supports handwriting recognition

• It has a slide out full QWERTY keyboard
• 3.5mm earphone socket that doubles up for a TV out for audio and video
• Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual Radio and an FM Transmitter
• Bluetooth with A2DP and USB 2.0 (micro)
• 3G (with HSDPA), EDGE/GPRS, Wi-Fi
• a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics
• GPS with A-GPS support, a Digital Compass and geotagging
• 32GB of internal storage with support for 16 GB microSD card
• Pocket office preloaded