Nokia N97 Brief Impressions

I have been searching for a replacement for my mobile set up(Sony Ericsson W810i + Fujitsu Siemens Pocket Loox 720) for a little while now, and I think I may have found it with the Nokia N97.

I was at the Nokia Flagship store this past memorial day decided to try my luck to ask and see if they had the device in store yet. To my surprise they had a unit out for people to try. They kept it well guarded by the counter where all of the employees were.
In my brief time holding and toying with it, I must say I am impressed with it.
I was a bit skeptical about it being able to pull off what is shown in many video demos available on the web and from what I could tell, it can and it can do it relatively fast.
Due to the phone not having a SIM card in it and no WiFi access I could not test web browsing, call quality, etc.
I was able to test out all of the non data centric functions of the device though.
The music player interface was well layed out with all of the functions easy to use via touchscreen in both portrait and landscape viewing angles. The external stereo speakers were loud and clear with no cracking as far as I could hear in an active store environment.

The camera on the unit was very impressive. Even though the resolution is nothing mind shattering by today's upcoming camera phones it still does very well with the 5 megapixel pictures that it takes. The video recording feature was also very smooth and well done. The phone does 640x480 resolution video recording at 30 frames per second, or DVD quality as Nokia likes to put it.

So the conclusion of this, well it is now on my list of possible replacements for my PDA/camera phone combination that I make use of now.
Sadly, I was so busy playing with the device that I forgot to take pictures or even a video. :(