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 really do appreciate the explanation Gerald, I learn a lot from guys like you that are polite in their postings instead of bringing nationalism into it. Its true about cheaper plans, there is a text messaging craze thats been happening all over, especially in 3rd world countries because its cheaper than having to talk with a cell phone. I really like Nokia, but I just like the Iphone better than the N97 right now. I am also well aware of the N series capabilites having used a few of them. I have a feeling I’ll end up with another Nokia phone again but for now I like using the Iphone, its responsiveness and simplicity. I was hoping the N97 incorporated some of the Iphone’s strong points like screen responsiveness. I also wanted to experience what the hoopla is about with the Iphone. I use Macs, ipods and music intergation with Itunes is great. Safari+itunes+apps with a responsive touchscreen with that makes for a nice multimedia device. IMO, most consumers are not looking for multi-tasking. It truly is a different market here in the US and there really is no consumer awareness with N series phones. Most Americans are happy with their Blackberrys, Iphones and now Palm Pres. When I talk to people about how phones on other countries are sophisticated with better networks, they really don’t care much about it. In the end, we work with the system that is in place here and would I buy another Nokia product? Of course, it all depends on what it had to offer. Oh, I tried an Xperia too, didn’t like it, returned it and waited for the N97. Thanks again.
I think the main problem with this is the S60 OS, and hopefully there will be an update to download sometimes soon.
I’ve played with this in the shop, and the screen looks fine to me, which seems to be one of your biggest gripes.
The keypad could be better, but it also didn’t seem that bad, you’d get used to it I think.
Basically, the hardware is good quality, as you’d expect(and it has all the features I want) and the software could be better and will hopefully be updated.
Disappointed it’s a resistive tho.
Overall, I’m still going to buy this one!
I actually got to play with it since a colleague of mine had one. Nice build, and the keyboard was a little odd to work with but didn’t mind it at all after a while. Yes, biggest gripe is the touchscreen especially when used to the Iphone. The OS a tad slow but not too bad, and I would like a wider screen too, although it has a nice rez. I was hoping the Os would cut down on the menu presses, then again good multi-tasking. I guess it wasn’t quite what I expected. If I had received my pre-order sooner, I would have been used to it by now. You should like this phone. Other option is the Palm pre. Walking around the mall with my family and ended up in the Sprint store with the the Palm salesrep demoing the Pre for me. Multi-tasking, capacitive screen, and looking like a great OS too. Man, that screen was fast, but it has a bit of a learning curve just knowing the gestures by flicking the screen. Nokia definitely has their work cut out for them.
Hey Guys, bought N97 yesterday and felt great for first 5 hours, dont know what happened started hanging , restarts by itself and much more feats.it has major software problems. i recommed not to buy this piece from hell. N97 suckss….
@ Kalyan,
Are you aware that hitting the red button doesn’t close an app, only sends it running in the background? It sounds like you have 20+ apps running at once and are running low on RAM. Hold down the menu/task switcher/home key and monitor and close any unused apps. That happens to alot of people not used to a multitasking device. Its just like Windows XP/Vista. Too many windows open and the device loses stability. Unfortunately, the N97 isn’t as robust as the N95 8gb when running 15-20 apps at once. In fact, I don’t recommend running more than 12, from my experience.
@ Kalyan:
Did you upgrade the firmware to the newest one?? Maybe you should do that before you come on here and start throwing out statments like that.
hi
I had a iPhone, very cool phone, but could not forward messages and bluetooth to other phones, only to my pc, which was ok but when someone tried to phone me and the phone is locked it does not ring, vibrate or showed the light, when i unlocked it it showed thousands of messages and missed calls, so my iPhone made friends with the wall, then I got myself the smart Nokia N97 and now I have a issue with the N97, it des not show the persons name in my messages, it only shows the number, and the number is not duplicated, it only does this with a few people’s numbers, and it irritates the living *** out of me, does any one have a solution to this? is it something I’m doing wrong or is this phone not worth the money? I can live with the problem, but I would have liked the phone to not give me problems.
