A fresh look at the Nokia N97

Very good review. Very impartial and comprehensive.

Most of us are aware that the jury has returned a verdict of not good enough on the N97, but it's nice to read an opinion in perspective, instead of the usual exaggerated vitriol. Particularly this:

"S60 5th Edition, which the N97 runs on, has been criticised for being outdated, and having a touch interface bodged on top. However, 5th Edition is logically laid out and it's not too complicated to find anything."

Which is absolutely true.

By the way, my iPhone needs two taps for some things. What's the big deal? Can't people cope with two taps?

I don't think people have a problem tapping twice, and if you had to tap everything twice, no issue at all. But 5th Ed is littered with examples of sometimes its once, other times twice. Messy.

But the real point about this device is simply summed up here

"For example, it is actually impossible to have Ovi Maps, Spotify and Qt (needed for other applications) all installed on the N97 at once"

How could an enthusiast buy this having read that line?

Kev

The N97Mini doesn't have the C: drive problem.

Good review of the N97.
I suspect I am not alone in having looked at the N97 and N97 Mini from an 'E Series' perspective, and been slightly disappointed that one or two features are missing. Given that the devices are fairly well suited to document editing, it is a pity that you have to buy upgraded software to do it. And no support for printing documents or emails - I have found that occasionally useful, and even an impressively cool thing to be able to do!
Perhaps Nokia are over zealous in trying to preserve the distinction between E and N series. Or maybe Nokia are planning an E series equivalent of the N97 (mini), as it the obvious hole in the E series range.

P.S. I think the headphone socket is probably in the right place, as often you would want the device n your pocket, whilst you listen to music.

Just 2 comments:

1) The C:\ issue is beaten to death but I have installed Nokia Messaging, Nokia Maps 3.04 (beta), Java 2.0 Runtime, Nokia Bots, Ovi Store, Swim and I have 25.7mbs free. I'm just surprised you can't get the 3 apps into c:\.

2) Video editing is available in the "Photos" app, where videos can be altered by: 1) Changing the background sound track, 2&3) edit / cut 4) insert text. While not an effecient video editor, it is usable if you take the effort to learn how to use it and you don't mind fiddling for a while. I've made a few edited videos and all viewers are generally shocked they were filmed and edited on a phone.

100% agree the N97 is for geeks given the stability and tweaks required to get this thing working. But when it isn't freezing or causing me to reset this ... the phone is still amazing.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

yitwave, quite right regarding the video editor. I was miss-footed by trying to find video editing options while the video was playing, not in the actual gallery view. So I looked again after reading your comment and found the editing options. I've updated the review now, sorry about that folks!

I will just add now that I'm not writing quite so formally about the phone, is that while its stability drives me up the wall, I have absolutely loved having it, and it will be sorely missed when it goes back to London.

The N97 exceeds the sum of its bugs!

So David, will you swap your legendary E90 for an N97?

pintofale wrote:So David, will you swap your legendary E90 for an N97?

Well, I'm not fortunate enough to have an E90, my own phone is an E55. However, I am giving serious thought to finding an N97 or N97Mini on Ebay, after having had this N97.

Ah Queens Gardens in the centre of Hull.

Not a bad shot from the N97 to be honest.

Now I am really torn. Last night I had decided to replace my old and flaky N73 with an N97. Now I read your article I cannot pretend I dont know what to expect.
To be honest the reason I have stuck with the N73 so long is that it does what I want. I use Google maps for Nav, Google mail, Google reader,Google voice search and MobiReader for downloaded books. And I'm happy (apart from when the camera freezes). I read on other threads of the N97 having problems with these Google apps as well.
What a pity Nokia spoiled the N97 from being my best friend for a good few years.
I suppose it is over to Android thereby ending a long journey that began with the Nokia 7650.

I forgot the thank you for the useful review in my earlier post - many thanks.
Surely it wouldn't be too difficult, especially now that Symbian is open-source, to create a kind of C drive swap file which resides on E, and therefore offers extended storage? Does anyone with Symbian development experience have an opinion on this?

pintofale wrote:I forgot the thank you for the useful review in my earlier post - many thanks.
Surely it wouldn't be too difficult, especially now that Symbian is open-source, to create a kind of C drive swap file which resides on E, and therefore offers extended storage? Does anyone with Symbian development experience have an opinion on this?

