When it comes to cellphones, Nokia is the biggest and baddest hitter on the block. It has market-shared dominance over all its competition. And when the market leader releases its new flagship 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 TechnoBuffalo and welcome to the N97 in-depth review.
Hey and welcome back. Okay. Today, we are going to put the N97 to the test. We will 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 in benchmark. I recently put the Touch Pro2 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 will be taking a look at the Symbian S60 5th 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. They 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. I'm sure the chroming on a 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 as I look to it. I like my Touch Pro2 which people optimistic for dammed 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 you find the 1500 milliamp battery. Beside the camera optics, we find the microSD slot. And under the battery, there’s a small hash for the simcard. So, no unfortunately there is no place to hide your small liquor bottle. In fact, I assume the engineers in Nokia run out of space when thinking of where to hide the stylus because unlike the 5800 Xpressmusic that came with the stylus built-in, this device comes with a funky looking separate one. Sure you can attach your stylish to your phone with a chord but seriously you probably don’t want any weird attachments tangling 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 Solar. The mechanism itself is quite impressive. The keyboard pops out 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 has been moved to the right. After composing a few e-mails, the space bar seems to be placed in a logical position and feels descent.
The N97 keyboard is very good but perhaps not as good as the—QWERTY keyboard on the Touch Pro2. 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 beat on the junkie side. It’s really only 15.9mm thick which isn’t too much but the device has a definite presence in the hand. Thankfully the device is quite narrow which makes it a better fit in the hand then for example the Touch Pro2, even so with 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 whole of this device is that the N97 is made for used. The phone is entirely made out 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 a 650 buck device with care.
Ergonomically, the device is just appropriate size for single hand navigation. Every par t of the screen is reachable with your thumb. Eventhough screens on competing devices may have bigger resolution, N97 makes up for this with good contrast and colors. Blacks are moderately dark and the brightest whites are also descent but I’ve said it time and again that on the device at this price range, it would be nice to see it all that screen which are superior in every aspect. Thankfully Samsung is coming out with the Omnia Pro 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 a 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 wakened 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 supports 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 give out 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 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. I was pretty pissed off that the Touch Pro2 did not have this feature. In my opinion of the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack is essential because there will come a time on occasion when you need to hook your device up to zoom external speakers to show up 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 are here, let’s give the speakers a whirl.
Nothing too amazing but the sound quality is descent. The device comes with a whopping of 32GB of storage space. There, I say overkill, but if you happen to run out of memory, you can always add another 32GB with the microSD card. Okay, let’s move on and take a look at the user interface. The Symbian S60 operating system is back for the 5th edition and I have to say, off the back they compare it to UI’s. It’s like—Touch Pro 3D, the Symbian Interface is starting to look a bit aged. But 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—it could be the Nokia decided to stick with the old Symbian because the hardware inside the N series device which probably can’t handle heavier interface. Eventhough the Symbian S60 5th edition runs smoothly with the devices hardware, there are times when it could run a bit faster. Screen rotation on the device’s also quite fast. There is not much of a delay when opening the QWERTY keypad.
The ARM processor handles programs with this and you could have simultaneous applications open at the same time. Pressing and holding the menu button will give you access to this opened programs. The home screen is widget based which means you can add your favorite programs to your home screen to suite your everyday needs. On the top of the home screen, we have the clock, the date, and the status icons which are not adjustable. But underneath these icons are five adjustable widget slots. The default widgets are pretty useful. In the top slot, we have quick launch icons for composing messages, web browser, the navigation application and the media player. The second slot is occupied by the weather application and it’s actually one of the best weather applications I have come across—where the widget gets your hourly weather updates on your current location. And finally, we have some nice weather. Too bad, I’m stocked at the office making this review. The Facebook widget on the home screen works well also. You can actually have the newest status updates scrolling on your home screen because it’s always good to know when your friends are off to buy milk or brushing their teeth.
Under the Facebook widget, you can add your favorite contacts or not as default, the lowest slot is occupied by the e-mail widget. On the icon itself, you can see headers of the two newest e-mails and pressing the icon will get you to the e-mail application. The e-mail application works well and composing emails as with the QWERTY keyboard is a delight. Typing with the N97 QWERTY keyboard is very fast although not quite as fast as the typing with the Touch Pro2 keyboard.
It would have also been nice to see a dedicated row of keys for the numbers. Customizing your home screen is a walk in the park. Removing and adding programs is a simple process. There’s about a descent widget to choose from and more widgets can be downloaded from the new Nokia Ovi store. The Ovi store is Nokia’s new application store where you can find a variety of stuff spanning from a free wallpapers to all kind of application you can buy. The calendar application on the Symbian is pretty basic, nothing too fancy but it’s fast and easy to use and gets the job done.
