These 2 N-series handsets don’t have much of a big difference in a few aspects. Some people are anxious to get hold of the Nokia N8 due to the new running platform, but let’s compare Nokia N8 against the Nokia N97.

The sizes of the phones are not much of a difference. The Nokia N97 dimensions are 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm, 88 cc while its competitors dimensions are 113.5 x 59.1 x 12.9 mm, 86 cc. The weight difference between the Nokia N97 and the Nokia N8 is only 15 g, as we can check at Nokia N8 specs.

The Nokia N8 has a AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors while the Nokia N97 has a TFT resistive touchscreen, 16M colours. The disadvantage of a TFT resistive touchscreen is that the devices background will have a bright light trying to escape out but the AMOLED capacitive touchscreen doesn’t have a visible bright light.

The handsets don’t have much of a difference in their display. the N97 having a Full QWERTY keyboard and Handwriting recognition while the N8 has the advantage of the Multi-touch input method and a Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display.

Both of the phones are capable of supporting a 3.5mm audio jack.

As for the memory, both of the phones can take a MicroSD, up to 16GB. The N8′s internal memory has 256MB RAM, 512 MB ROM while the N97 has 128 MB RAM.

Both of the devices are capable of supporting HSDPA, Nokia N8 having the fastest speed of 10.2 Mbps and Nokia N97 having the maximum of 3.6 Mbps. The N8 has something else up its sleeve, HSUPA at 2.0 Mbps. A new technology called, microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go support is visible on the N8 but not on the N97.

The N8′s camera is fa better than the N97 due to 12 MP, 4000×3000 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus and a Xenon flash, the N97′s camera is not bad after all. The features it holds are 5 MP, 2592×1944 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, LED flash and a video light.

The running platform that the N97 uses is Symbian OS v9.4, Series 60 rel. 5 while the N8 will use Symbian ^3 OS which everybody is eagerly waiting to get their hands on.

The available colours  for the N8 should be Dark Grey, Silver White, Green, Blue and Orange while its rivals colours are White and Black which are readily available in the market.

A few of the features that the N8 will carry are TV-out (720p video) via HDMI and composite, Dolby Digital Plus via HDMI, Anodized aluminum casing and a digital compass. The only things missing in the N97 are TV-out (720p video) via HDMI and composite, Dolby Digital Plus via HDMI and an Anodized aluminum casing.

The N97 battery maximum durance is 432 h (2G) / 408 h (3G) while the N8′s maximum is 390 h (2G) / 400 h (3G).