Nokia N97 Hands On
Nokia is a in a really weird place right now. They’re the #1 handset manufacturer in the world, yet we’d all be lying if we said they didn’t have to work to stay there. RIM and Apple are the new wonder boys and they are steadily stealing market share away from Nokia. Heck, even Windows Mobile is a real contender nowadays. Enter Nokia and their flagship device for 2009, the Nokia N97. Can it compete? Is this phone going to be the phone to finally bring that extra dash of Tabasco sauce back to Finland’s finest?
Well, you’ll have to wait for our compete review to find out! We will, however, give you a couple quick impressions… First off, the screen while large and in charge really is a tad bit disappointing. The actual screen itself seems to have a really weird “texture” to it and appears to be the digitizer behind the screen. Picture a piece of cotton over the screen and drop the opacity of it to around 3% and you’d get the idea (if you even get what we just said). The keyboard and directional pad are pretty bare with practically no feedback and the hinge mechanism is either genius or the stupidest thing we’ve ever seen cross the factory assembly belt. Happy moments? The camera is wonderful as expected, the build quality on the unit seems top notch, video playback is nothing short of awesome, and hey, it actually works as a phone.
That’s all we’re going to give up for now, but in the meantime, check out our photo shots!
Click on over to our Nokia N97 Hands On gallery!
Well, that has to be the lamest review ever.
I got one today as well: http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/the-nokia-n97-is-here/
Uh… HELLO!? Are you… LEFT HANDED?? Are you secular europeans the only ones using this phone? ???? WHY is the D-pad (who the ef wants a dpad??) on the left? Bwah!! As if thats not just the beginning of this things irrelevance! Death throws.. cough cough. Goodbye Nokia..
Hope to see the review of this N97 before I deceided to change my current blackberry bold.
waiting for the GREATEST BG Report to give away all 3 N97
Still waiting for the touch pro 2 review u promised bgr. WTF happened to that????? 2 weeks ago. I am waiting
@ Frank – right on. I completey agree. NOK needs a hyped up subsidized American handset to keep their top spot.
@ Truman – The D-pad is on the left for better use during games and such….Just like evry other videogame controller.
But Nokia as seriously been letting me down lately. If they are going to step into the touchscreen arena they need to stop half-assign it. Roll out a serious touchscreen OS, improve their screens and keyboards and get a deal going with a US carrier. Its getting hard to remain a supporter on this side of the ocean.
@BG – How about a comparison review of the N86 and N97? Yes? Yes? Cool.
Will skyfire work with the keyboard? Saw a nice demo of it running on a 5800 on youtube, but because of the lack of touch support they had to use a bt keyboard.. Can you test this please?
Bullshit piece of crap
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Portage United States
Wow! So much misinformation here…
FYI, this is NOT an old OS, but a totally new one. In fact, this is only the second device powered by S60 5th Edition, and this build is on an Nseries, so it has Nokia’s special high end device features included, like the Standby widgets, which set this device above most of the competition by itself! No device lets you stay connected to MySpace, Facebook, Ovi, all your POP3 and free webmail accounts with PUSH email, and more, all at once, while still offering multitasking!
Nokia will remain the King of the Smartphone. They retain 40% of the global smartphone market, even though they went almost 2 years without releasing anything new except the E71 and 5800 XM. While the iPhone has updated twice, Nokia’s N95’s have stayed the premium device. (The N96 was a slight update on the N95 with a weaker processor but a TV tuner, and not seen as an upgrade by Nseries loyalists.) The Nseries are the world’s preeminent high end smartphones, and the N97 will not be the flagship for long. (Remember the N95, later updated with the N95 8gb model?) Expect a faster processor, better camera, and more RAM in the N97-3, maybe even a T9 pad.
This doesn’t look $700 nice??? But the iPhone does?! They’re the same price, and its cheaper than the XPeria1! Don’t talk subsidy, talk price. Nokia is a global company, and outside America, it’ll be subsidized. There may be an agreement here in the States if demand grows. There is more awareness here now.
BTW, BUSTAFONE,
when’s the last time any Nokia phone flopped?? They’ve been number one for almost 5 years straight, 2 without any new significant device releases! The world knows about Nokia. Only the US is stupid, and I live in Texas!
@Frank,
You’re partially right. But America doesn’t need a branded phone, just a carrier subsidy. The $700 iPhone gets a $500 subsidy! If this had a $350-$500 subsidy, it’d be America’s new phenomenon.
The slow processor talk is premature. This OS seems to be nimble and light, and this should suffice. It could be better, but it hasn’t caused any performance problems in testing. Obviously, the OS is optimized for this platform, something Nokia is known for.
