Nokia N97/N97 mini: part 2 - The OS, The Interface, The Apps

Just one important question, I haven't been able to read a single info about this everywhere, hope you could shed some light..

Thus N97 Mini have N-Gage Client?😃

i want to trade-in my n97 for e72, nokia, are you listening?

Hi Steve, nice review as always, but only out of interest, I would buy neither phone.

I think the screen-scratch issue is much more significant than you give credit to in the review. I suspect it's quite easy to go from a very attractive screen on the day of purchase to a scratched-up joyless and annoying phone within a few months, and given the purchase price (or contract lock-in period) I think this should not be ignored. By way of example, I loved my 5800 intially, but it got a very small scratch near the bottom of the screen because I accidentally put it in my coat pocket with my keys (I realised immediately, and took it out, but too late). I found the scratch extremely distracting and it really ruined the enjoyment of the phone for me, so I had to give it to the missus. She is a serial abuser of phones, and the display is now properly trashed.

Other Nokias (esp. E series) would brush off such knocks - I remember your article on the N82 after you took a tumble with it - fancy repeating it with your N97 mini? My E90 outer screen gets scratched occasionally - I use T-Cut to restore it, when it gets too thin (!!) I will buy a new set of covers for it from ebay. These options are not available with touchscreen phones. The N90 (still one of the best phones ever) could have the whole front and back covers replaced for a couple of pounds, oh happy days!!! And please don't mention cases, I want something I can use not cosset.

So please, review readers, consider the life of the phone, not just day one.

I wonder if Nokia's forthcoming capacitive touch (and presumably glass fronted) phones are an acknowledgement of this problem??

>>Thus N97 Mini have N-Gage Client?😃

Not by default. I guess I could search for the N97 client and pop that on. But I'm guessing that Nokia has already started dialling back on N-Gage.

>>I think the screen-scratch issue is much more significant than you give credit to in the review. I suspect it's quite easy to go from a very attractive screen on the day of purchase to a scratched-up joyless and annoying phone within a few months

Absolutely. And it's this that keeps me eyeing up the E75 and N86 and other phones on my desk..... Going touch is a huge compromise in many ways. Tough choice!

>>I wonder if Nokia's forthcoming capacitive touch (and presumably glass fronted) phones are an acknowledgement of this problem??

Probably them just catching up with current trends? But yes, a glass front would be more robust.

I wanted to switch to a N97 when the N97 mini is released locally because of the price drop it will receive but I am not so sure any more. The biggest worry I have now in switching to the N97 is whether Nokia will slip into a 5800 software update situation with it: Now that the newer model is out and it has most of the major problems fixed the N97 becomes forgotten when it comes to software updates with only minor bug fixes being released. I don't want to be stuck with another s60v5 phone that gets left behind when the simplest of software updates could make my experience with it so much better.

Maybe I am just sour because my trusty old 5800 does not seem as flashy as it once did 😊

Nokia have done the 5800 proud with updates, they have got to V31 already. How many Nokia phones have had more? It is only natural that when a phone is finished attention is turned to younger models.

The 5800 screen (and therefore the other Nokia resistive screens) is not as resistant to scratching as harder material BUT I have scratched my 5800 screen quite deeply and simply polished the scratch out in a few minutes. Other lighter scratches were polished out just by pocketing the thing.

Harder screen materials, should they suffer a scratch would be much more difficult to correct in this mannner, and capacitive screens are vulnerable to crack when suffering an impact, the resistive ones stand up to impacts much better.

So there are many pluses to resistive that people overlook because only superficial things seem to matter to anyone.

The forthcoming capacitive models such as the X6 will suffer with gloved use and for stylus handwriting input. Shame, I hope Nokia continue to make resistive models because their benefits far outweigh the lightweight stuff for me. And for millions who communicate in asian languages.

Why the hell do you use a non-standard theme in a review. First of all the theme is ugly and second of al it doesn't give the reader a good impression of the looks of the interface.
If I would have to believe that this is what I get when I buy it I would directly pass....

Steve

I own a N97 (bought in the second half of October directly on Nokia shop) and I am a little surprised about your opinion on the GPS. You said that it can be only used occasionally because of a poor sensitivity. I use it regularly as a car unit and I think it has a good sensitiveness also when you are in city areas. With Garmin XT it works much better than the N95 that I used a lot for two years. What really stunned me is that the unit feels immediately the changes of direction (it is not due to the digital compass because GMXT does not use it). Consider also that my car has shielded windscreen. The cold lock (without AGPS) takes you few minutes (inside a car moving) but the warm lock is a matter of 1 or 2 seconds at maximum. To conclude, I am very happy.

I have the doubt that you own a pre-production unit (or a very early one) and this could have a different chipset or a not perfectly working one.

Ciao
Umberto

Umberto,
The early N97 batches had a fault/problem with GPS but it has been corrected and Nokia fix earlier ones for free. The N95 had the GPS receiver antenna under the keypad, hence the problems it had with getting a fix.

