Give two very articulate and S60-experienced phone reviewers the same device and they'll come to roughly the same conclusions, right? Wrong. Showing yet again that the Nokia N97 seems to polarise opinion, we have Karri Ojanen, concluding that the N97 is well worth perserving with and who seems enamoured of most aspects of the device, and Johnny Bruha, who found the N97 lacking in so many areas during his extended test period that the device ended up in the bin. Both reviews are well worth reading over a glass of wine this evening and I guarantee you'll nod your head in agreement with both, somewhat paradoxically!
Read on in the full article.
I realize Nokia needs to continue producing smartphones but the N97 is a stop gap device, one foot in the old world, one in the new (UI wise).
S60 v5 is to Symbian what 6.5 is to WM, a stop on the road to a new destination.
While I really wanted to replace my N95 with the N97 the lack of state of the art hardware specs and less than perfect touch software platform leads me to look at the N86 if I want to stay with the same form factor or await the E72 if I want to change form factors and see increased hardware performance.
I actually consider S60v5's touch implementation in the N97 to be even less than wmp6.1 as finger scrolling isn't even going in the right direction. But the 5530 at least gets that part right. But it still lacks the numerous small graphical changes MS made thru out in 6.5.
The S60 v5 is a half-assed attempt for a finger touch system. Time to restart from scratch before it's too late.
I wanted to replace my N95 8gb with the N97 but the hardware specs are ofull , it shuld be like Samsung jet with 800 MHz processor !!!
I will give my own example. I had no reason whatsoever to get excited by the new devices coming out of Nokia stable since I had my N82 and was pretty happy to wait for E72. But then I lost my phone and I had to immediately purchase a new phone. N97 was available and by God's grace, am earning this much that I can afford that phone any given day.
But I did not find a single person in my vicinity going gung ho on the phone and all the reviews were hot and cold.
I swear had I know HTC hero was coming out, I would have ditched my nokia loyalty and gone ahead and bought that but that't not going to be available in India soon,
So after much consideration I bought N79 and very happy that I bought this little nifty phone.
Seriously speaking, specs wise, I am not missing much from any of the newer crop.
Nokia failed to excite me with it's flagship device and this is what saddened me, a loyal customer of yours don;t see enough value for the bucks you are putting it in the market.
im so glad i chose to buy the n86 instead of the n97 in the end... n86 seems to only receive positive comments (apart form the lack of xenon) whereas the n97 is very very mixed
Haven't read it yet, but I really hope that one of them didn't end up "in the bin". An N97 is clearly 'WEEE' waste and should be disposed-of correctly.
I'm in for the duration now. Nokia have had my �500 so hope they can deliver on the firmware updates. Can't afford to switch devices and N97's are going for around �350 on ebay now!!!
On the whole my N97 isn't too bad. Put some film on the camera lens so no scratches, got screen protectors etc. Usually works fine, but sometimes locks up when I really need it and frustrating doing a restart (Nearly threw it at the wall yesterday).
Wish Nokia would pull their finger out, been loyal to them for several years since the N70 days.
Keyboard isn't too bad now I'm used to it. Copy and paste can be a nightmare of dexterity though.
Do you think Nokia ever read user reviews posed here and elsewhere or are they looking down on us from their corporate towers and sneering?
Berty wrote:Keyboard isn't too bad now I'm used to it. Copy and paste can be a nightmare of dexterity though.
You do wonder if anyone actually tried to copy and paste using the N97 keyboard before it was sold to end users?
That and the strange absence of copy and paste on the menu unless you are using the on screen keyboard... come back pencil key, all is forgiven! 😮
Thanks for giving good information.pass4sure
question about the N97 and s60 v5. The impression I get is that most of the criticism of the N97 is levelled against it's touch interface. One thing you can count on is the phone will receive plenty of firmware updates - but will these all be optimisations of the s60 interface? What chance that the N97 will get an update to the Symbian Foundations first release? Carphone Warehouse are listing the Sony Ericsson Satio (?) as coming in October (however optimistic) which should be running the Foundation OS - it can't be that far off and hopefully better equipped for competing with the Palms, Android and iPhones of this summer?
The positive reviewer likes Nokia brand more the phone itself. He himself admits the slow performance and other issues with the phone. I think his love of the brand is understandable since he grew up in Helsinki! It looks to me he trying hard to defend the flagship of his beloved brand.
What chance that the N97 will get an update to the Symbian Foundations first release?
Not even a glimmer of a chance. I am a loyal Symbian fan and a long time Nokia User but I really hate Nokia's policies on this. They let the device die so they can launch another one.
They cut off the app supply for s60v2, they killed the N93, N82 never got the UI transitions, 5800 is going to die without the widget screen and N97 will definately die without ever getting the Symbian Foundation OS.
I thought the N97 was already running what will become Symbian^1. Looking at the roadmap for Symbian ^2, most of that seems to be already there too, at least in terms of headline features that are mentioned in the PDF. There should definitely be some guidance from the foundation for developers on what this all means for current and future device releases though. Quite rightly, this all feels a little up in the air at the moment.
What this all means in terms of SEMC's 'first symbian foundation platform device' is also not clear to me. Likewise, the Samsung devices.
I was a Nokia fan. I always had Nokia phone Lately I notice Nokia products have poor quality. My N70 battery started to bulge and Nokia said I needed to purchase a new battery. My new replacement head set is not working properly after 3 months.
I told them if Nokia can no longer maintain good quality on their mobile phones. they should go back making rubber boots.
The N97 is a good complete functional package but the form factor is too large and not portable.