Nokia N97, My Brief Review

[kshah 452]

I got my N97 before about a week. It was very easy to switch from E71 to N97 due to couple of unknown features to me. I had apprehension that its gonna take some time along with certain loss of data. But fortunately nothing happened.

Nokia has very good utility installed on both E71 and N97 - known as phone switch. Using it one can transfer almost every thing from existing phone to new phone using blue tooth. Every thing means call history, contacts, calender, notes, active notes, SMS, MMS and even files. It may take upto 15 minutes to do so.

Now about N97.

N97 is reasonably sized, big screen of very good and high resolution with good brightness. Battery life seems to be as good as E71despite having big screen.

Few points need to be mentioned about N97: May be unique for few / may disliked by few

1. Non standard qwerty keyboard. It has standard QWERTY key lay out but space bar is not in centre as we all are used to. Has no numeric key row.

2. Scroll key pad is in left. I am lefty so its convinient for me for right hander certainly would be inconvinient.

3. Though it has 32 GB memory on board and expandable further by 16 GB - this memory is treated as mass storage memory and is independent to phone memory. Phone memory is said to be 128 MB. But brand new out of box has hardly 40 MB left for user. Means Nokia claims for momory are deceptive. Phone has on the whole 256 MB memory, of which bout 135 MB goes to ROM (Backup) and remaining goes to applications installed by default. User can remove certain applications to recover about 10 MB but not more than that.

4. Till now there are very few applications and games available for N97 or S60V5. Which runs as flawlessly as S60V3. Opera Mini is one of them. Opera mini is good for browsing but can not be used well with discussion boards. Mundu SMS is not working properly. Games (I dont play but for testing I installed) can be played by virtual game pad on screen which may not be very convinient.

5. Unlike windows and android, S60V5 has double tap approach. Its convinient at times as prevent false opening of applications but its non standard.

Pluses

1. Very large (3.5") good quality screen

2. Stable OS, pretty fast. Much faster than WM6.

3. Good applications on board. Like Weather, wifi management, social networking etc.

4. Widget support on home screen.

5. Possibility to use free Nokia push mail services.

6. Browser is good. tapping on screen zoom in and zoom out pages.

7. Updating OS is breeze in S60V5. Unlike WM / S60V3, software updater back up and restores every thing after updating. This is the best feature for people like rimwebian who otherwise spend more time on protecting data, backing up and restoring - while updating / upgrading OS. It also supports OS upgrading over the air. I have not tried over the air yet. It also supports updates like windows - where applications on phone can be updated when ever it has new update. Without updating whole operating system.

8. Micro USB charging port and 3.5 mm head phone socket.

9. FM transmitter - where you can transmit your music to chosen FM frequency. To play on radio / car radio etc.

10. Possibility of call recording, using answering machine (This is unique to symbian - and this has really made me fan of symbian)

11. Though N97 has No smart dialing like WM6. N97 has predictive key board while searching contact. See screen shots. Its convinient and innovative. It opens desired contacts with as few stroke as possible. However WM6 smart dialing search for corresponding number too, which is not there in Symbian at all.

Minuses

1. WM6 is more user friendly than S60V5 due to very known interface of WM

2. S60V5 seems too be touch screen extension of S60V3, they have long way to go to make to touch screen OS comparable with WM6 or even Android. Gestures are just like S60V3 only difference is in S60V5 you click virtual key against hardware keys.

3. For example, if one wants to choose few files listed, then in WM moving stylus will do the job, in S60V5 one has to select each and every file, then mark required files then click menu and choose options like copy, delete paste etc. There are no context menu like WM6

4. Office documents can not be edited. It can be viewed only. Officially Quick office premier to edit documnet is not supported - it work though. Since I have not used it extensively yet, I can not say its stable.

For camara quality see attached image. It has carl zeiss optics.

[Mufaddal 678]

i had taken trial of n97 some weeks back

i was impressed with silder , but found the qwerty keypad to be bit too short

they have cramped all keys in just three rows , coming from traditional qwerty , the 3row layout was bit awkward to me

also the looks of OS is very old , its too simple , they cud have added some ui touches to it and made it a bit more fancier . but nevertheless its s60 so its one of the best os in terms of productivity.

overall a good handset , and if u have data then u will enjoy this device and ovi application suite

the 16:9 screen makes video watching a pleasure

Edited July 21, 2009 by mufaddal_km