Nokia today started carrying the N97 in its Chicago and New York City flagship stores. The smartphone comes to the US both with native 3G using AT&T's HSPA network but also preloaded with Qik's self-titled video streaming app. Using it provides both offline recording for later use as well as Qik's signature ability to stream video live to the web, either for a set group of friends or as a public broadcast. The N97 in particular supports up to a 16:9-ratio, 642x358 feed.

As Nokia's flagship and its most direct competitor against devices like the iPhone, it continues to have a relatively broad feature set with a 5-megapixel camera (including autofocus and flash), GPS and Wi-Fi along with a social networking-optimized home screen with widgets. It already has 32GB of flash storage built-in but accepts more through microSDHC cards.

The company continues to have little success lining up smartphone deals within the US, however, and will sell the N97 in the US as an unlocked, full-featured but also unsubsidized device for $700 both in-store and online. Nokia has continued to lose smartphone share to devices like iPhones and BlackBerries both through the absence of a high-end touchscreen phone until the N97 as well as its inability to offer subsidized phones in the US.