The latest Nokia flagship phone Nokia N97 is now up for pre-order via the Nokia Online Store. The N97 has had plenty of coverage recently and rightly so its because it will be the first Nokia phone to come preloaded with Ovi Store, the Finnish phone company’s answer to the iPhone App Store?

The Ovi Store which is set to be stocked with tons of programs, services and apps to make every other smartphone platforms (including Android and iPhone OS?) jealous. With regards to its pre-order, its currently only available through Nokia, both white and black versions are available at £499.

While pre-order is already possible, there is no confirm dates when the handsets will be delivered. The actual release date has been rumored to be June 27th here in the UK which is quite a few days after Apple’s June 8-12th annual Developer’s Conference. It will be interesting to see if many cancel their pre-orders in the wake of another landmark iPhone announcement.

For those not interested in getting a sim free N97 and would rather prefer a tariff contract, we’ve learnt that it will be coming to the UK via Vodafone. Vodafone has already created a page for the upcoming flagship and have slated its arrival for July. Find out more here…

Here’s a recap of the key specs of the N97:

• Touch display (3.5″ of it) which slides and tilts to reveal a full QWERTY kepboard plus d-pad for easy navigation.
• 5 Megapixel Camera
• Carl Zeiss integrated optics coupled with a dual LED flash
• A massive 32GB of internal memory with MicrSD support for further memory expansion
• Integrated Assisted GPS
• WiFi and HSDPA
• DVD quality video capture and 16:9 display

With any luck, the Nokia N97 release date should be set in stone by now, its probably just a matter of seeing whether any more UK network carriers in addition to Vodafone will be bidding for the QWERTY touchscreen mash-up mobile with 32GB of storage then.

[via S60Blog, Nokia]