Despite the improvements in the N97 firmware and N97 mini HW, I just can't recommend either at the end. Nokia really shot themselves in the foot at the moment with this release:
- In the US, it's hard to convince ANYONE, especially my average friend or even my tech geek friends, to pick this over the iPhone 3GS, any Android phones, or even one of the HTC WinMo phones. All these phones provide enough working space (RAM, Flash ROM) with a really poweful CPU, and often with GPU. I would never tell my less-technical friends to go thru the pain of one of HelloOx, remember to install apps on mass memory, or search in more obscure places for useful apps since Ovi is still in horrible shape. And most of my friends also carry a dedicated GPS or have GPS built-in their car, which makes the GPS argument even less compelling. Few ppl really value the GPS once out of their car, and most ppl are not really spend alot of time in their car to justify GPS. And I rarely see ppl use the GPS features for walking/social networking/etc. Most ppl would rather pay the few extra dollars, to have peace of mind that their purchases will just work. Most readers at this point might point me to the N900 as well, but let's keep in mind that it only works at it's fullest on T-mobile, the WORST provider in the US. Even worse than an overloaded AT&T 3G network because of rabbid iPhone users.
- In any non-US region, why would any power user pick this over the Omnia HD, or for the more casual user, maybe they should probably pick the Satio. The Omnia HD is especially an example of Symbian done well. And to make things even more obscure for Nokia, it seems like their E-series is doing much better, and the N95-8GB seems to be the king of the hill still after all these years. The E-series and N95-2 all use legacy technology, but the lesson learned there is that a better overall user experience trumps functionality any day. And there are so many better phones worldwide, that makes the N97 truly out of touch with reality. So many better phones that ppl could choose from, that it sometimes makes me wish I wasn't living in the US 😉 And on top of that, I feel that iPhone wins on many accounts overseas as well, even if it has limited distribution.
Capacitive touch screens MIGHT be less accurate, according to AAS, but the responsiveness more than makes up for it, and resistive screen accuracy is only marginally better, not significantly better. At least when I played with my friends iPhones. I bought the N97 to see if not paying the iPhone tax was worth some of the deficiencies in the phone while gaining something possibly useful as an upgrade (keyboard, bigger screen, built-in massive storage). But at the end, it seems like Nokia's competitors quickly overcomes it's own deficiencies in more meaningful ways (be it a better app channel, better touch screen drivers, hw upgrade, etc., better CPU and Ram). I'm near ready to either jump ship to Verizon, or go get an E71. It seems like even the N86 is more popular and has better reviews, which makes me start wondering which device is really the flagship at the moment. Lousy product management on the N-series, obviously.
I've had the N97 phone for about a month now, and although I manage to overcome any difficulty with the phone and make it reasonably useful, the fact that I had to actually make conscious decisions and do extensive research is too much for even some wiser power users who understands that their time is often more valuable than the time spent tinkering with a semi-broken product. That, on top of the HW limits imposed, makes the bigger screen, built-in keyboard, FM transmitter, and more flash storage even more useless. Kinda a sad, considering I spent most of the year researching on a phone to replace my N95-3, only to end up with this conclusion.
And please, for all the obnoxious power users who's going to start tearing this post apart, keep this in mind - we are actually the minority here. A really TINY minority, compared to the customers that most of the manufacturers are trying to capture. And for all your criticisms about the iPhone, there's one thing that's absolutely undeniable about it now - the iPhone managed to capture the casual customer's attention and actually convince them to pay for hi-end hardware and more expensive services. and now with the iPhone 3GS with an A8-Cortext processor with more RAM, it's only a matter of time before the rather ridiculous argument about no multi-tasking (which is very untrue as well) will disappear, while other UI deficiencies can clearly be mitigated. There are some real reasons that the N97 is a failure, and not because of the slow CPU and crappy RAM. Once again, execution on product management here was squarely an F.