Nokia N97

The Nokia N97 is a high-end smartphone introduced on 2 December 2008 by Nokia as part of its Nseries and released in June 2009 as the company's flagship device. The N97 was Nokia's second S60-based touchscreen phone, after the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. The device features slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and runs on the Symbian v9.4 (Symbian^1/S60 5th Edition) operating system. Its design takes cues from the Nokia N79. A smaller and lower-cost variant, the Nokia N97 mini, was later released. As the successor to the Nokia N96, the Nokia N97 heralded the company's Nseries "multimedia computers" into the touchscreen era. The N97 was highly anticipated and, despite respectable sales, in industry circles the phone was considered a hardware and software "disaster" that contributed to Nokia's decline. In 2010, a Nokia executive called the N97 a "regrettable failure". The N97 was followed as the Nseries flagship by the Nokia N8 over a year later, while the Nokia E7 released in 2011 was a continuation of the Nokia N97's form factor.