The wait is almost over for fans of the Nokia N97 Mini. We’ve heard a rumour about the release date of the mini version of the N97 phone. So we already knew it was set for an October release, a little digging suggests October the 30^th is the final date. However, this is still to be confirmed by Nokia itself.

At a glance the two phones look very similar (apart from the obvious size difference), on closer inspection you will find the screen is smaller coming in at 3.2″, and the navigational pad from the sliding QWERTY has disappeared.  If you pick it up you will find it has lost a significant amount of weight (probably to do with that re-sizing thing).

Having lost a few things aesthetically, naturally you would expect the same inside. The onboard memory is now a modest 8GB, with the option to boost it with a microSD card. Despite the screen downsize, its functionality hasn’t suffered. There are a load of improvements including new homescreen widgets, customisable pages and flick scrolling.

The 5-megapixel camera boasts an impressive inventory, with auto focus, dual LED Flash and Carl Zeiss optics for quality images. Added entertainment benefits include video capture at 30 fps, with up to 200 minutes of video playback, Music player, FM and RDS Radio with up to 33 hours of music playback.  There is even the greatly received addition of a 3.5mm audio jack for ‘standard’ headphones. New software supporting lifecasting provides constant communication between the phone owner and social networking sites.

It may disgruntle some N97 users, offering pretty much the same technology in a more compact shell, but hey that’s what the mobile world’s all about.