Nokia N97 Review
It’s no secret that we had our issues with Nokia’s 5800 XpressMusic, but has the Nokia N97 changed our minds? It is, after all, their flagship device and is packed to the rim with goodies. We already said the Touch Pro2 was the best Windows Mobile device to come out of HTC, is the N97 the Pro2’s match for the Symbian world? Hit the breakage for the review and what we thought!
Keyboard:
It’s hilarious that when Nokia finally listens and tries to make a somewhat normal QWERTY keyboard layout (we bitched and moaned that the Z key was always incorrectly right under the A key on previous devices) they mess it up even more. Like honestly, you’re expecting people to use something with the spacebar key stage right? If the layout isn’t bad enough, the keys certainly are. While the texture of the keys is actually pretty stirring, there’s absolutely positively the smallest tactile feedback imaginable when pressing in a key. For comparisons sake, the T-Mobile G1, whose keys aren’t the best in that department, is worlds better than the N97’s keyboard. It’s really disappointing because Nokia just can’t seem to nail this keyboard area. You could argue that there’s a virtual on-screen keyboard, but that’s so useless we’re not going to entertain the idea of you bringing it up.
Screen:
Man… this is a tough area. Some people are going to viciously attack us for saying this, but, is this the best you can do Nokia? If it is, you’re out of touch with the entire cell phone world because this is one of the most disappointing screens we’ve seen in a long, long time. Besides being a poor resistive touchscreen with good resolution — it’s poor because they try and allow it to decipher touch actions separately from select actions — it looks like there’s a weave pattern behind the display. It gets really infuriatingly annoying. We’re assuming it’s the digitizer, but seriously, learn how to make a touch display. This isn’t 2003. Every single flagship phone has a display 10x better than yours. If you want us to break them down because you’re too out of touch to realize it, we’re glad to do so:
- HTC’s Dream and Magic — wonderful bright and crisp capacitive displays
- RIM’s BlackBerry Storm — awesomely vibrant capacitive display
- Palm’s Pre — packed tight with resolution, vivid and capacitive
- Apple’s iPhone 3G/3G S — an amazingly accurate clear capacitive display with incredible accuracy
Noticing a trend here?
Hardware / Build quality:
Nokia has been around the block for a long, long time. They’ve had their share of hiccups, but man… they know how to make a phone and make it solid. And a sexy phone at that. The N97 might feel lighter than you’d expect at first, but it really has a quality feel all around. The metal bezel is actually plastic and is probably the cheapest-feeling part of the device. But all in all, the build quality is top notch and we shouldn’t expect anything less from the world market leader Nokia. The 5 megapixel camera also doesn’t disappoint — just what you’re used to if you’re a Nokia Nseries fan.
Feel:
This is kind of the same as build quality in a way, because the feel of the device will change depending on the build quality, but the overall feel of the Nokia N97 in your hand is a pleasant one for the most part. Not a huge fan of the matte finish/texture on the back of the device, but button placements are very standard Nokia and comfortable. Power button on top, dedicated two-stage camera shutter key, volume keys, etc.
Connectivity:
This is the second Nokia handset with tri-band HSDPA and it’s awesome they’ve finally come around. In addition to the UMTS sex appeal, you’ve also got a quad-band EDGE radio, Bluetooth 2.0, an FM transmitter (yep, it will allow you to tune to a radio station and listen to your music), A-GPS, and Wi-Fi all built in. Very, very cool.
Phone calling / speakerphone:
There’s no if, ands or buts about it — Nokia seriously knows how to make for some damn good voice calling. Their radios are usually on point (besides the disastrous Nokia E71-2 scenario and we guess some 5800 problems), but for the most part it doesn’t get much better than Nokia. Some could argue RIM is almost on Nokia’s level in terms of RF performance and voice quality, but Nokia, in our view still has a slight edge. Phone calls made with the N97 were loud and sounded bright instead of dull like some phones we’ve been testing. Callers reported to hear us just fine and sometimes thought we were calling from a land line phone.
