According to an article on softpedia, the FCC has now approved the Nokia N97 for North America and is the Nokia N97 NAM and follows the European version which is now up for pre-order in 4 countries.
The Nokia N97 NAM is tri-band 3G 850/900/2100MHz, and is now available for pre-order on the NokiaUSA website and commanding a price tag of $699.99 and apparently comes with a free Bluetooth headset.
It has been said that the Nokia N97 NAM sports a single core ARM11 processor running at 434MHz, and a small processor may well boost battery life.