Im Back

Its funny how so many of us on here end up back with the N97 or N95 after flirting with other phones.

For me it was the HTC Desire, brilliant in every way, aside from its camera/video recording, and pathetic battery life.

Since then i've been using my N95, which is annoying me so much its unreal, barely touch it because i find it so frustrating, the N97 is much better (there you go, i said it out loud)

i've been holding out for the N8 since, nothing out there seems to compare, the hardware is too good to ignore. Do i care if Symbian^3 looks like older versions? not really, doesn't bother me, i'll get a nice theme to overlay.

What is important is if it 'works' out of the box, and i'm convinced that Nokia are going to make sure it does this time round. If there were not, they would have released a half-baked phone on the same day as the Iphone 4 (can anyone remember which half-baked phone was released same day as the 3GS?!?!

So i'm going to give it another go. 12MP and Xenon flash, FM transmitter, HD recording, USB OTG and HDMI out are too good to ignore.

Another thing. Apps are rubbish. There, i said that as well. 99% are utter rubbish, for people with too much time on their hands. Within a week of owning the Desire, I realised that long term i use my phone for the following -

- Phone calls
- texts
- Surf net
- Photos
- Videos

After you've spent a week downloading Apps, you'll be bored. I was.

i'll get my coat......

I found some genuinely good apps on Android, like a Full and official Last.fm client, Twitter, Facebook, GPS Testers, SportsTracking apps that can upload online, an official IMDb client, Calorie Counter and a Barcode Scanner that actually works.

How many times have you been there with Point and Find screaming "come on you &^&�&^". Google Goggles is absolutely amazing - point it at a book cover, and it does some funky image/text recognitition and presents you search results.

It found a guiness logo on a pint glass the other day.

Pathetically though, you cannot update firmware on Android without wiping your memory, apps and all there's no OS hooks to Bluetooth GPS receivers which would have given me a respite on the GPS issue, there's no ToDo like Symbian, and you need programs like Advanced Task Killer to kill programs in memory.

But the N97 is sooooo mind numbingly slow.

Read this thread with interest, as I'm looking for a phone with all ( or nearly all ) the features that the N97 offers, but there is not much out there! If ONLY it had worked , and worked well, there really would NOT be any other device out there to rival it.

Looks like I'll be holding out for the N9 / E7, looks like that will tick all the boxes - but like you, don't want to be rushing out there on launch day, will give it a few months for it to settle down.

Was looking at the Galaxy S - super list of specs, but was is that bad?

Don't get me wrong, Galaxy S is absolutely fantastic and is a breath of fresh air. Fast, responsive, snappy. Swype is great too - an excellent method of text entry.

But if you rely on GPS for sports tracking, then it may not be the phone for you just yet. There are rumours that flashing to a leaked firmware may resolve the issue, but it's a big risk.

Android does though have the problems that if you do upgrade the firmware, you lost your installed Apps and have to reinstall them.

It also cannot use Bluetooth GPS Receivers, and it is only just recently in FroYo, that we get the ability to install Apps to SD card and do Bluetooth Voice Dialling.

You can get ToDo programs though, but as they're not part of the native firmware, again, you lose your todo notes upon phone flashing.

heh, dude, maybe you can wait a bit longer and get the N8, or wait for the rumored N8-1 with hardware keyboard

I'm currently debating whether to get a Desire, Galaxy S or possibly N900. Looking at the Samsung, it has an amazing screen, DivX out of the box, slightly improved processor and better internal memory than the Desire. However, it does feel plasticky and cheap, and I'm extremely wary of whether Samsung will release Froyo (2.2) in the near future (or at all). For me, a full flash browser is something I'd want if I upgraded, and on Android that would require Froyo.

The grass is always greener on the other side. After I got my N97, I saw that other smartphones have features and functionality that I would have liked on the N97. However, there was always something about the N97 that the other devices do not have. I could have picked any smartphone and liked what I had, but wished it had something that some other smartphone had.