One thing that’s funny about Nokia is that their speakerphones range from horrible to pretty good. We’d say the N97’s is right in the middle. It’s no where as loud or clear as the Touch Pro2’s but it’s decent enough to be used. Anyone ever had a Nokia phone where the ear speaker was louder than the actual speakerphone? We have!
Usability:
Here’s one fairly large issue for us — the slide/flip up screen. The mechanism is actually very well-built, but it’s the angle of the screen and the non-adjustableness (forgive us) that get us going. For instance, to see the screen at the perfect angle when flipped up means that the keyboard is going to be pointing straight up at the ceiling. Wait, what? Yeah — you can barely use the keyboard comfortably when navigating through on screen applications and the like. It might not be a big deal for some, but for a keyboard that it feels like your typing on a pad of Post Its, it’s a big deal for anyone remotely interested in typing something.
The directional pad also suffers from the same issue as we mentioned earlier in the keyboard section — zero feedback. It’s unfortunate but it really doesn’t enable you to accurately navigate as well as it should. As far things like home screen widgets go, they’re cool. But just because you have live widgets on your home screen doesn’t mean people will overlook how out of date and poorly designed S60 is becoming. It’s almost like Nokia keeps bandaging the OS up and it’s starting to get more and more difficult to use and less and less relevant.
Conclusion:
Nokia tried really hard here, but to be honest, speaking from my personal opinion, the second I saw the N97 announcement I skipped right over it in my head. I’m the biggest N95-4 fan you’ll find — but S60 5th Edition with a resistive screen, horrible keyboard and horrible navigational buttons? No thank you. The problem with the Nokia N97 is — and please don’t take this the wrong way — that this exact phone could have been launched 2 years ago and no one would have blinked. What other phone can you take out of it’s current place, drop back two years, and have no one question where it came from? Take the Palm Pre for better or worse, and bring it back to 2007. People would have heart attacks. What about the iPhone? Well, you know how that turned out. BlackBerry Storm? People would have broken through glass to get it. But, no one really would care about the N97 and that, besides not being a device we enjoyed using, is the larger issue. Nokia has lost its place in the sun when looking at the consumer smartphone market and until they get back on track, RIM, Apple, Windows Mobile, Palm and Android are going to continue eating more and more of their lunch.
I think that this review is stupid,
everyone i know that has had this phone enjoys it
and i am planning to buy it tmrw
i also believe that although you may not like it
doesnt mean other people wont
and no a lot of people are not buying because you made it sound like it was the biggest piece of junk there is.
whoa, I thought this post was already dead. I’ve commented enough on this post myself. @Rachael, have a great time with this phone.Its not as bad as the review said. I was planning on getting one, but I am really picky with the type of touch screen and OS. Nokia needs to revamp the touch os and are on the right track with the Maemo5 OS now. I prefer the capacitive touch screens, although there are good reasons why resistive is good, and I guess I expected too much of this phone. Overall, its a good phone to me and great to some. I ended up with the Iphone3gs,and liking it so far. I doesn’t mean that I won’t go back to Nokia as soon as they have a phone that satisfies my preferences.
Tech wise the phone is like an expensive sports car, it isn´t for the average person so we shouldn´t try critique it that way, it is a very expensive toy that has it´s own style and it takes getting used to, once you start to play with it, get to know it and learn how to handle it , then you become fully addicted and can´t get enough, the iPhone is lacks alot compared to 97.
I have learned this type of device takes months to learn to use, it is like a relationship and there is no way you can fully review this phone on the surface without really owning it for a few months.
the phone is not perfect, but it is cool and all my friends are eyeing it like it is Pamela Anderson, and I´m sure Tommy Lee could point out all Pamela´s faults too, but who cares she is hot and so is the N97!
