We are all eagerly hanging onto any news of a release date for the long awaited Nokia N97.

The N97 is touted to be designed to meet the “needs of Internet-savvy consumer by providing access to a number of social-networking sites, facebook and twitter being the most popular ones.

The N97 also introduces an interesting concept called “social location,” utilising the onboard integrated A-GPS sensors and electronic compass to automatically update the owner;s social networks, or let them share their location via photos or videos with friends. In my opinion, a double edged sword in a way…letting everyone know exactly where you are when sometimes, all you really want to do is “disappear” and not be contactable!

The Home screen can be personalized with widgets of favorite Web and social-networking sites and is highly customisable. How useful is this feature remains to be seen.

Some other notable key features of the N97 are a Web browser that allows Flash video to play within it (note that the iPhone’s Safari browser currently doesn’t support this feature), a music and video player, a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, and a whopping 32GB of onboard memory that can be expanded with a 16GB microSD card. Yep, that’s 48GB or storage in total folks..more than most netbook PCs provide these days.

It has the usual Wireless and Bluetooth offerings, meaning that you can connect to your home wireless network and also use your wireless stereo headphones or your bluetooth headsets.

The N97 also has quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) meaning tgat this phone can be used in most parts of the world. It is also a 3G/HSDPA phone, meaning that it will work with most US based 3G providers f high speed wireless broadband such as like AT&T.

Rumors are that it’ll be released in Q1, 2009 for a price of around USD700.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Technical Specifications if you’re interested are as follows:

System

• WCDMA 900/1900/2100 (HSDPA)
• EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

User Interface

• S60 5th Edition

Dimensions

• 117.2 mm Length
• 55.3 mm Width
• 15.9 mm Height
• 18.25 mm at camera

Weight

• 150g

Display

• 3.5-inch TFT
• 16 Million Colors
• mHD 16:9 Widescreen
• 640×360 pixels

Battery

• Nokia Batter BP-4L
• 1500 mAh

Memory

• Up to 48GB
• 32GB Internal Memory
• 16GB MicroSD Expansion Slot

Video Playback

• MP4 SP
• MP4 AVC/H.264
• 30 fps
• VGA Resolution
• Real Video up to QSIF at 30 fps
• WMV9 up to CIF at 30fps
• Flash Lite 3.0 / Flash in Browser

Music Playback

• MP3
• AAC
• eAAC
• eAAC+
• WMA

Main Camera

• Carl Zeiss Tessar Lens
• 5MP (2584 x 1938)
• JPEG/EXIF (16.7 Million / 24-bit color)
• Video Capture MPEG-4 VGA, 640×480 at 30fps
• Aperture: F2.8
• Focal Length: 5.4mm
• Flash: Dual LED Camera

Operating Times (3G/GSM)

• Talk Time – up to 320/400 minutes
• Standby Time – up to 400/430 minutes
• Video Playback – 4.5 hours (offline mode)
• Music Playback – 37 hours (offline mode)

Connectivity and Data Service

• WLAN IEEE 802.11 b/g with UPnP support
• MicroUSB Connector
• 3.5 mm stereo headphone plug
• TV-Out Support
• Bluetooth 2.0
• A-GPS