After owning the 9290 for 2 weeks I feel like I've been cheated. It was just released in the US and has a huge advertising blitz but it's a major dissapointment.
A little history...I've been a Nokia Shareholder since 1995 (it's my largest holding), and I've recommeded their stock and all their products up until this point.
My most recent phone was the 8290, which I loved other then the fact that it constantly broke. I've gone through 3 in the past year. Since I believe in supporting the companies I own shares in I've been waiting for the release of the 9290 before buying any of it's competitors. What I have found is alothough I paid a new technology price for this phone if gotten old technolgy. Here is a letter I received from Nokia support concerning the fact that the multi-media does not work with Windows XP
"The software was developed for use with this unit in Europe for over the past year, which was prior to there being a stable version of Windows XP available. The unit just now became available in the U.S. due to GSM service now being widespread enough to justify selling it. I do not know of any future plans or patches to make the 9290 or software compatible with Windows XP."
Excuse me but XP has been out here for a while! And I'm sure the majority of 9290 users are also XP users! See What I wrote on CNET
http//computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-2709830-418-9977860.html?pn=1&lb=0&ob=1&tag=st.co.2709830.top.9977860-1
But thats not all. Here is what Voicestream told me about this phone. "Nokia finally got back to me and confirmed some of the information we
discussed. The 9290 is 1900 MHz only for North and Latin America and it
is
NOT a GPRS equipped phone whiche means that any Internet/Email access will
be via WAP at a maximum of 9.6 Kb/sec and WILL use your voice minutes."
Now those are my major problems, I have many others with this phone. The question is I have one day left to return it with a 15% restocking fee (I paid $600 USD). I'm thinking of returning it, what do you think?
Adam
Hi,
I acknowledge your point regarding lack of GPRS - that was an unfortunate design decision on the part of Nokia. I would however respectfully suggest that you really should have known about the lack of GPRS before you bought it. This very issue made me think twice before buying my 9210, but we're lucky in the UK in that we have HSCSD so at least I can enjoy 28.8 when I need it.
As for the multimedia, I don't really worry about that since on your platform, I would have thought that Real Media would be your format of choice? I've had problems with the Multimedia Converter on Win2K and XP, but now use Real whenever possible.
If you want something for connectivity <I>and</I> multimedia, I suggest the awesome <B>Nokia 7650</B> (or whatever it's Stateside incarnation will be) or the staggeringly awesome <B>SonyEricsson P800</B>. The 9290 is aimed more at the office professional who wants a mobile office with mobile office connectivity and a little entertainment on the side. Maybe one of these smartphones is what you're looking for?
Sorry to hear about your bad experience, it's horses for courses and maybe you've just bought the wrong horse?
I'd say its entirely up to you. If you feel it can be of use and you can fford to do so keep it.
Yes there are problems with it, but they are not surmountable. GRPS is a pain, but for e-mail GSM is manageable. If you post some of your other problems here people will be happy to post.
I guess the thing is that many people are happy with the 9210/9290. That said I don't own one despite the fact I run this site.
Rafe
First, thanks for your responses. I guess what's really bothering me is that this product has been out for around a year and it's just released in the US without any improvements. In fact it is in many ways worse then the 9210.
Look at it this way would you buy a new PC with one year old specs? And pay the price it was last year? As I mentioned as a shareholder I find this especially troubling. As more and more people in the US buy this product the reviews are gettting worse and worse. Not good for Nokia's stock price nor their reputation.
Ok now for some little problems...
When synching with outlook how do I keep my contact catagories? For now it's dumping all 3000 of my contacts into one big file.
Also since the mmc doesn't work with my Windows XP what is the best way to use realplayer? I can't seem to find instructions anywhere.
Thanks for all your help.
Adam
As an owner of a Nokia 9000i and now a 9290, I must say that I am very pleased with my 9290. It hands down beats every PDA on the market available in the US in my opinion.
Yes it is missing the GPRS but that would be the only major thing in my opinion that it is missing.
Outlook can't keep all these information such categories, pictures and ringtones. What I did was to configure all my data on the Communicator and get a MMC reader-writer for my PC. I back up everything on the MMC and copy them to the PC. Faster and simpler. Of cource the real problem is when you work with outlook all the time. I had it only for backup. But since you can keep your contacts file in a safe place, you can sync with outlook and configure it to be overwriten by the Communicator.
It's not good when someone is disappointed with a purchase. If you want to return it and you are within your rights, then by all means do so - the choice is yours.
To be fair to Nokia they are always completely explicit about posting on their website the full technical specifications of their phones. The 9290 was explicitly sold as not US-only or nonUS (International) phone and a not GRPS enabled phone. It was never suggested by Nokia it would be upgradable either. I believe this was a mistake (as business people want flexability because they travel widely). Possibly Nokia believes GRPS is not established enough? I understand that the implementation of GRPS on the O2 XDA, however, is poor and not able to utilise the full speed gain of GRPS.
But - I think, IMHO, you have to take the 9290 for what it is. It's does email well, and you CAN connect to the internet through its excellent Web browser, although obviously you will need a dial up connection with an ISP to do so, and the speed won't be great (there's the option of not downloading images which speeds things up a bit).
Well, this isn't the 9210, it is I believe the US version of the 9210i (which has literally just been released here in the EU)
Yes - I agree with you about the PC software not being XP ready (shame on you Nokia! That's plain dumb.)
How do you keep your contact categories (I presume you mean the 'phone categories'?) - you can't, Microsoft Outlook doesn't support them, nor does Outlook support contact pictures either. (It probably will at some point in the futrure.)
