Far more advanced?
Sure the screen is bigger and you have the AMOLED screen which is going to look great. I'd personally rather have the slide out QWERTY than the larger screen. Looking at pics of this thing has me thinking that I'll be carrying something the size of my N810 around all the time. The N97 is pushing the limit at its size as it is.
8MP cam? So what? If Nokia can get light into the 5MP sensor it will be more than enough for my needs for quick snapshots. I've had 2MP digicams that take better shots than any cell phone including the loved N82. 5MP resolution is overkill as it is and you're never going to post the full size image.
720p vid recording? Not interested at 24fps. The videos I've seen from it aren't fluid because it's 24fps and not 30fps. I can't stand to watch its jerkiness. If I can't stand to watch it I'm not going to record in that mode. Wasted feature.
Capacitive touch? If done right resistive can be just as responsive as capacitive. The resistive screen on my N810 works pretty well without much optimization. I will reserve final judgment for when I actually touch the phone. But then I have the physical keyboard to use. And yes, multitouch can be implemented in resistive screens.
7.2Mbps HSDPA? So the Nokia is 3.6Mbps HSDPA. Doesn't matter since ATT's network can't sustain that speed. Still matters less since the Sammy won't work on ATT's network. Sorry, no EDGE for me on this far more advanced device.
The processor on the Samsung is nice but we still don't have too much data on the internals of the N97. Judgment to be reserved until data is released and we see reviews.
What am I missing in far more advanced specs? I have a phone capable of 8MP shots and now 720p video but am limited to 8GB or 16GB of internal space versus the 32GB of the N97. Good thing the Samsung is expandable. There's not a whole lot on my N95-4 but there's little space on the 8GB there. It's surprising how quickly some MP3s and downloading some video podcasts will fill that up.
I see a lot of *****in' that Nokia doesn't care for the US market but at least they bring us 3G capable devices. The sales that they do have over here are small compared to the number of units that they move in Europe and Asia but they still bring us the phones and they work to bring them to us around the same time as the Euro releases. So far there's nothing pulling me away from the N97. But there's one thing that I've got in the back of my head that may make me waver a bit on the N97 that I'll put in another post.