Nokia N97 on O2, free at £45 via Carphone Warehouse

The N97 is coming to O2-UK not directly through O2 stores but via Carphone Warehouse, apparently perhaps so as “not to irk Apple with a direct iPhone competitor”.

There’s one price mentioned, “Free phone, but £45 per month contract”. That’s not too bad considering iPhone is still £44.05 per month for the premium 16GB version.  I really don’t want to touch the N97 until it reaches around £30 per month, so I’ll just have to see if O2 and other operators will provide better pricing combinations on launch (or wait a couple of weeks/a month – er highly unlikely though, me want N97!). If you’re not a student, or just have plenty of money to burn and just want the N97 ASAP, you can preorder directly from Nokia (currently only for Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland, USA, and Sweden)

As for the date, it’s still pretty vague. O2 Carphone Warehouse say mid June, so it could be around the 15th but who knows. I’d really like to see pricing decrease substantially on the N97. I mean, if it were a true flagship pushing the boundries of hardware and software, then I would support such high prices. But I’m feeling the N97 is more of a tug boat, making preparations for OVI and a greater flagship. It has the potential to sell well. However, with the next iteration of iPhone also coming in June, if pricing is similar, a lot of the general public will just blindly choose the iconic iPhone.

I mean the Nokia 5800 has features that you’d expect from Nseries, but it doesn’t have the elite N-price. It began at £15 per month for a free 5800! It may not have certain slickness from Apple, but at that bargain price, who cares?  That maybe a huge factor to its successful sales, which perhaps could also be achieved with the N97 were it to also receive extremely reasonable pricing.

Via Pocket-Lint

Tags: 3, Contract, N97, Nokia, Nokia N97, O2, Orange, S60, S60 5TH EDITION, S60v5, Symbian, T-Mobile, Three, Vodafone

Category: 5th Edition, Nokia, Nseries