And despite the early reports, I haven’t seen any devices with a better screen but the X1, i8910, and TouchHD. This is a high resolution widescreen in true 16:9 nHD (640×360). Its a great screen, and all my colleagues have raved that its almost as if its capacitive. Responsive, clear, and big!
skyfire is only good on 3rd Edition so far, AFAIK, but the default browser is great. Flash support and better zooming than Skyfire. Go ahead and upload video directly to MySpace right on the page! It’s in a class by .itself, and nothing like the simple iPhone browser that has no Flash support and can’t play web videos.
Pre and iPhone 3GS = 600MHz
iPhone touch 2nd gen = 532MHz
iPhone 3G and 1st gen iPhone = 412MHz for $99
Nokia N97 = 434MHz for $699
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dig_DFWZipQ for Skyfire running on 5800. I have no problems with nokia’s browser, but the skyfire browser is very fast and plays everything on the web.
It would just be nice to have them both (and maybe opera mini), like i have now on my n82. So you can just pick the browser that works best for the page you want to visit.
First of all….WHO THE HELL IS PAYING $699.99 for this phone!!!
We are all enthusiasts (ohterwise you wouldn’t be reading this), so I’m assuming we all know how to play the game:
Preorder: $603.99……on amazon
4 Weeks after release: $525 – $575
And we all know that if you stay up on your forums, engadget, and BGR that you’ll find someone with a rediculous coupon (Dell comes to mind, i picked up an N95 8gb 2wks after release for $460 shipped from them last yr) within the first 6 weeks!
So please get off the “phone is too expensive” bandwagon, we all know that is not the case. You simply pay up front instead of monthly. This phone is MUCH less expensive than the 3gS, especially when you take the 2yr data plan into account.
Boring.
@JakeyBoy,
“JakeyBoy Said:
Pre and iPhone 3GS = 600MHz
iPhone touch 2nd gen = 532MHz
iPhone 3G and 1st gen iPhone = 412MHz for $99
Nokia N97 = 434MHz for $699″
Don’t be misled by processor speed. These are 2 completely different software platforms, and Symbian runs just fine at those speeds. I can easily prove to you that the N97 can do more things at once and well at that 434MHz than the iPhone at even 700MHz.
It’s similar to XP and Vista or Mac and Linux. The required hardware is alot greater for Vista than XP, and the same for Mac versus Linux. Symbian has been around nearly 11 years, and its a Nokia property, so they’ve optimized it to do so much with so little. Don’t be jealous.
BTW, Nokia usually updates the flagship model with more RAM and storage in 6 months as they did with the N95-1 to the N95 8gb. They know most people never do enough to stress the device out, and those that do get a treat in a short time.
Hey everybody..
First off, I really can’t wait for the Nokia N97 but!!
Does anybody know when it will be released in Australia?
I have been looking everywhere for the release date for AUS, but I cannot find anything.
I’m hoping somebody knows.. I’ve been on the Aus Nokia website but that doesn’t say; it
only says coming soon.. So does anybody know the actual release date for the Aussies?
I came across a website for the Nokia N97 owners http://www.NokiaN97Forum.com let’s help each other on this great phone.
Hi All
I got my Nokia N97 yesterday. Its Defective product,It worked for few mins and then suddenly lost the NETWORK (The SIM works fine on other phone). I restarted it number of times but no change. After some time the screen got locked.
The worst part is Now I want return this phone, But no one in Nokia is helping me. Each time I call I have to wait for hours to speak to someone and later my call was fwd to other department.
Phone manual which I got in a box Says “Its a DRAFT version, DO NOT USE” on front page.
Paid $700 and this kind of service. No doubt not many stores carry Nokia cell.
My suggestion to all is to wait for this phone to get stabilized before considering it.
I would agree the the write of the article that windows mobile phones are top of the line. There are a ton of new windows mobile phones coming out this year and my personal favorites are from HTC because of their innovative tech features and the additional interface software.
Having been a Nokia fan for some time I was keen to get my hands on the new N97.
I recieved it last Friday and eagerly opened up the box, inserted my SIM and the battery and turned it on. What an anti climax! The touch screen is not responsive at all, it seems to work when it wants to not when you want it to. The S60 operating system is so old and slow, it is painful to use. Soldiering on and desperate to find something I liked and could boast about to my iPhone toteing colleagues I set up the email application. Again, a dissapointment. Why on earth, have Nokia not provided HTML support for emails, yes there is an icon you can click which brings up a poorley formatted HTML version of the email.
Nokia appear to have blown thier budget on the design, the phones one good point. The slide out keyboard is a dream to use, it’s such a shame they didn’t invest more time and money on designing a better operating system.
Anyone who has used an iPhone, Palm Pre or Blackberry will sneer at the N97 in contempt. Nokia have insulted thier client base by releasing such a poor phone and will lose thousands of hardened Nokia fans to other mobile phone makers. I for one have already returned mine in exchange for a Blackberry.
Shame on you Nokia!