Nokia launched the small brother of its N97 mobile phone the Nokia N97 mini as Nokia World 2009 began with a bang in Stuttgart, Germany.

The Nokia N97 mini actually isn't all that much smaller than the N97. The mini measures 4.4 inches tall by 2 inches wide by 0.5 inch thick (compared to the N97's 4.6 inches by 2.1 inches by 0.6 inch) and features a 3.2-inch tilting touch screen.

It still offers a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard sans the directional keypad and it looks like it didn’t bother to do something about the wonky placement of the space bar.

The mini will run new software that adds improvements to the user interface, including more home-screen widgets and flick scrolling, and incorporates more social networking tools.

One of them is the Lifecasting tool with Ovi, which will let users post their location and status updates straight from the N97 mini. Furthermore the new mini will come with loaded with a new version of Ovi Maps offering services from Lonely Planet, Michelin and Wcities.

The N97 mini comes with a 5-megapixel camera, 8GB of onboard memory with a microSD expansion slot, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

The Nokia N97 mini is expected to ship in October with an estimated retail price of 450 Euros (about $640 U.S)