Nokia's flagship N97 gets pre-order price

The N97 will be available in both black and white
The N97 will be available in both black and white

In what must be one of the longest build-ups to a mobile phone launch ever, the Nokia N97 has finally been given a pre-order price from the Nokia shop.

For those that don't wish to be tied down to any long-standing contracts, Nokia is offering its soon-to-be flagship handset for £499 SIM-free.

June release

Although no sales date or operator availability has been confirmed by Nokia, many retailers have announced they will be stocking the phone, with the Carphone Warehouse revealing recently it will stock the phone from June through a deal with O2, and Phones4u saying it will also be putting the phone on its shelves from 26 June.

Ovi store

The N97 is the latest high-end touchscreen smartphone to be launched by Nokia and will be released with access to the company's much-mooted Ovi app store. The store will offer a multitude of applications for Nokia users, with Forbes predicting 20,000 items to be available at time of launch.

If you can't wait till June, we managed to get our hands on the phone at this year's CES – see how it compares to the 5800 XpressMusic here.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.