When it comes to cellphones, Nokia is the biggest and baddest hitter on the block. It has market-shared dominance overall its competition. And when the market leader releases its new flag ship device, expectations are overwhelming.
In this review, we’ll find out how Nokia’s new N Series device can take on these high expectations. This is LP from www.teknoreview.com. And welcome to the N97 in-depth review.
Hey and welcome back. Okay, today we’re going to put the N97 to the test. We’ll be taking a close look at the device’s hardware and software and we’ll also be putting the N97 through some of the same test and benchmark I recently put the TouchPro2 through. I’ll also be taking the N97 on the road to see how its GPS navigation works with the software included on the device. We’ll be taking a look at the Symbian S60 fifth edition software and especially focusing on the devices web browsing capabilities.
Here it is in all its entirety. It actually resembles the 5800 XpressMusic. It’s not at all a bad looking device. There I say it looks quite elegant. There’s a chrome rim around the whole handset and to my surprise it looks fairly good. On most occasions, I rather see chrome on rim of a car than on a mobile device. Sure the chroming on the phone looks good when the device is nice and new but after a few hits and some wear-and-tear, the chroming starts to look like ass.
Other than that, the device has a unique Nokia ass look to it. Unlike my TouchPro2 which people often mistake to a damn iPhone. The back cover of the device is raised from the edges, which will prevent the phone from getting scratched up when laying it on top of different surfaces. The cover comes off moderately easy and under the cover is where you find the 1500 milliamp battery.
Beside the camera optics, we find the micro SD slot. And under the battery, there’s a small hash for the sim card. So unfortunately, there is no place to hide your small liquor bottle. In fact, I assume that engineers on Nokia ran out of space when thinking of where to hide the stylus. Because unlike the 5800 XpressMusic that came with a stylus built-in, this device comes with a funky looking separate one. Sure you can attach your stylus to your phone with a cord. But seriously, you probably don’t want any weird attachments dangling off your device. Probably the main reason for not having the built-in stylus is the fact that it’s really not needed unless you like to doodle on your mobile device.
The next feature I’ll be covering is the system cellar. The mechanism itself is quite impressive. The keyboard pops up with a bang. Eventhough the angle is not adjustable, the keyboard mechanism is one of the most impressive things about this device. The screen pops out so fast that it almost shoots out as if to take flight. Even my girlfriend was impressed and she usually hates everything with a microchip in it.
The keyboard itself has only three rows of keys. The keys are not too bad and evenly spread out. Even these fat babies can easily press and hit the keys. The layout of the keyboard is pretty standard excluding the positioning of the spacebar which is being moved to the right. After composing a few emails, the spacebar seems to be placed in a logical position and it feels decent.
The N97 keyboard is very good but perhaps not as good as the fiber keyboard on the TouchPro2. Beside the keyboard on the left is a very functional D-pad which is a nice addition to the slide out pad itself.
Like other devices with slide out keypads, the N97 is a bit on the chunky side. It’s really only 15.9 mm thick which isn’t too much but the device has a definite presence on the hand. Thankfully, the device is quite narrow which makes it a better fit in the hand than—for example, the TouchPro2. Even so, the device is quite thick and you probably won’t be carrying this device around in your side pocket.
A very distinct feeling I get when taking hold of this device is that the N97 is made for use. The phone is entirely made up of hardened plastic. Despite this fact, it feels quite sturdy in the hand. You won’t be having to wear silk gloves when operating this device. And the phone feels like it could take a small beating, but it’s always a smart idea to handle the 650 buck device with care.
Ergonomically, the device is just appropriate size for single hand navigation. Every part of the screen is reachable with your thumb. The screen on the Nokia N97 is nice and big measuring in at 3.5 inches with a resolution of 360x640 pixels. The screen has a smooth 16 million colors giving it a nice range when it comes to color reproduction. Eventhough screens on competing devices may have bigger resolution, the N97 makes up for these with good contrasting colors. Blacks are moderately dark and the brightest whites are also decent. But I’ve said it time and again that on devices at these price range, it would be nice to see in all that screen which are superior in every aspect. Thankfully, Samsung is coming out with the Omniprobe later this year that will be equipped with an—screen.
So, let’s take a look at the hardware in more detail. On the left side of the device, we have the lock key slider. Enabling the slider will put your device into sleep mode and lock the device as well. When disabling the lock, the device is awakened and accompanied by a small vibration. On the opposing side, we have the up and down volume keys and the dedicated camera button. When inside the camera application, the volume up and down keys can be used for zooming as well. The front of the device ports only a single mechanical hardware button which is the menu key. Beside the menu button are the two touch-sensitive answer and call keys.
Answering phone calls on the device is simple enough. You can either use the touch sensitive keys which get a nice vibration feedback or use the touch screen itself for answering calls. Moving on, thankfully on top of the device, Nokia has added a 3.5mm headphone jack. I was pretty pissed off that the TouchPro2 did not have this feature. In my opinion of the 3.5mm headphone jack is essential because there will come a time on occasions when you need to hook your device up to some external speakers to show off your Abba collection, or not.
You can also plug in, for example, your high-end headset. The device also supports a pair of stereo speakers which are located on the side of the device. And while we’re here, let’s give the speakers a whirl. Nothing too amazing but sound quality is decent. The device comes with a whapping 32 Gigabytes of storage space. There I say overkill. But if you happen to ran out of memory, you can always add another 32 Gigabytes with a micro SD card.
Okay let’s move on and take a look at the user interface. The Symbian S60 operating system is back for the fifth edition. And I have to say, off the bat that compared to UI’s like HTC TouchPro3D the Symbian interface is starting to look a bit aged. Don’t get me wrong, the Symbian operating system is not bad. It’s very simple to use and good in plenty of aspects. But when putting the UI side by side with the modern competing UI, the Symbian look like something out of a cave painting.
It could be that the Nokia decided to stick with the old Symbian because the hardware inside the N series device. Which probably can’t handle heavier interface? Even though the Symbian S60 fifth edition runs smoothly with the device’s hardware, there are times when it could run a bit faster. Screen rotation on the device is also quite fast.
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