Diaries of a Nokia Fan Boy

Well here’s an interesting prospect. The phone that I was sure I was going to get for myself, despite its large size, is possibly going to come out in a smaller version. Of course the size difference isn’t large – maybe 3mm more narrow, 5mm shorter, and 1-2mm thinner (and presumably lighter?) – which gives it dimensions in the area of: 111 x 52 x 14 mm or 80.8cc. This means that it will be some 10% smaller than the larger version.

So what do we get with this reduction in size? Obviously the screen is smaller, although not by too much, the fold-out keyboard loses the D-pad, and the camera in the back loses the sliding cover. And all-in-all the phone seems to have a cheaper look to it.

Is it real?
Hard to say, this could be just a really good copy of the real thing. It does seem somewhat redundant to release the same phone with just a tiny bit smaller body, although the N97 is a little on the large side to begin with. Of course it could all be in the interest of pricing it lower than the actual N97, cutting out more features (the camera could be a 3.2MP), and releasing it to the mainstream public. Lets just hope that Nokia knows what they’re doing if that’s the case.

Update:

It seems as if Symbian-Freak came into possession of some confidential documents from Nokia: Europe & Eurasia Roadmap. And it would appear as if there is more truth to the rumor than originally anticipated. The roadmap clearly shows Nokia N97 Mini as an item under the Explore category. While I’m not sure what that means, at least its not an Entry model, which, in itself, is already good news! Finally, the roadmap seems to show a Gantt chart on the right, and while the time-frame isn’t visible, it would appear as if this model wasn’t planned to release for a while when the roadmap was made.

Decide for yourself: Is it real or just a really good fake?

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)
and: Symbian-Freak (read)