To Mark R. :
If all of Nokia’s N series phones have such bad build quality, then why are you considering buying the N97? Seems like a contradiction to me…
To all:
Does anyone know what the battery life is slated to be?
I had previously a 2nd gen iPhone. It’s full of scratches and the screen broke after falling from less than 2 feet. I am really happy with the N97 now – so much more powerful than the iPhone in all aspects (I admit – not as easy to use). Shure, its touch and feel is a bit plasticish (I would have preferred one of those mythical Nokia E-Series stainless steel frames), but its a VERY robust phone. The slide/opening mechanism is an artwork in engineering. Traditionally, Nokia phones are more robust than they feel – my kids didn’t even ask for an iPhone when they saw how quickly their friends’ ones perished during biking tours, at the beach or whatever while their Nokia’s remained intact.
@gerald by “so much more powerful” you mean a crappy processor, 3x less free RAM, crap resistive screen, no multitouch, awfull touch UI, when compared with the 3gs?
I went with the Iphone3gs over this, but not because its crappy.I wouldn’t use powerful to describe it but is a lot better than what some folks say it is. A friend of mine has one and I got some hands on time with it. It has the big advantage of multi-tasking but with a slight delay opening programs, like the keyboard(spacebar not an issue), FM radio is a plus, design has a real gadget feel to it(love the tilt screen), resistive is not as bad as I thought it to be(still prefer capacitive), huge storage 32gb with additional for Sd storage, speakers are just ok(not as loud as my N95 8gb), excellent call quality and browser can do flashlite. But, the OS was still the old symbian made into having a touch interface. Of course now, Maemo5 is a whole different story. Overall, its a good phone to me, not great and I’m still glad I got the Iphone3gs. If Nokia came out with Maemo5 on the N97, it would have been a no brainer for me.
I have a Nokia N97 and I’m VERY disappointed. Nokia made promises and came out with a useless device. It’s firmware software is FULL of bugs, it’s extremely slow, freezes, Skype is still not included but they said that the Nokia N97 will be shipped with Skype. The worst thing is that Nokia lied and lies about the N97. What they do is simply not telling the truth about their buggy device. I am very disappointed. I’ve always had Nokia phones, but I’m sure this is my last Nokia phone. Bugs and lies – this is what you can get from Nokia. If you planned to buy an N97, forget it. It sounds great what Nokia tells about the device, but the device is useless.
Be patient, N97 owner. October is the N97’s month. New firmware is excellent, with kinetic scrolling and much more widgets. You’ll see.
I have big problems with my N97. First when i tried to answer a call 4 the first time I found I had to unlock the phone first then by the time I worked that out I had missed the call.
Then when I tried to make a call I flicked the unlock switch and the screen was barely visibly with no back light, so you have to lock it and then unlock it to get the back light 2 come on. Its just been a nightmare,now my phone is in getting repaired because my screen has stopped workin. wish i had kept my SE K850. Let me know if any1 else had these problems
i just bought an N97 despite what comments other people have made and i love the phone…and from what i can see from all the cons that people say its just that they dont know how to use the new interface of the phone or has had a bad luck in the set they got..besides that the phone is superb with its qwerty keyboard and touch screen and also superb speed on software also.. no complains here….
I’m gettin this phone in about a week and a half. A lot of the reviews I’ve read seem very opinion-based and some written by iPhone lovers, stating each feature and how it fails compared to the iPhone.
I personally love Nokia and BlackBerry devices. I own an iPod Touch but it didn’t make me want an iPhone. They’re not real smartphones anyhow (no multi-tasking). I’m excited to get this phone and with Opera Mobile (recently released for Symbian (YESSS)) + the new firmware updates make this phone a win.
Form Factor, 32G of onboard memory, Multi-Media feature (excellent video playback, music functionality), radio, S60 community, fully-loaded with Joiku-Spot, Bloomberg, Qik and other productivity apps, beautiful large screen.