That's an interesting idea, and assuming that there are no showstopping gotchas, why not have an applications installed C: drive area written out to the memory card when the app is not in use, freeing that space for in-use apps. When the original app is needed the data is written back in before running.

When you think about it, this amounts to having the .sisx for the app on the E: drive, and installing it just before use, but a bit quicker this way.

I'll have a little go at this tonight. It won't help with apps that need to run at the same time, but might save some installed space if you are selective about which apps.

davidgilson wrote:Well, I'm not fortunate enough to have an E90, my own phone is an E55. However, I am giving serious thought to finding an N97 or N97Mini on Ebay, after having had this N97.

Ebay pricing for used Nokia phones aren't that great. Often they're priced at or above what you'd find for new devices on Amazon, Newegg or Dell.

michaelwaite wrote:Now I am really torn. Last night I had decided to replace my old and flaky N73 with an N97. Now I read your article I cannot pretend I dont know what to expect.
To be honest the reason I have stuck with the N73 so long is that it does what I want. I use Google maps for Nav, Google mail, Google reader,Google voice search and MobiReader for downloaded books. And I'm happy (apart from when the camera freezes). I read on other threads of the N97 having problems with these Google apps as well.
What a pity Nokia spoiled the N97 from being my best friend for a good few years.
I suppose it is over to Android thereby ending a long journey that began with the Nokia 7650.

I haven't used most of the Google apps on the N97. Maps and Mail work fine. Although a lot of the time I access Mail, Reader & Docs via their mobile sites on Opera, and that works incredibly well. In fact, I've all but replaced using the built-in mail application on the N97 with the GMail mobile website.

If I get time I'll test the Google Voice search on this N97 and report back, so subscribe to the thread, okay?

Unregistered wrote:Ebay pricing for used Nokia phones aren't that great. Often they're priced at or above what you'd find for new devices on Amazon, Newegg or Dell.

Yes, the prices aren't great. I've seen an N97 Mini go for �240, which is a bit more than I'd prefer to pay for a used phone. MobileFun charges �360 for a new one, so it's only a 33% depreciation.

sashford wrote:Good review of the N97.
P.S. I think the headphone socket is probably in the right place, as often you would want the device n your pocket, whilst you listen to music.

Yes, I'll take that point. I supposed from a designers point of view, they can't do right for doing wrong. For me, I'd never walk around wearing earphones, as if I'm moving around, I want to hear my surroundings. So I'll likely only use earphones while I'm watching a video, and thus holding the device in landscape.

But yes, I can see how you might prefer it on top if you're using it as a walkman.

pintofale wrote:I forgot the thank you for the useful review in my earlier post - many thanks.

Hey, you're welcome 😊

Arcade wrote:Very good review. Very impartial and comprehensive.

Thank you 😊

ecotrojan wrote:Ah Queens Gardens in the centre of Hull.

Not a bad shot from the N97 to be honest.

You know the place? I haven't bumped into you in Hull City Centre have I? 😊

Hi, really good review, can't argue with it. love mine (despite all the hard work, so I must be a geek !) Google voice search works fine, as do all the google apps I've installed, and I tend to use Opera mini and Snaptu as my main two homescreen shortcuts, plus run the Nokia Beta Labs social messaging widget for FB and Twitter on my homescreen with no problems. Also remove share location stuff from maps and you get about 3meg of C back 😊

pintofale wrote:I forgot the thank you for the useful review in my earlier post - many thanks.
Surely it wouldn't be too difficult, especially now that Symbian is open-source, to create a kind of C drive swap file which resides on E, and therefore offers extended storage? Does anyone with Symbian development experience have an opinion on this?

This has been brought up before and people have said it is theoretically impossible due to something about the c: being a nand disk and the e: being a flash disk. Now that we see so much of Z: (around 30mb) is free even on the latest firnwares, cant they not repartition the z: and c: drives? 30 more mb on c: will make ALL the difference for non-technical users.