A slight disappointment on the device is the YouTube application or—the YouTube icon in the application menu is a bit deceiving. Pressing it only links you to the YouTube mobile website. So, it’s not exactly a dedicated YouTube application you see on other devices but you can always download the third part of YouTube application made for Symbian S60. So, it's not too big of a deal. In the other hand, the Symbian web browser was a very positive surprise. The browser works well and scrolling and zooming within the pages is smooth and fast. The Symbian browser works well in both landscape and portrait mode. The big screen on the N97 is ideal for web browsing. Most of the time, you won’t even have to zoom in to read text but in certain circumstances, you want to get it nice and close. And zooming in is done by double tapping the screen.
Loading times for content heavy size on the Symbian are about the same for example when loading with upper mobile on a windows mobile device. Navigation on the web browser is done by using the touch screen. There is also a very good alternative of this if you prefer not to grease up your screen. On the left side of the QWERTY keyboard is the D-pad which works great with the web browser. When comparing the two navigation methods, I personally prefer using the D-pad. It’s fast and accurate and doesn’t smash up the screen. All in all, I’m quite pleased with the performance of the Symbian web browser. It’s relatively fast and seems to be stable which is a factor when dealing with mobile web browsers.
The camera application on the N97 launches with haste. The five mega-pixel camera on the back is accompanied by dual LEDs. LED flashes usually tend to be on the weaker side, so adding a second LED not a bad idea. I took some test—with the device in different lighting levels, auto-focus and the LEDs work great and the camera on the N97 is one of the best I’ve seen on a mobile device. It takes very good pictures in highlight and the thing that impresses me most is the camera takes very good pictures in low light as well. You can checkout of my test—resolution at technoreview.com.
Okay. Let’s checkout some of the more interesting features. The N97 comes pre-installed with Nokia maps. It’s a navigation program that uses the built-in GPS as well as the internet. A very cool picture in this application is the compass function that rotates the map to where you’re going in practically real time. This makes the N97 a very good navigation device for when you are on foot for example trying to find your favorite Sushi bar. While driving around my car, I noticed the GPS signal was not constant and I also had some GPS lock. But the application got me where I was going and I’m pretty satisfied with the free application on the device.
As I mentioned earlier, the device comes with a whopping 32GB of internal storage space. So, that’s plenty a space for pirate—I mean purchased music and videos. The music player on the Symbian is pretty descent. Albums are easily accessed and sound quality is satisfactory. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about video playback. The device supports only a limited amount of codecs not including DivX, XviD and H264 which are probably the most common formats around these days. So, if your entire video catalog is in DivX, you are pretty much screwed unless you want to convert your entire catalog into 3GP format. I could not get core player or DivX mobile to work with the device because they are yet not supported by Symbian S60 5th edition. Eventually, these formats probably will be supported but for now, DivX is a no goal. But the formats that N97 does support, it plays with the ease excluding flash video which is quite the slideshow.
For my benchmark video, I’ll be using the trailer for a movie called 2012. I was pretty excited when I saw the first teaser for the movie but after discovering that role—is directing the movie, my expectations aren’t too high. His last movie 10,000BC was the worst piece of shit I’ve ever seen. I mean it was so bad that I almost cried but I actually did like Independence Day though.
Anyways, the picture quality on the N97 is pretty descent—contrast are very good and the screen resolution is quite adequate for video playback. The N97 doesn’t even skip a beat when playing the 3GP format at relatively high bit rates. Eventhough the image quality on the 3GP format may not be perfect, it is still a very descent format for mobile devices. I was quite impressed to see that the N97 could handle the format at 7000 kilobytes per second. Eventhough I am unimpressed by the lack of supported codecs, I am impressed by how well the device plays the codecs it does support.
In conclusion, the N97 is quite a mix—external features and build quality are excellent. I’m still impressed by the keypad mechanism and the QWERTY keyboard itself but the Symbian operating system maybe a bit to old school for my test but it works okay and the Symbian browser was not bad at all. Is it a perfect device? By all means, no. It has a few flaws here and there but the N97 is definitely a valuable update of the Nokia. The new N-series device arrived with the highest of expectations. And all the things considered, the N97 was able to handle most of that.
So, that’s pretty much it from my review. Thanks for watching and get ready for some more very exciting content to come from TechnoBuffalo, LP signing out.
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