Hey Charlene,
I had that happen a couple of times too on my N95-3. Most of the time, the number would change automatically to the person’s name, but I still have one or two text messages that haven’t changed yet. Have you called customer service to ask them how to address it? I know a lot of people don’t like doing that, but you should give it a shot. If you don’t want to do that though, try and delete the contact, go back to the message, and add the number to contacts again and see if that does anything. Power the phone off and on again too. That might work.
@ Charlene,
hadn’t seen this issue myself yet, but try saving the number in this format
+1-234-567-8910
…as opposed to 123-456-7891
It’s strange seeing the comments about users not wanting to multitask.I couldn’t survive without this capability. I’m constantly poping between the web browser, the music player, my email, photos and just notes, copying this from this and that to that and having to re-launch the apps every time would kill me. And this was before I started riding the bus to work every day.
As for the resistive vs capacitive complaint… As I’ve read it, any phone that wants to do well in the Asian markets are resistive, it’s to hard to write all the characters using your fingers compared to a stylist. So there you go, you can stop asking for a capacitive screen, it’s never going to show up on a phone that wants to do well in places other then the U.S.
the thing with sites like these is that you never know if comments are left by marketing guys and pr guys from competing phone companies…. well, whoever u are, i should have listened to the majority of the reviews and stayed well away from the nokia 97. what a purchasing error. for so many reasons the iphone is quite simply the undisputed king of the smart phone arena at the moment. n97 is sluggish, totally not user friendly, and the keyboard, which was one of the main reasons i bought the damn thing, is not easy to use at all. one word – numbers – how on earth anyone is supposed to hold the shift key down and type numbers 6, 7,8,9, and 0 comfortably, is beyond me. how nokia can launch a phone like this with as much furore about it being an iphone killer is similarly beyond me. anyway, rant over. bottom line – i strongly advise you not to buy this phone.
Resistive screens does have its advantages, but imo capacitive will be the trend even outside the US. Maybe someday they can come up with a combo, it becomes resistive when used with more pressure and a stylus. As far as multi-tasking, we can’t assume that the majority of smartphone users absolutely needs to multi-task. The iphone is so responsive that opening and closing programs will seem like multi-tasking though I would prefer that the Iphone starts to truly multi-task, and that will happen maybe on 4.0. I don’t know what Apple’s strategy is because I know they have the ability to make this possible. Its all a marketing thing I guess. The N97 is a good phone, but its for a select group of consumers. After reading on Apple’s quarterly earnings, Nokia has got to get more on the ball on the smartphone arena, they may own the majority of the worldwide market, but there is a whole lot competition with the Iphone garnering more success and publicity.
And I strongly advise that nobody takes what ikenna says to heart. This phone isn’t as bad as people are saying it is. If you don’t like particular aspects of a phone, fine. I don’t like the OS on the iPhone, or the lack of customization options or the lack of keyboard, lack of camera megapixels, camera flash, camera shutter button, true stereo speakers, multi-tasking ability, and no call send/end buttons on the phone body. I’ll never buy one ever, and I’m sick of hearing so many people brag about it. It’s a phone. It’s flashy. It does a few things. So what. If you want a device with a big touchscreen, a great camera and a full keyboard, your options are limited and the N97 is on the top of that list, no matter what anybody says. Hey ikenna, maybe you should look into getting the HTC Touch Pro2 if you want a full QWERTY and big touchscreen. I think you’re blowing things way out of proportion, and to be honest, you sound like the one from Apple’s HR who’s out to just fill up sites with propaganda. If you don’t like the phone, well that’s really a shame. Return it and get over it. I love this phone, and its not difficult at all to use. I think its very user friendly and a lot of things make sense in terms of how the UI was designed, but it has its faults, as do all phones. It’s a great phone though.
And I strongly advise that nobody take advice from ikenna. Buy the phone you like, if it doesn’t meet your expectations, return it. I find the N97 to be a great phone. I take it you’ve never used a Blackberry ikenna. You have to do exactly the same thing on their keyboard to get a number. Alt + R to get 1. You know that if you hit the blue arrow button at the bottom right of the keyboard twice, you can type all the numbers or blue symbols you want right? I find the phone to be very user friendly even though it does have its issues which all phones do, and I’m sure if it loaded everything into is memory upon start up that it would be as fast as the iPhone too. Maybe you should try the HTC Touch Pro2. That seems like it would be right up your ally.
