As a poster said a while back in this thread, the touch element of the N97 is the least essential/noteworthy aspect of the device, at least for me. Everyone's talking as if it will live or die on whether the touch implementation can match up to the iPhone or the Pre, but it's the other features that make it a winner. Namely:
- large tilted screen with QWERTY
- 32GB of memory expandable up to 48 and later 64GB when larger sized MicroSD cards become available
- 5 MP camera with VGA video recording
- FM transmitter (not many phones have this now)
- TV-Out (yay, coming from the E90, this will be a big bonus)
- wi-fi, A2DP, GPS
None of these are unique (except for the large flash memory) but there are no phones as far as I know which combine ALL these features. I'm not blind to the fact that I won't be getting a silky smooth touch experience like the iPhone or the Pre, but as long as it's not super annoying, I'll be quite happy.