MMC is supported on Windows XP. You need to get a MMC card reader (they are pretty simple and just plug into a USB port, and appear in explorer as a new external drive). Copying material to the MMC card in Windows is the best way of getting RealMedia over to the 9290.
The 9290 is a great device, a huge improvement over the 9000i communicator, but, by it's nature, it won't certainly won't appeal to everyone.
Sorry Mooky I have to disagree with you, this is not a great device by any streach of the imagination. The phone portion is no where near as good as my Nokia 8290 (in fact the phone itself is almost impossible to use in any situation where there is background noise) and the PDA portion is no where near as good as my Palm 5x.
I think you misunderstood my questions. I have numerous contact catagories set up in Palm, ie Business, personal and others. I synched this with Outlook and it recreated these catagories. When I synced this with the 9290 it dumped all 3000+ into one file. Are you saying I have to recatagorize all of them? Are you saying the PDA portion is not as advanced as the first Palm Pilot I bought 7 years ago!
As for the real player question I assume I don't need a card reader since the mmc card comes up as a seperate drive on my computer. The problem is that real player will not play my files. Do I need to convert them? Can I just drop and drag them to my mmc drive?and is it possible to shrink the size of them like Nokia's converter does?
Adam
Hmmm...not sure about that.
As for RealMedia - the player is limited in what it can and can't play back, it can't play all RealPlayer files. If you have the original files in AVI you can convert them to a RealPlayer file which will work on the 9290 - see this page http//fp.somewhere.f9.co.uk/n9210/hints.html
You need a fast data connection to get wireless RealMedia streaming to your 9290 - that won't work over standard GSM unfortunately.
Thanks Mooky. That's a great site.
Adam
The issue of compatibility was not caused by Nokia. The problem is that Microsoft decided to drop Java support on XP after their legal problem with Sun Microsystems. They decided to leave Java out of XP after that. You can still run a Java (JVM - Java Virtual Machine) engine by downloading it from MS or Sun Microsystems website. You may still have issues with it since MS does not support it. Microsoft has announced as of 2 days ago that they will support Java on their upcoming XP service patch 1. Nokia is a solid product I have own my unit for 3 weeks now and have been running without any problems using Windows 2000 Professional. I am also involved in the Java development effort (www.mcmsoftware.com) and have run into this issue with Windows XP, hopefully service patch 1 will correct MS negative position on Java.
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On 2002-06-20 2045, Anonymous wrote
After owning the 9290 for 2 weeks I feel like I've been cheated. It was just released in the US and has a huge advertising blitz but it's a major dissapointment.
A little history...I've been a Nokia Shareholder since 1995 (it's my largest holding), and I've recommeded their stock and all their products up until this point.
My most recent phone was the 8290, which I loved other then the fact that it constantly broke. I've gone through 3 in the past year. Since I believe in supporting the companies I own shares in I've been waiting for the release of the 9290 before buying any of it's competitors. What I have found is alothough I paid a new technology price for this phone if gotten old technolgy. Here is a letter I received from Nokia support concerning the fact that the multi-media does not work with Windows XP
"The software was developed for use with this unit in Europe for over the past year, which was prior to there being a stable version of Windows XP available. The unit just now became available in the U.S. due to GSM service now being widespread enough to justify selling it. I do not know of any future plans or patches to make the 9290 or software compatible with Windows XP."
Excuse me but XP has been out here for a while! And I'm sure the majority of 9290 users are also XP users! See What I wrote on CNET
http//computers.cnet.com/hardware/0-2709830-418-9977860.html?pn=1&lb=0&ob=1&tag=st.co.2709830.top.9977860-1
But thats not all. Here is what Voicestream told me about this phone. "Nokia finally got back to me and confirmed some of the information we
discussed. The 9290 is 1900 MHz only for North and Latin America and it
is
NOT a GPRS equipped phone whiche means that any Internet/Email access will
be via WAP at a maximum of 9.6 Kb/sec and WILL use your voice minutes."
Now those are my major problems, I have many others with this phone. The question is I have one day left to return it with a 15% restocking fee (I paid $600 USD). I'm thinking of returning it, what do you think?
Adam
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I've found the call quality quite good. The trick is to position your ear so that it is on the 5th hole, to the far right, (not the other holes, which are just aesthetic dents in the plastic!).
Incidentally the mic part is the small hole on the side under the 'Ctrl' button on the keyboard.
I do think this should have been much better designed!
Having been a pda user 4 quite some time, I have to say that the 9290 is a solid pda. When compared to other smartphones on the market at this time, I feel it is the best. I previously owned a handspring treo and I like the nokia much better. The only feature of the treo that I preferred was it's small size.
I like having the phone portion on the outside. It is very easy to use and I have had no problems with volume. In fact, the speaker phone is several times louder than the treo and the battery life eclipses that of the treo.
The only drawbacks I see are -no usb connection, -not upgradable to gprs, -and size.
I find the os easy to use and information quite easily accessable. Do I prefer the symbian os over others? Yes and No. I like it better than the ppc02(having been a former ipaq owner), but would not rule out purchasing a new palm smartphone with os5 in the future (if the form factor where as functional as the 9290).
The only other gripe that I can recall is the inability to sync docs back and forth from pc 2 handheld and the other way around. There may be a documents 2 go type program out there but I have not found it. I simply have to send docs to my mmc card via card reader and then send them back the same way.
hi
i like to buy this 9210i but at here is very
expensive
can everyone help me