Right now I have my N97 for personal use and Blackberry Tour for work use. I certainly do wish there was some device that combined the best features of both phones without the deficiencies of each. I figured that I would never be satisfied no matter what device I had.

spirit44 wrote:Its funny how so many of us on here end up back with the N97 or N95 after flirting with other phones.

For me it was the HTC Desire, brilliant in every way, aside from its camera/video recording, and pathetic battery life.

My story is similar to yours, but I am staying with the HTC Desire.

I have been playing with rooted custom FroYo ROMs, for about a month, and most of the previous issues are gone. Able to install most apps2SD (90MB free internal memory with 40 apps installed), 720P HD Video Recording, JIT compiler for speed, 90000 apps to choose from, good battery life (2% charge loss per hour on standby - with widgets online and scheduled email sync all enabled).
The Hong Kong Sense 2.2 Froyo Desire ROM was leaked online yesterday (rooted) and it appears 100% bug-free, so the official UK OTA can't be far away.

Nokia's got some catching up to do with their forthcoming Symbian ^3 and Meego handsets...

thought I might join this conversation - after being on the boat with Maemo (N900), I found it is a great device and very flexible, very fun to play with (tinkering toy), but its my UMPC replacement rather than a phone. Friend was selling a N97 Mini but I thought about changing over for another symbian with slightly better hardware - the SE Vivaz.

Unfortunately though, in the few weeks, I have come to a realisation that I do miss my N97/95 from days of old. I miss my N95's keypad (where I can just dial and use it as a phone). I miss my N97 because damn Nokia gave so much support for it. How does this different from Vivaz? I cant run Nokia stuff on Vivaz and "miss out" on some good apps that Nokia offers (Maps, Ovi Software etc). Not to mention the added capabilities that Nokia throws in on good faith (eg. Kinetic scrolling) as well as some of the other less-thought about capabilities such as Voice dialing, FM transmitter etc.

The market is in such a disarray at the moment with phones - I am not sure what I'd select over the current offerings. The iphoney 4 with the antenna issues, the upcoming release of the N8/9, the zoo of Android offerings etc.

To add to this discussion, I don't have to think about giving up my N97 for about another 12 months, but apart from all the good stuff (like free Navigation) that Nokia gives, so far Gravity only runs on Symbian and that's a brilliant app.

Now given this, do you think these brilliant apps are going to win users over the "cool" UI experience that other phone operating systems (IOS, Android) give?

I'm hoping in the year or so I have before worrying about a phone upgrade the various players will sort things out a bit more so that either some "must have" apps are available (or very similar are available) on other platforms or that Symbian sort out their UI short fall.

Regards
Neil

bchliu wrote:thought I might join this conversation - after being on the boat with Maemo (N900), I found it is a great device and very flexible, very fun to play with (tinkering toy), but its my UMPC replacement rather than a phone. Friend was selling a N97 Mini but I thought about changing over for another symbian with slightly better hardware - the SE Vivaz.

I currently own an N97 and was considering replacing it with a Desire or N900. In the end I've decided to go with the N900, as it adds several functionalities (e.g. full flash browser, open OS, DivX player, multiple homescreens) while losing only a few (e.g. full portrait mode, Google Maps).

I'll see how I get on with the N900 - I suspect I'll still use the N97 occasionally, as I have a few good apps, such as Viewranger, which allows GPS navigation with Ordnance Survey and Open Street/Cycle maps. Whether the lack of portrait mode on the N900 is made up for by the relative speed and smoothness of the interface, I'll have to wait and see.

If you have any insights into the above, please share!

jamessmith01 wrote:I currently own an N97 and was considering replacing it with a Desire or N900. In the end I've decided to go with the N900, as it adds several functionalities (e.g. full flash browser, open OS, DivX player, multiple homescreens) while losing only a few (e.g. full portrait mode, Google Maps).

I had a free 2 week trial of an N900 from Nokia, and to be honest the software support (or lack of) ruined the experience for me. (No MMS support, No voice-guided sat-nav in the very old version of MAPs that's pre-installed and not upgradable, flaky Flash support, etc.).

