The Phones Show 106 just went live, now with an audio-only version (by popular demand), featuring 'Optimising the Nokia N97', plus a User Story with a very happy Nokia E55 user. There's also my review of the HTC Legend. And don't forget Phones Show Chat each week, the audio podcast where Tim Salmon and I chat about smartphones around a pint cup of coffee...
Read on in the full article.
hey steve, do you have any idea if N97/mini will be upgradable to S3?
Doubt it. AFAIK, S^3 requires higher spec hardware which does not exist in the n97 / mini. Plus all those fancy graphics may require more RAM too. That will leave lesser for the user and personally, I dont want to be facing those Out of Memory messages again.
So I have this new generation flagship smart phone and what you're saying is
- don't stay connected to the world because it sucks RAM
- don't use the homescreen because it sucks RAM
- Don't customise it to suit your personality because it sucks RAM
Oh and I also found the biggest battery saver tweak I could do was turn the screen intensity DOWN, not up to full. It still looks fine in 95% of light situations and the battery savings are huge.
Poor tips.
Bang on unregistered. This reminds me of my sys-admin guy some 5 years ago where he would insist that I should not load any customizations on my PC, keep the visual effects of windows XP down, not install any media players (i needed more for the extensions that WMP didnt support), etc because it would eat up the RAM.
Whats the use of having such a device if I am not supposed to use the features it provides? Might as well buy a 'dumb' phone.
Unregistered wrote:So I have this new generation flagship smart phone and what you're saying is- don't stay connected to the world because it sucks RAM
- don't use the homescreen because it sucks RAM
- Don't customise it to suit your personality because it sucks RAM...
Poor tips.
If you don't have any problems with your N97 then that's great. However, if you do, then some of these tips may just be what you're looking for. Whether it should be necessary to actually apply these tips is a completely separate issue; all that Steve is trying to do is help those users who are having problems get the best out of their phone...
All Steve's tips are very good, but they are ONLY tips, he's not telling you how to use the phone, just methods of helping it to run more smoothly and reliably ! I am an N97 owner, who knows ALL the tips, and comments regularly on forums, but I choose to run web based widgets on my homescreen, I choose to use 3rd party themes with theme effects running, and I know how much ram they use, and so accept the consequences (more than four sites running on Opera mobile and phone freezes, for example) and yes the phone should have had a larger C memory from launch, but it didn't, so you have to work round this and maximise what the phone has, to make it do what you want it to do. I love mine and have it set up how I want it, I use RamBlow (because Mr Litchfield recommended it).
Basically if people make the most they can of the N97, there would be more happy users and less moans, if you want every app running 24/7 it won't work, but generally mines fine, and for media and web browsing I love it.
Great work Mr Litchfield
Just loved the 'lack of quality control' comment about the Legend, having followed11 Tips on how to make your N97 barely functional.
Steve, you always claim never to be in the payroll of Nokia. You should be!
It is often difficult to save power without affecting user experience. One suggestion is to use a profile switcher like Dr. Jukka's "Profiler Scheduler", http://www.drjukka.com/ProfScheduler.html to automatically switch the phone's profile to offline at night and put it back to "General" or another online profile in the morning.
Unregistered wrote:Just loved the 'lack of quality control' comment about the Legend, having followed11 Tips on how to make your N97 barely functional.Steve, you always claim never to be in the payroll of Nokia. You should be!
Oh, give it a rest. And in what way do the 11 tips "barely make the N97 functional"? You make it sound like the N97 is totally unusable, which it clearly isn't, despite its problems...
Frankly, it is outright ridiculous seeing Steve do this optimisation feature. This is a so called flagship device, I bought it for over 400 euros, and I am supposed to need to 'optimise' it?? And this 'optimisation' means that I can't use all of the functionality it is intended to have. I constantly need to use one of the defaut themes due to low RAM, I never fit the homescreen with the widgets I really want due to low RAM, and still I can't even surf the web and listen to music at the same time, again due to low RAM. I could have lived with this device having a slow underpowered processor; that would only have been a small nuisance while flicking through menus etc. But due to it having only about 50 megs of RAM to work with, the overwhelming majority of the time spent 'using' (if you can call it that) this phone is to worry and try to not run out of RAM. Inexcusable, Nokia. And inexcusable Steve, for not mentioning it in your video review of the N97 mini. Not a single word.