Whoops, looks like the first one did go though.
Wot the matter with you lots about the Iphone is better, no is not, because the Iphone cannot change the spare battery and spare memory card. So the Nokia 5800 can change the spare battery and spare memory card on it. Don’t waste your moneys on Iphone, think very careful hard on it to ask first and the Nokia 5800 is a winner 100%, try it for your self and you be please to understand that now is better that Iphone.
i spent 5 yrs as a corporate lawyer and was cursed by the blackberry, so, on principle, i won’t be buying a bb and return to those dark days
rush, seriously, come on, you know i’m talking sense right. the mere fact that the beginning of your post says the n97 “isn’t as bad as people are saying it is”… is obviously not a good a start. a child could use the iphone – and that isn’t meant as a downer it’s more that the phone makes sense. everything from the second u unpack it out of the box makes sense. keys are where they’re supposed to be, prompts work intelligently, web surfing is just ridiculous, there’s no double tap rubbish or clumsy features (like the irritating fact that you can’t just add two favourites to the home screen, it has to be four…. stuff on the n97 rminds me of an eastern european gymnast, solid, clunky and may win technical awards but it certainly ain’t pretty). That said, it’s just sad that typing on glass isn’t my bag. typing on a bb was blissfully easy but, for aforementioned reasons, i won’t be going there. anyway, i’m still waiting for the phone that has the intelligence, beauty and functionality of the iphone, the speaker/sound quality of the nokia, and decent keys to type on. right, that’s it for me, i’ve never replied to a bo thread before but this vent was actually quite enjoyable.
no hard feelings, each to their own.
The fact that a child can use a phone means nothing to me. The fact that it offers what I want I means everything. That’s why I chose this over a number of phones. This is nowhere near difficult to use, and everything is consistent on it. Single taps in menus with grid layouts, double taps in menus with lists. You and a large group of people out there may not like that, but if you think about it, there’s a great reason for it in most of those menus. Take the video gallery for instance. Say I’m going through videos I’ve taken and I want to send it via Bluetooth to a friend I’m with. I can find the video, tap it once, and then tap send at the bottom of the screen and I’m done. How do I do that on an iPhone without opening the video to play it? Does a tap and hold bring up a menu? I really have no idea if it’s even possible, but even if the N97 ditched the double tap for say tap and hold, it’s a huge waste of time in my opinion. The double tap allows for you to select something and then bring up an options menu for it. If there’s an easier, faster way to do it, I’m sure they’ll implement it eventually. And that’s one thing I love about S60; the ability to have an options menu everywhere. Do you need it everywhere? No, but is it useful in particular places? Darn right it is. Web surfing on the N97 is fantastic. I have used the iPhone before and I know what it’s like. It’s very smooth, and I think the N97 is right there with it, but because of the two different screen technologies used in both phones, the N97 requires a tad bit of pressure on the screen that some people might not like compared to gliding your finger over the iPhone screen. I also like the double tap to zoom on the N97. I’ve never actually needed to sit there and adjust the zoom manually, because the double tap to zoom gets it just where I want it. Of course it would have been nice to have multi-touch just to say I have it but it’s not at all necessary. I also love the homescreen. They finally took what I loved about active standby and expanded it. And what’s wrong with having space for 4 favorite contacts or 4 application shortcuts? Find two more or leave them blank. Nokia wanted an organized customizable homescreen and that’s what is there, unlike the mess that Samsung’s widget homescreen is. It’s by far the best I’ve seen on any phone. It’s a great device, I love the OS, and you’re not going to talk me into an admission of buyer remorse. That being said, it certainly isn’t perfect, but neither was my last phone and I still loved that. Good luck looking for a new phone. Oh and it’s not sad that typing on glass isn’t your bag. I hate it too. That’s why I have to have a keyboard.
