Hours ago (hey I was at the shops and missed the countdown) Nokia just unveiled the latest addition to the N series family, a true competitor to the Apple iPhone. The N97 as it’s named comes jam packed with 32GB of storage (+16GB via memory card), 5MP camera (disappointing considering my 6220C has the exact same camera) and the usual inclusions of A-GPS (6220c has) and WiFi (the old Nokia E61 has WiFi). To say I’m underwhelmed is being kind, especially considering that some phones from Sony Ericsson have an 8MP camera these days. This is the best Nokia can do?! It seems like overkill for going against something with a basic 2MP camera. I remember when the N series was something special, the first to feature high quality 2MP cameras in 2005 and every feature available on the specialised lesser phones of the time as standard. Touchscreens are 2007 tech, I feel like this is just catch up to the iPhone - and god only knows how unstable that Symbian based OS will be until it gets some heavy updates.

Contactless charging? USB 3 support? 802.11N WiFi? FM Transmitter for car stereos? Projector? I don’t think it’s going to feature any of these, but the full QWERTY keyboard - oh you know I’m loving that, and despite sounding like I can’t stand the N97 I’d have this over an iPhone in an instant (hell I’d still have an E90 Communicator if I could, can’t get enough of Nokia :D). I suppose I’m not so much disappointed at Nokia as I am at the advancement in technology, it’s getting better but still more of the same.

Press release and more images after you hit continue reading!

Owners of most modern Nokia phones rejoice! Symbian s60v3 (OS 9.1/9.2) has recently been hacked open allowing modification to the code. At the moment there’s no custom firmwares, the changes are being done in memory (meaning after a reboot everything should fix itself) using software. Being so new there’s only a handful of patches in existence at this time; proof of concept, ability to bypass the need for signing (:D), unlocking all sorts of strange things in the menus (I found a menu item with no text that when selected caused the current phonecall to vanish completely, still in the call but it’s like there’s no call), allowing access to private data in the ROM/system memory and changing the product code (can’t use this to update the firmware though, just for fun). The first tricks to utilize hacked firmware allows us to change where the phone looks for the start-up sound, from rom to the writeable system storage (C:\), meaning we can have any start-up MP3 we want, another allowing the change of the start-up animation. Expect much more to come!

You can follow the latest developments and attempt to do this yourself by heading over to IPMart Forums (registration required but well worth it).