Apple has added the Nokia N97 mini to their (growing?) list of smartphones that suffer from the now-infamous “antennagate” death-grip. Here we see the N97 dropping from 7 to 3 bars.

Of course, iPhone 4 doesn’t suffer from death-grip but death-touch, a single point of attenuation on the bottom left side. Apple made a trade-off for better overall reception and increased battery size at the expense of that single point of death-touch in low signal areas, but has since attempted to draw attention to the greater, industry-wide death-grip. (Though there’s at least one video out, not from Apple, showing the new Samsung Galaxy S succumbing to a death-finger all its own.)

Meanwhile, David Chartier has started Don’t Hold it Wrong, a log of similar videos as well as manuals where manufacturers point out attenuation areas on many different phones.

It’s not surprising the whole “antennagate” hasn’t faded away yet. It is a little surprising Apple’s still adding to the attention. Video after the break.

Update: as commenters rightly point out, Apple didn’t originally include Nokia on their antenna page but Nokia saw fit to make a statement about it, so now the collection has been rounded out.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

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Join Rene and Matt Miller of NokiaExperts.com for Round Robin Symbian and Maemo vs. iPhone, Apple vs. Nokia patent lawsuits, Fake Steve vs. AT&T, App Store’s new look, App Store’s still broken, and the Google Phone (NOT!). Listen in!

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TiPb-verse, the 2009 Smartphone Round Robin starts NOW! And for me, it starts with what’s likely the biggest challenge — Nokia and its dual platforms of Symbian S60 and Maemo as represented by the N97-mini and the netbook-that-thinks-its-a-smartphone, N900. Hugely popular everywhere that’s not North America, it wasn’t in last year’s Round Robin, and truth-be-told, I’ve barely ever seen it before.

To get some extra help, I’ve got a post up at NokiaExperts.com, where I’m really hoping to get my understanding expanded a notch (or ten).

Dieter Bohn, on duty for Palm webOS has likewise triumphantly returned to TiPb’s iPhone forums, and you folks really need to get in there an get him up to date on all things iPhone 3GS and 3.x.

(As extra incentive, remember that every day you post a reply on those threads (or the other Round Robin threads) you get another chance to win on of six (6!) smartphones — one per site!)

To get things kicked off right, we’ve got a video after the break where likely the best man on earth for the job, Matt Miller gives me a guided tour of the N97-mini and N900, helps me with the interface, and reveals the awesome power of the platforms.

Next up, I spend the week figuring out what Symbian S60 and Maemo mean in relation to the iPhone, the smartphone space in general, and to new users considering their first platform, or veterans considering making the switch. That’ll all be summed up right here on Friday. Can’t. Wait.

[YouTube Link]

Our friend Matt Miller over at sister-site NokiaExperts has just posted up his first impressions of the white Nokia N97. Like most premium handsets over the last few years, the N97 has been played up as another “iPhone killer” so we figured we’d better keep an eye on it at well.

What’s Matt’s take away? Good but not great if we’re reading it right, though Nokia is promising updates that might make it even better.

Head on over to NokiaExperts for the full rundown and video overview, and let us know what you think!

Is this enough to up Nokia’s game in a post-iPhone world? Probably not, though it looks solid enough and will no doubt have the pundits punting “iPhone Killer” all over again (really, didn’t the Storm teach them anything?) Engadget has the video (above) and the stats, which are admittedly drool worthy:

3.5-inch, 640 x 360 pixel … resistive touchscreen display with tactile feedback … QWERTY keyboard [slider] … HSDPA, WiFi, and Bluetooth radios, A-GPS, a 3.5-mm headjack, 32GB of onboard memory with microSD expansion (for up to 48GB total capacity), and a battery capable of up to 1.5 days of continuous audio playback or 4.5-hours video. 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss glass and “DVD quality” video capture at 30fps, too.

The hardware certainly reads — and looks — impressive but the UI isn’t exactly bowling us over. While Nokia is calling it the “world’s most advanced mobile computer”, we’re not sure its Symbian guts are quite up to Mobile OS X level computing yet (though InfoSyncWorld thinks HTC may have a lot to worry about).

What do you think? iPhone Killer, or just another wannabe? And by June 2009 (likely shipping date for the n97), could Steve Jobs already be on the WWDC stage dropping the iPhone HD bomb?!