Unregistered wrote:Frankly, it is outright ridiculous seeing Steve do this optimisation feature. This is a so called flagship device, I bought it for over 400 euros, and I am supposed to need to 'optimise' it?? And this 'optimisation' means that I can't use all of the functionality it is intended to have. I constantly need to use one of the defaut themes due to low RAM, I never fit the homescreen with the widgets I really want due to low RAM, and still I can't even surf the web and listen to music at the same time, again due to low RAM. I could have lived with this device having a slow underpowered processor; that would only have been a small nuisance while flicking through menus etc. But due to it having only about 50 megs of RAM to work with, the overwhelming majority of the time spent 'using' (if you can call it that) this phone is to worry and try to not run out of RAM. Inexcusable, Nokia. And inexcusable Steve, for not mentioning it in your video review of the N97 mini. Not a single word.
Steve has mentioned that plenty before. My iPhone needs optimising. I frequently have to switch off Notifications, Location and 3G so that I don't run out of battery needed for normal calls. There are millions blog and web pages dedicated to iPhone battery optimisation, as well as a number of (very popular) downloadable 3rd party apps to help with iPhone battery life.
But the question that begs to be asked is: WHY did you spend over 400 euros on a phone that you have all of these complaints about ? Duh!
"Frankly, it is outright ridiculous seeing Steve do this optimisation feature. This is a so called flagship device, I bought it for over 400 euros, and I am supposed to need to 'optimise' it?? And this 'optimisation' means that I can't use all of the functionality it is intended to have. I constantly need to use one of the defaut themes due to low RAM, I never fit the homescreen with the widgets I really want due to low RAM, and still I can't even surf the web and listen to music at the same time, again due to low RAM. I could have lived with this device having a slow underpowered processor; that would only have been a small nuisance while flicking through menus etc. But due to it having only about 50 megs of RAM to work with, the overwhelming majority of the time spent 'using' (if you can call it that) this phone is to worry and try to not run out of RAM. Inexcusable, Nokia. And inexcusable Steve, for not mentioning it in your video review of the N97 mini. Not a single word. "
Why do some people find it so hard to appreciate what Steve was attempting to do? Presumably it's sheer stupidity...
Steve was making no apologies for the bad choices made by Nokia, and has roundly criticised them in the past for having made such mistakes. However, what Steve was attempting to do was help those N97 users having problems get the best out of their devices; is that too hard a concept for you to grasp? Apparently it is...
"Why do some people find it so hard to appreciate what Steve was attempting to do? Presumably it's sheer stupidity...
Steve was making no apologies for the bad choices made by Nokia, and has roundly criticised them in the past for having made such mistakes. However, what Steve was attempting to do was help those N97 users having problems get the best out of their devices; is that too hard a concept for you to grasp? Apparently it is..."
I wrote the post you replied to. And I admit that I let my frustration over the N97s faults and over Nokia go a little bit too far. My critique is not at all against Steve. He does a great job with the Phones Show. And I know that, depending on how you use a phone, you come across different kinds and amounts of limitations. Steve may not have come across the same limitations as I have, and thus, is not as frustrated with his user experience. However, I am still of the opinion that the mere fact that there is a NEED for Steve to do this feature, is ridiculous. And the one to blame for that is Nokia. In the case of the N97, they have totally and utterly failed to produce a phone that is capable to function for EVERY potential user without severe compromises in functionality.
And please, let the attacks on personality be, that is just a sign of a lack of sound arguments.
Wow! that absolutely true and I totally agree to you opinion...optimizing a Nokia phone is truly an amazing thing to do.I can well understand this idea because modifying things I find it a really interesting job.