The N97’s reception quality was nothing to complain about. Its ring tones were loud and more than audible in various environments, although it’s worth mentioning that you’ll need to pay a bit more attention to what ring tones you set, simply because some tunes just sound muffled for no reason, and some are overly loud. The vibro alert is on the weaker side and can barely be felt; and the reason for that is probably the N97’s chunky casing.

You can mute any alert on the N97 simply by turning it face-down – be it a call, alarm clock or something else.

The phone is set to land on most market in June and will retail for 550 Euros before subsidies and taxes, meaning that in Germany, for example, it’ll be available for around 590-600 Euros (unlocked), while in Russia its price will reach 800-850 Euros. What’s more, Russia, along with Hong Kong is very likely to get the N97 first, just like it was the case with the 5800 several weeks ago. The good news is that this time around there will be no dearth, as Nokia will have plenty of time to churn out enough units, plus the N97 won’t be that popular.

The main reason why Nokia are releasing the N97 in the first half of 2009 is pretty simple – they need some wiggle room to launch all services that are related to this phone in one way or another. The truth is, it’s much more challenging to get in gear a whole array of online services, than roll out one state-of-the-art handset these days. On balance, the N97 is geared more towards active Internet users, and to a certain extent this is the audience Nokia’s communicators are aimed at as well. And whether will see another communicator or not hinges entirely on how well the N97 will do in 2009.

» More: Hands on experience : N97