Initial impressions coming soon, but in the meantime - since lots of people were asking about the camera - here’s some comparison shots between the N97 and Nokia’s previous top-performing camera phone (in my opinion) the N82…. oh and the HTC Magic as a mid-range benchmark (and kicks, but mostly as a benchmark).
It’s not a scientific comparison by any means, but the shots represent real-world outdoors usage - snatching shots in a hurry amidst the tourist crowds, purely handheld and accepting all the default options. To my eyes the N97 pips it visually (just) on the colouring of the images - quality’s trickier to call. However it beats the N82 hands-down for ease of use, taking around 3 to 5 seconds to start the camera from cold (versus over 10 secs on my N82) and shooting / focussing much more quickly too. Battery-wise taking and uploading this identical set of images via Shozu exhausted the entire N82 battery - the N97 was still showing over 80% at the same point.
Take a look at this Flickr set for all the images.
N97, N82 and HTC Magic Camera Comparison Images - click the image to see the gallery