Will admit is takes abit of tweaking to optimise the n97 but it works flawlessly when it is to my liking 😛

"The N97's killer hardware feature is of course the hinge mechanism..."

This says it all.

Why, why, WHY don't people mention the utterly broken and virtually unusable predictive text nightmare?! WHY?!?!

Oh and can anyone tell me how to CHANGE a favorite contact once they've been set in the homescreen widget? Without deleting the contact?

widehead wrote:Oh and can anyone tell me how to CHANGE a favorite contact once they've been set in the homescreen widget? Without deleting the contact?

malerocks wrote:Go to your phone book (contacts app). Your favourite contacts will be at the top of the list. Choose one of them, select options, select remove from favourites. Voila! you are done. This automatically updates the favourite contacts widget as well.

Thanks. So weird. I had to do a factory settings reset. Before that there were no "stars" by my contacts to indicate that they were my favorites. Beeeezarre!

I just can't stop trying to give this phone a go. If only I could fix the predictive-punctuation thing. Doesn't anyone else have this trouble?

widehead wrote:I just can't stop trying to give this phone a go. If only I could fix the predictive-punctuation thing. Doesn't anyone else have this trouble?

One way out for this is you could try custom dictionary from beta labs

malerocks wrote: One way out for this is you could try custom dictionary from beta labs

Does that fix punctuation?

Reading some of the comments, I have found myself all of the above.

The N97 underperformed and was an out and out dud. Cannot believe suddenly there are comments stating that this phone is actually very good if you can optimise it and essentially having to make sacrifices. Nokia slipped up very badly with this phone with the tuppence spent on Ram and poor C Drive, so please don't give Nokia any ideas that might make them think it was all ok in the end, so as not to ever release anything so sub standard again. For most, even geeks, it was a bad experience.

Working for a Telco, I know we have had more returns for the N97 by a country mile, than any other phone in our portfolio, so for god sakes you lot, get real and do not big up a phone that should never have gone to Market in it's 'very below performance' factor.

@davidgilson I have enjoyed your couple of long features and in this case it`s good to get a fresh perspective on what has become a fairly heated subject ( I myself sit firmly in the "victim" of N97 camp).

I would like to know though if you've had many experiences using phones outside of Nokia/Symbian? I only ask because I would love to get your feedback of the N97 when used against the iPhone (which is how touch should be done in terms of finished product) it's that although I understand the iPhone isn't for everyone (physical formfactor or Nanny State OS) but that once you can feel it's rounded completeness of both Physical and OS ergonomics it makes you realise how actually poor things like the N97 or Windows Mobile are - yes they're customisable but they're horrid to use.

Lots of people have confused articles of how to make the N97 work better for you or reasonably candid assessments like yours as support for the N97 and I think because so many feel badly let down by Nokia and had up to half a year of software hell (which is just not what you sign up for in a phone) that they can't see any positives in it. I have to say I struggle myself but I can give it the form factor although I do think it could have been slimmer (Moto Milestone) and the camera which is OK but does suffer "flash flood" even without scratches which is not so good.

There really aren't many day to day tasks that my girlfriend's iPhone 3GS doesn't comprehensively beat my N97 at; Videos (quality), Gaming, Messaging (email client and threaded SMS, Calendar ease, GPS lock (Ovi maps isn't bad but it does lag quite often for me when in car and quite regularly gives instructions 15secs too late and my position is often wandering) even the Camera on the N97 which is better isn't by much and I'm impressed by the tone on the iPhone and finally when I see the typing speed some can achieve on the iPhone with their fantastic software keyboard even the N97's vaunted form factor looks a bit pointless (I actually do prefer composing long messages and docs on it because you get a better feeling for the look of a whole doc).

So I think one needs to ask was the N97 worth it relative to the equivalent cost handsets at the time? and it has to be a resounding no from me. Is it worth picking up for 200 quid on ebay - possibly if you are willing to invest a lot of time in it to keep it running but as you pick up on this is so a phone for the geek not the mass market consumer and as for buying one new now for more than 350 pounds I just can't see why anyone would not with all the alternatives available that just work so much better and even when they don't are so much more pleasant and therefore fun to use.