I own an HTC Desire at present, and have a leaked HTC test Froyo 2.2 ROM installed, and it rocks!!!

dez_borders wrote:I had a free 2 week trial of an N900 from Nokia, and to be honest the software support (or lack of) ruined the experience for me. (No MMS support, No voice-guided sat-nav in the very old version of MAPs that's pre-installed and not upgradable, flaky Flash support, etc.).

I own an HTC Desire at present, and have a leaked HTC test Froyo 2.2 ROM installed, and it rocks!!!

When I tried the N900 (with the old flash, not the new version) the browser seemed fine. Where did you find it flaky?

Another thing I didn't mention is the interface in Android. I find it very easy to use, but quite similar to iOS in that it's flashy with large icons and seems overly-simplified. It almost feels more like using a toy than a smartphone/device. Have you noticed that?

Linux based OS is about simplicity and efficiency. It takes hours to backup, update, and restore a symbian device with buggy PC Suite. It takes minutes on Android. It is not possible to personalize symbian as much as Android. I've been using n95 8gb for almost a year and half now. Compared to my previous device -Blackberry 7105t-, n95 has consumed most of my time backing up and fixing software issues. Never had any problems with Blackberry that I used for 4 years. I'm going to switch to my home grown (Mountain View CA) Android for it's ability to to adapt to my needs based on functionality and efficiency. Symbian is falling behind because of Nokia's lack of support in the US and the worst technical support. Intel based Meego looks promising but it is not yet in production. That might bring back Nokia to the forefront.

jamessmith01 wrote:Hi bchliu

I currently own an N97 and was considering replacing it with a Desire or N900. In the end I've decided to go with the N900, as it adds several functionalities (e.g. full flash browser, open OS, DivX player, multiple homescreens) while losing only a few (e.g. full portrait mode, Google Maps).

I'll see how I get on with the N900 - I suspect I'll still use the N97 occasionally, as I have a few good apps, such as Viewranger, which allows GPS navigation with Ordnance Survey and Open Street/Cycle maps. Whether the lack of portrait mode on the N900 is made up for by the relative speed and smoothness of the interface, I'll have to wait and see.

If you have any insights into the above, please share!

You will definitely miss the portrait mode as the Portrait mode on the N900 suck big time. N900 has a lot of other short comings too - for example, a lack of an officially supported Java or J2ME, OVI Maps without free navigation, Video players that work but "not quite there yet" (ie. cannot play all files at decent speeds), half decent "paid" apps, Camera not up to the rest of the field (5Mpix compared to 8mpix+ and 720p recording) etc.

But.. as you say, the best thing about the N900 is the fact that it runs so well with the internet out of the box. Plus you literally have a PC in your pocket. Just today, I was doing some network administration directly from the phone, will all the standard linux commands at your disposal.

Really hoping that they can speed up the Android 2.2 conversion so that I can dual boot.. 😊

Yeah, 2.2 on N900 would be sweet!

It is interesting that you switched back to the N97 from the Galaxy S. I myself was mulling over whether to go the other way. I had the opportunity to try one out at a store the other day and was very impressed with it. What kept me with the N97 was the time I had already invested in comfiguring my N97 and the $500 price tag of the Galaxy S.

After hearing about the GPS issues with the Galaxy S, I am so glad I stuck with my N97. I am making good use of Ovi Maps as I have been travelling. This is the main reason I have for getting a smartphone in the first place. It seems the more I hear about all of these cool new phones out there and their typical new product issues, the more I like my N97, even with all of its imperfections.

I would agree with you. I've never had major probs with my N97, once the known hardware faults were fixed.

On a recent trip to Leeds I was feeling a bit left out as everyone else on the train was busily using their phones and I just couldn't get a signal. But when it has a signal, as it did within the City Centre, its a great phone.

Like many others, I'm not going to be an early adopter of the next new phone, but I'm not one of those "Nokia never again" types.

Regards
Neil