Multimedia functionalities and social networking were the star features of the night during the launch of Nokia's highly anticipated N97 last Friday.

Held at the Mandarin Oriental ballroom in Kuala Lumpur, the massive launch was graced by fictional characters such as Captain Jack Sparrow, Chun Li, Hellboy and an odd Jedi or two, media from Malaysia and Singapore, as well as an army of local bloggers. In line with the theme of the night, the ballroom also featured flat screen TV's that were pulling off live Twitter posts that featured the #n97kl hashtag.

Hailed to be Nokia's (and according to the official press release) "the world's most advanced mobile computer", the Nokia N97 was designed to quell the insatiable hunger of today's always-connected individual. Equipped with a 3.5-inch touch screen and a full slide out QWERTY keypad, navigating through websites and staying connected through social networks on the N97 is an effortless affair thanks to the in built 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity options.
Another interesting feature on the N97 is the all new fully-customizable home screen that will surely please long time users of the Symbian operating system. With this new functionality, users can easily place "widgets" of their favorite applications directly on the home screen, and gain easy access to them without having to go through lists of menus. This works particularly well with always-on applications such as Twitter and Facebook, that take advantage of push connectivity.

To round off the N97, Nokia has thrown in a 5 megapixel camera, 32GB of internal memory and 3.5-mm audio jack. Sound can also be transmitted wirelessly via Bluetooth thanks to the A2DP functionality. Also, the recent launch of the Ovi Store means that you'll almost never run out of new applications to run on the Symbian 60 powered N97.

The Nokia N97 is available on the market now and retails at RM2480. For more detailed information on the N97, visit Nokia's official website (http://tinyurl.com/ktryno).