N97 vs N95 — Nokia Nseries S60 5.0 phones (Nokia N97 and Nokia N97 mini)

RollerSMB 18 Sep 2009, 00:58

Hey all,

I just got an n97, update from my n95. I am soooo annoyed. I wish I could take it back, but sadly, it is my own dumb fault for assuming several of the features I loved about my n95 (released over 2 years ago) would be in, say, the n97, released several months ago. Mostly I am annoyed by the lack of a native internet tel client. The internet tel integration was what I loved most about my n95, making cheap calls through wifi. WTF. I'm not going to hand over my voip credentials to Fring or Nimbuzz, and go signing up for extra accounts, before anyone suggests that. I just want what I had in n95, built in voip. Does anyone know if this is slated for a return? If not, why have the SIP settings preset at all? And what is with the lack of a dedicated copy/paste button? or why not some combination, like sym+c/sym+v or whatnot? When I was setting up my sip settings, it would have been handy, as there was no option to copy/paste present. Tho I now realise, there's no internet tel to even use the sip settings... I was first among my friends to get the n95, now they all have one. I will make damn sure none of them make the same mistake I did with this.

So.. is any of this going to be remidified in 2.0 firmware? Have Nokia just decided the best way to crack the US market is to remove features that might annoy the carriers?

-Mike (day two, n97. gutted)

[update]
Yep, voip coming in firmware 2.0. Nokia seem to be taking the Apple route, give us a cut down phone, then 'launch' a firmware update with features that should have been there from the start. hooray. Wonder if they'll add dedicated copy/paste shortcuts..

sjdean 18 Sep 2009, 06:42

There's a term for buggy, crashing software that isn't complete.

Beta.

The version we have on the phones should be v07 not v12 or something.

Another thing that's missing, uPnP, or the ability to stream music via a media player from your PC. Or even to your PC!

celios 18 Sep 2009, 07:33

I can almost forgive the lack of IP telephony support, but the missing keyboard shortcuts suggest that in the months leading up to the N97, Nokia's development teams were otherwise engaged.

The reason for the missing shortcuts (and the fact copy/paste is only reliably available from the T9 soft-keyboard) appears to be that the just ported the 5800 firmware and didn't so much to it other than add homescreen widgets.

Check out the browser for another example - no way to navigate around the on-screen menu (the one with 12 icons - "bookmarks", "homepage", "overview"😉 using the d-pad. Again, one of the most important parts of the phone, but not optimised for a keyboard. No shortcuts for "top of page" and "bottom of page" either.

Worrying.