Play.com lets slip Nokia N97 UK launch date and price

After all the excitement of the Palm Pre at CES, the as yet unreleased Nokia N97 was left looking a bit, well, Nokia-ey on the Finns' stand in Las Vegas. But the wind has not completely left its sails and there's there was briefly good news for those patiently awaiting the UK arrival of Nokia's range topping touchscreen: Play.com has just listed de-listed it for pre-order - but revealed some tantalising price and availability details along the way. Read on for more.

31st March is was the date set for release - to which we'll only add that Play.com has been known to be wrong in the past on these things so take it as a best guestimate for now, rather than a set in stone launch day.

Part II: Alas! We called Play.com to find out whether the launch date and price were indeed offical, only to be called back by the press office a few minutes later to say, "there's no pricing or release date information on the N97 page". Sure enough, we reloaded the Play.com page to find both, rather crucial, details had been removed - but thankfully not before we grabbed this screen shot, clearly showing the 31st March release date and a pre-order price of £479.99, complete with Play.com's customary free delivery!

Make what you will of the slip - and its sudden removal - but for the time being Play.com merely puts the N97 as "coming soon", adding: "This item is not currently available to order. Enter your email address, click the ‘Notify me’ button and we’ll let you know as soon as it becomes available to pre-order." We duly have.

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[ Play.com]