Nokia N97 - a speed-review

Thanks to WOMworld for sending me the Nokia N97 for trailing.

Not going to bore you with lot of text here. These are the features that I try to find in a phone when I get one.

Looks -

Great. Minimal number of buttons and placed exactly where you would want them to be. But I felt it a little bulky to go around with it in pockets.

Hardware -

Not bad. Slides upwards with a thwack. Sounds like something broke. But, a very strong phone. QWERTY keyboard is beneath the screen and could be used only when slid open. Space bar on the keyboard is too small. Don't try this when you're at home. Locking/Unlocking the phone is hardware dependent. I'd prefer something in the software to lock/unlock the phone. CarlZeiss lens is covered with a sliding cover. Good protective scheme when compared to nothing for N97 mini. Touch Screen is pathetic. No match to that of iPhone's.

Widgets -

Nice. Though not an important factor, I love to keep widgets on screen. You can keep everything on your fingertips that way. N97 has a well organised widget display. It organised my life for the two week of trailing period.

Dialing a number (for which phone was actually built for - Graham Bell) (just in case you're deviated from that fact)

Very simple. But calling a number from your contact list is a little too much about burning calories. Scrolling through the list, using touch screen which is not something I liked, is a serious task.

User Interface -

Great. Nokia has always been good at providing good UIs. This phone is no different. The typical menu system. Photos and Musics are easy to manage. Applications are easy to be installed.

Speed -

Bad. The 434Mhz processor is way too slow to work with many applications open. But I found it very effective with few applications open.

Battery Backup -

Good. BP-4L battery was better than what I'd expected. Though it slogs when you use too much of WLAN. I don't often use WLAN and once fully charged battery ran for more than a day.

Camera -

Great. Too good for a phone. 5MP Carl Zeiss lens does the job. Its quick. Auto-focus and Flash light works fine. The secondary camera used for video calls is simple VGA and does its simple job.

Music -

Great. Music quality is too good. And Music Library is well organised. Scans music files from every corner of the phone and collectively shown on the screen. Supports audio formats of MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC. I loved it as a music phone.

Keyboard -

Bad. Keyboard is exposed when Nokia N97 is opened. Screen just slides itself to fix into its position. And it is not adjustable. Navigation keys for the left hand does most of the job. I am not really impressed with the rest of the layout. Spacebar is little too small. Symbols can be accessed using special button called 'sym' or by using the shift key. Needs little "getting-used-to" to do the job. The screen shifts from portrait mode to landscape mode.

Applications -

Good. In-built applications are truly awesome. It comes with inbuilt FM transmitter which can be used to play songs from your car stereo or something that has radio. Google for setup instruction for FM transmitter. There is also this Message reader which can read messages to you. It is nice. Other Apps: The usual converter and calculator, Document Viewer, Adobe PDF reader, Real Player, Youtube Videos, Bloomberg, hi5, Amazon and many more..

Storage -

Not bad. 32 mb of internal memory and expandable upto 16GB. But the processor will run short with more apps running at a time.

Nokia Maps -

Good. Needs Internet. But its quite fast.

Web -

Very Good. UI seems to lack something. But decent enough to browse around.

Ovi Store -

Sucks!