It looks like Symbian freaks based in Canada who already have the N97 from Bell will be able to get themselves a new plaything this summer, as Rogers is launching the Nokia N97 Mini. The device isn’t actually for sale yet but is rather being shipped out to dealers across the country, but barring any last minute chances it looks like the outright price of the N97 Mini has been set at $499.99 while the 3-year price is $99.99. Anyone planning to get this, or are you going to avoid it just like you would the plague (or N97 for that matter)?

Thanks, anonymous!

News flash: Nokia managed to keep a pair of handsets a secret leading up to official announcements at Nokia World! Alongside the oft-talked about N97 Mini, two previously unknown music-centric devices, the X3 and X6, became official — but we’ll get to them in a moment. The N97 Mini, as we’re sure most of you know by now, can be summed up pretty quickly: Slightly smaller than the N97, tilting 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen display, sliding QWERTY keypad, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens and dual-LED flash, Wi-Fi, aGPS, 8GB of internal memory with microSDHC and UMTS/HSPA connectivity. Not great, not bad, but we’re also not too sure exactly who would take it over the N97, which is already free on contract in many countries.

As we said before, the X6′s announcement came as a total surprise — one that is actually quite nice. It’s a full-touchscreen (capacitive) candy bar that can pump out tunes from its 32GB of internal memory for up to 35 hours. It runs S60 5th of course; shame it isn’t Maemo-powered. Beyond that you’re looking at a 5 megapixel camera with a Zeiss lens and a dual-LED flash and as far as connectivity goes, the X6 has that lovable trifecta of HSPA, Wi-Fi and aGPS. The X3 is the alphanumeric slidin’ baby cousin of X6 that runs on S40 and has a 2.2-inch QVGA display, 3.2 megapixel camera, 46MB of internal memory, FM tuner and quad-band EDGE. Both the X3 and X6 will ship in Q4 for 115€ ($163 USD) and 450€ ($640 USD). As for the N97 Mini, it will be released next month for 450€ ($640 USD). Hit the jump for videos of each of these three handsets and let us know what you think.

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A little over a month ago, a fearless (or stupid) Vodafone forum moderator got excited and blabbed about two unannounced handsets that would eventually be making their way to Voda — the BlackBerry Storm 2 and the Nokia N97 Mini. The former has been seen grazing in the wild many times already but the latter has managed to elude the digirazzi… Until now, that is. Behold, the Nokia N97 Mini. Maybe. While the authenticity of these first live N97 Mini shots has yet to be confirmed, they do depict what we would imagine the handset to be — a smaller N97. Of note, the phone pictured has a cluster of four arrow keys at the right end of the keypad in place of the d-pad found on the left of the N97. Also, for those who enjoy dropping a space between words with their left thumb from time to time, the space bar is still off to the right of the pad (though slightly closer to the center this time) and it’s still tiny. Whether or not this turns out to be the actual device, we can only hope the N97 Mini hits the US with a slightly more realistic price tag since the odds of a carrier snagging it aren’t great. Hit the jump for a shot of the back.

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According to a post from likely soon-to-be-ex-Vodafone forum moderator Ev from Vodafone, Vodafone Ireland has a few tasty morsels baking in the oven. First and foremost, the mod claims Voda will not be picking up the new Nokia N97 due to the high price point of the handset. Instead, the carrier will pick up the unannounced “N97 Mini” considering the device’s “competitive pricing”. Ev also states that Vodafone will offer the BlackBerry Storm 2 later this year, a foregone conclusion. Last but not least, the big mouthed mod suggests that due to exclusivity with a competitor, Vodafone will not be offering the Palm Pre. All of this falls into the rumor category for the time being of course, but it’s pretty interesting none the less. Will Ev elaborate? Will (s)he be gagged and locked in a basement? Keep your eye on the read link to find out.

[Via Mobileburn]

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