Before I switched to the N86, my N95 could get a lock very quickly on V30 firmware.

The N86 has a lovely strong glass front, and I'm really glad I bought it rather than the N97, after hearing the horror stories. Yesterday I bought an iphone, and was surprised at how responsive the capacitive screen was, and robust. I'd sooner see Nokia do this kind of screen.

Really enjoying this series Steve

I think you still have a small internal confliction 😃 over features required for regular users and geekzoids. When talking about RAM and indeed the C: issue (most relv to N97) you have said frequently that it should only be an issue for power users, I think actually it's poossibly the other way round. Non sophisticated users will just load up programmes where they default to (a la Windoze) and will not know/bother to select mass memory so by using the Ovi store that they're being heavily prompted to do they could possibly cripple/slow down their handset and even in new V20 land if you pull down all the extras (ex)Ngage (new)maps etc. it takes quite a heavy toll of even the new improved C:. Regular users WANT to download stuff now, they've seen it on the TV/their mate's iPhone etc. , what do you think they're going to feel when it naffs their handset? Ditto for RAM they're not going to close down progs regularly (I know no OS can support infinite ammounts of open progs) and the ones they're likely to open concurrently are pretty heavy on RAM - music/messaging/fring/gravity/maps and the Accuweather widget (cos it's cool right) and Facebook widget especially as they still form major part of Nokia's ads. Without my phone back from shop I can't test but I reckon the phone will struggle and most users won't understand and will revert to non-multitasking which takes away one of the major plus points of Symbian vs OSX. Again it's back to the - it's just gotta work out the box and not need tinkering. Esentially if one removes all active widgets off the homescreen and fills it with application shortcuts then (with the exception of mail) then you're just replicating an iPhone screen but with only one panel.

Talking of multiple programmes running why is the option to close/kill running progs hidden at the bottom of the options list which requires a scroll?- batty and ditto for the green tick on the Alpha-numeric keypad - again batty because it's a really nice feature the iPhone doesn't have and they go and make it very awkward to use - insane. In the same area why when using the"*" to scroll punctuation options in T9 does it end up changing the whole word (yes I've worked out need to get word out of edit mode) again loopy and why does it sometimes switch out of T9 when you've selected a special character. It all adds up to a really uncomfortable experience.

Symbian may well be the most feature rich system but the problem is only you tech heads understand how to use them especially once they're buried in obscure menus (even filemanger) see connectivity options and priorities no normal users can figure them out (see Q's on Nokia's own support forums) there are to many different menus involved with settings scattered around (vs the simplicity of the iPhone conection manager). Feature rich it may be but most users just don't care they want to be able to access the wifi point in Starbucks. At the end the features are a boon to the geek community and pretty irrelevant/too complicated for most users the lack of power is worked around by the geeks and frustrates/confounds regular users.

So the symbian stack can do on CPU telephony processing - who cares get a seperate proccy to do it, silicon is cheap these days so arm your devices with proper hardware and stop tinkering with core OS to squeeze it in. Then use the saved time to make an interface humans can understand. Geeks (power users) are willing to adapt their beahviour to work with the device most users aren't.

Unregistered wrote:Why the hell do you use a non-standard theme in a review. First of all the theme is ugly and second of al it doesn't give the reader a good impression of the looks of the interface.
If I would have to believe that this is what I get when I buy it I would directly pass....

+1

Yes, please, always use standard themes on reviews!!

- 1

I can see the point that reviews should show default themes (personally I quite like the SEE theme, one of the few signs of life I can detect) but no need for rudeness.

Soz for off topic

Thanks Steve for this great review!

I really like the N97 mini and a thought about leaving my iPhone 3G 16GB is rising in my mind...

I like my iPhone, but I do miss the freedom of doing things "my on way" and not "the Apple way" (coming from a Psion Series3, then Series5, then MC219, then some Palms & Treos you know what I mean...)

Two concerns remain:
- is the web experience on the N97 mini on pair with the iPhone (the iPhone really is the first phone device where I can browse the web and don't miss a real computer too much...)?
- is the N97 mini screen as scratch resistant as the iPhone one (I've only seen the screen of the N97 and it seems not as resistant as the glass one o the iPhone...)

Thanks & Ciao!

Sergio

Steve..

Thanks for the review, this helped a lot when it came to choosing a handset and I am thrilled with the N97 Mini.

I have one question however, how on earth can you get the calendar widget (on the home screen) to display the next three entries? mine just says "Next entry on Sun 22/11".

If I go into options on that widget all I can do is remove it or change the wall paper.

Many thanks in advance.
-Peter

What is the theme used here?

It looks like the board game Pictureka?

Hi Steve,

Just to follow up the question from Peter,

how on earth can you get the calendar widget (on the home screen) to display the next three entries? mine just says "Next entry on Sun 22/11".

thanks,
Pante