@Ikenna
I was excited to have ordered the N97 through Dell, but they took such a long time and ended up with an Iphone3gs, and I don’t regret making that choice. I finally got to play with the N97 since a good friend of mine has one and it is really a good phone. I hesitate to say great because I prefer a capacitive/multi-touch screen, although having a resistive screen has advantages too. I also keep comparing the N97 to my favorite N95 8gb with regards to sound quality. Overall, the N97 is a solid phone, great design having that true gadget feel to it. Maybe I was expecting too much from Nokia, but in the end its all up to the needs of the user. I would not talk someone out of buying the N97. Having said that, I am hoping Nokia would soon redo the Symbian OS and more on par with the Iphones, Android and Palm because IMO that will be the expectation of consumers. Oh, I ended up getting used to tapping on a screen, especially on a landscape format.
I received from Nokia and have been using the N97 from the first day it was released.
It is loaded with great features, and has about all the capability one could ask for.
Nevertheless, I would never advise anyone to buy an N97. Here’s why:
Battery life is inadequate. Can’t get through a day with average use.
Keyboard is slow and difficult to use, poorly designed, poor tactile feedback, impossible to see expcept in low light when the internal lights are illuminated. BIG DISAPPOINTMENT. I really hate the old style telephone keypad text entry, but it’s actually faster and easier that the QWERTY hardware.
Operating system is arcane, clunky, and NOT user friendly.
Really screwed up memory management. Very small C: drive, that fills up over a few weeks. The only cure, and advocated by Nokia tech support is to reformat the phone. Then it works fine for a few weeks until you have to do it again. That means hours reinstalling and reconfiguring the phone each time. If you don’t reformat, the phone will bog down completey, most apps wont’ run, and you will be tormented by Memory error messages.
If have installed programs you have paid money for on the Ovi store, once you reformat, you can’t download them and reinstall unless you PAY AGAIN.
Symbian, and the overwhelming majority of apps available are Euro-centric. Nothing wrong with Europe; I wouold rather live there, but I don’t. That means funtionality for US users always seems “once removed”, kind of like always dealing with a poor translation into English.
If the damn Apple phone would mulit-task and integrate with Exchange server better (mulit-task again), I would put up with no keyboard.
I can’t stand the thought of using a stylus, but may be driven to an HTC WinMo device soon. The N97? Maybe for $100, but then you would still have to use it.
I the meantime I may have to fire up the E71x again sitting in my drawer. With all the hassles and bugs in the N97, I have come to appreciate how nice it is to have a touch interface, but even then, the device has to work, and the N97 doesn’t without a continual fight.
The marketplace is screaming for a phone with the connectivity of the N97 (Quad band w/tri-band 3G, FM receive/transmit/ wi-fi, bluetooth, standard cable connections, great battery life, fast CPU, user accessible battery and micro SD slot, a decent operating system, great UI, no stylus required, excellent QWERTY hardware, quality video and still capture, flawless Exchange server interface, that can multi-task. Unliced of course.
Am I missing something?
I really like mine!
On my 3rd N97, at the moment this one is ok
On my 3rd N97 this one is ok at the moment
I have been using my N97 extensively for 3 weeks now. I agree with Christexaport’s expert comments above.
Like Chris, I use my fingernail to press the touchsreen. The phone is very responsive, except when the web browser is busy processing content. I have not had issues of RAM running out. I place all new applications, photos, etc. to the whopping 32 GB of flash memory that N97 has.
No crashes so far, only some minor bugs in the web browser.
The physical keyboard should have a greater travel distance for more tactile feedback. The space bar is conveniently located on the right side, for easy pressing with the right thumb. I do not understand why many reviewers complain about the location of the space bar.
The physical dpad is ok for me. I use it a lot, to point the cursor to small links on a web page. A finger and touchscreen is not a very accurate pointing instrument. I would like an option of using the phone entirely from the physical keyboard and the dpad.
The battery life is great in N97. A single charge at night lets me play with the web browser all day.
it is worst cellfone i have ever owned and i was conned into pre booking this weird device….waiting to return it