Our review of the Nokia N97 wasn’t exactly the most positive one we’ve ever written, but just about every fault we could find with it had to do with the software side of things. Fortunately, software can be fixed a whole lot easier than hardware can.
The guys over at TheNokiaBlog ran into a Nokia rep who just so happened to have an N97 toting the upcoming v2.0 firmware update, and managed to get them to demo on video.
The biggest change is that the N97 is getting kinetic scrolling throughout the device. Kinetic scrolling allows you to breezily flick through screens and lists, whereas the current firmware requires a rather clunky dragging motion for everything. They’re also freeing up a bit of internal memory, enhancing stability, updating the Facebook application/widget, and adding a few new widgets.
We’ll have to wait to see if this changes how we felt about the N97, but it certainly looks like a good start.