Nokia decided to be part of the touchscreen frenzy and came out earlier today with its new N97 smartphone that features a large screen with touch capacities and also a full Qwerty keyboard. The N series demanded a boost in order to get the public’s interest going again and this seemed the best way to do it.

"This is really the start of the new N-series ... really kicking off the next wave," Jonas Geust, vice president of Nokia's Devices unit, stated for Reuters in a recent interview, adding that "What would there be these days without touch ... Touch for this category of devices is going to be important. Qwerty is also going to be important."

The company is still the world’s largest mobile phone maker, but its market shares are smaller than last year’s, as a result of the popularity recorded by Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry.

Even though the official presentation happened today, the device will only ship in June of 2009. The estimated retail price is of €550 ($699) but it is very likely that the wireless carriers will consider making some discounts through their data plans. At this point, the company did not announce the chosen U.S. carriers.

The phone ensures a fast Wi-Fi Internet access and Mr. Geust explained that the device was developed to offer consumers the opportunity to have their own personal Internet with them at all times. It also features a five-megapixel camera, DVD-quality video capture, FM transmitter, TV-out, HSDPA, 32 Giga Bytes of memory capacity and a built-in music player with one whole year of free access to Nokia’s four million track catalog. It has a 3,5-inch touchscreen at a 360x640 resolution.

The N97 features the new app Nokia Maps 3.0, offering satellite imagery and topographical maps and working with the N97's built-in A-GPS unit.

One of the downsides of building such a complex device is that all the features will demand significantly more room, thus the phone is about 30 percent thicker than the iPhone. Still, the strategy for this release was completed successfully, as the company wanted to bring together certain elements from the devices present on the market, in order for the N97 to appeal to a wider public – it features, as we mentioned above, the touchscreen introduced by the iPhone and the full Qwerty keyboard appreciated by Research in Motion’s clients.

The N97 will also allow users to customize their phones -- even their home screens -- with small applications known as widgets. The programs, which are designed to run off the Web rather than having to be installed on the device, will include news feeds, weather updates, games and tie-ins to social-networking applications such as Facebook.

Nokia, the largest cell phone manufacturer, holding on to a 38% global market share, took a while to get accommodated to the new trend in the emerging consumer-smartphone category. The company released its first touch-screen phone, called the Tube, rather late, and its rivals Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. already had similar devices out on the market for months.