I am getting such a kick out of the N97, it is a fantastic phone and I have only been using it for a couple hours! - Paul Jacobson

Is it bigger than the iPhone? Thickness? - Minnaar Pieters

It is narrower, possibly shorter and a bit thicker than the iPhone. - Paul Jacobson

There are a couple quirky little things that bug me so far. I can't seem to find the option in the Videos app to send a video to another device by Bluetooth. That is a pain when I want to effectively export a video from the phone to my laptop to edit as part of something bigger. - Paul Jacobson

I charged the N97 overnight on what seems to be a fairly new battery so I wasn't expecting full performance from the battery just yet (I believe that it takes a couple full charges and discharges before you see full performance from a battery?). The battery died late afternoon after fairly heavy use. Mostly I was online in some form or another and probably put the phone down for a couple hours at most. It is a very more-ish device and I just wanted to keep doing something on it. - Paul Jacobson

I just found detailed technical specifications for the N97 at http://bit.ly/n97specs. The talk time is supposed to be around 6 hours straight and about 400 hours of standby time. My E71 is supposed to have about 20 days of standby time and that runs for about 2 days before I have to recharge. That usually includes having Nokia Email running and pushing email to me during the day. On days when I shut Nokia Mail down on my E71 the battery goes for about 3 days. I'm hoping the N97 can manage at least 2 days normal use when it ships. - Paul Jacobson

I installed Nokia Email for S60 5th Edition devices (like the 5800 Xpress and N97). On the pre-release N97 I am using the software seems determined to use a relatively small amount of memory on the phone itself which is distinct from the onboard 32GB SSD (I think it is an SSD). There is a further microSD option. The specs talk about 2 memory options so I'm not sure what this distinct phone memory is? Perhaps a pre-release thing or some sort of partitioning thing? Either way Nokia Email doesn't last long on this device before coming up with a memory issue when the smaller phone memory is used up. I am sure the release versions will have resolved this issue. At least I hope they do. - Paul Jacobson

Great post, and a great blog. Will subscribe asap. Keep up the good work! - Vlad Bobleanta

Wow, I had no idea the N97 was more or less equal to my E71, albeit thicker. I really can see myself using it as my primary phone. Pity I just upgraded to the E71 early this year. Great post Paul - Madoda Hlongwane

Vlad: Thanks very much! - Paul Jacobson

Madoda: Funny you should say that. I was thinking this morning that as excited as I am about the N97 and owning one in the near future, I miss the slim form factor of my E71. That device is easily one of Nokia's best creations. I have been carrying the N97 the last few days and it doesn't quite disappear into my pocket like the E71 does. It is still smaller than you might think but doesn't match the E71's slim profile. That being said I have to wonder if the kind of functionality on the N97 (and other similar devices like the iPhone) doesn't come at a price in terms of size. It would be something to see a Nokia with the same dimensions as the E71 and with a full touchscreen and the N97's goodness one day. - Paul Jacobson

I'm travelling with my E71 and the N97. The N97's pre-release software is still a little buggy and I am getting memory alerts. Stuff is being stored on limited phone memory instead of the 32GB of on board storage the device has. - Paul Jacobson

The N97 uses "Destinations" in its connectivity settings. Still trying to figure it out. My N97 keeps trying to connect to my home net when I am out. Confuses the poor thing. - Paul Jacobson

As buggy as the pre-release software is, the N97 is a beautiful phone (at least to me). It feels good, still works pretty well and I like S60 5th edition. - Paul Jacobson

I sent the N97 back to Nokia to check out memory related errors I have been receiving on the device. Nicholas Boerma travelled to Dubai with me and chatted to one of the Nokia people at the media event. He indicated the memory error messages we've been getting may be due to an incomplete software installation process when the phones were reflashed with updated software versions. The result was extraneous files sitting in the phone memory (distinct from the 32GB drive). - Paul Jacobson