Whilst in Budapest watching (and occasionally being-in) Nokia’s latest viral video shoot I got to play with some of their most-recently announced products and I’ll be writing more about them shortly. However, the device I managed to leave Hungary having barely looked at and not even photographed (I really am a terrible blogger) was the N97 Mini that we ‘discussed’ in our recent ‘from Stuttgart’ video.
N97 Maxi v N97 Mini: Image from photo series on Pestola.gr by Stefanos Kofopoulos. Used under Creative Commons license.
Fortunately one of the other bloggers present, Stefanos who runs the excellent Greek-language blog Pestola.gr, took some beautifully-shot images of the Mini next to both the N97 Maxi (not it’s official name, but I’m hoping I can get this to stick) and the N900 (which has my credit card tingling). He’s done two awesome photo-posts (N97 v N97 Mini and N900 v N97 Mini) so please go and take a look - you don’t need to speak Greek to appreciate them.
The Mini units we played with had a salmon-colour finish and a number of the Nokia people present suggested their diminutive size would be more ‘handbag-friendly’. I’ll be interested to see if that really does make a difference or if technically-demanding female consumers will prefer the full keypad and big screen experience to accompany the high-spec of the device.
However, the metal backing and lower screen angle (both changes on the Mini over the original N97) did feel like attractive refinements to me… I wouldn’t be surprised if they made it onto a future refresh of the N97 Maxi.