Nokia N97 Mini Sim Free Mobile Phone – Black
Posted by Notcot on Apr 27, 2010 in Handhelds & PDAs |
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I’ve been using it for a month now, and I’m really pleased with it. The screen is clear with lots of detail, all the functions work – internet, email, music player, maps the widgets on the home screen. The camera is very good for a phone, too. What sold it for me was the keyboard, and it’s as good as I hoped for. Makes surfing the net and entering text much more pleasurable. And of course writing emails etc. Ovi store works nicely for Apps, although there is still a lack of games!
Gripes? Well the video camera can produce images that are a bit mushy.The user interface is not as slick as some other phones. The music player doesn’t carry across artwork images, for some reason.
It’s better than the iphone 3gs for web browsing (higher resolution screen, java enabled for youtube etc, and the keyboard, of course). It also has proper bluetooth and multitasking. But the interface is a bit clunky and there aren’t as many apps (yet).
Rating: 4 / 5
This phone performs well in every area that a smartphone produced nowadays should perform in. There are not many things that I would change about this phone, though there are some problems.
The main feature of the phone is the keyboard, which slides out in a functional and stylish way. The keyboard itself is laid out in a qwerty fashion, and all the buttons are in the places that you would expect them to be. The numbers are above the first line of letters, so you have to press the ‘upper character’ button before pressing them, or set the input to numbers. The most used symbols each have their own respective places above the other two lines of letters. Some of these symbols aren’t where you’d expect to find them on a keyboard, with the brackets on the very bottom left of the keyboard, but you get used to them eventually.
The homescreen is next, and it works very well. You almost fully customise the homescreen, with five bars worth of customisation that is possible. Shortcuts take up a quarter of a bar, and some apps take up a full bar, such as weather, music player, email, calendar and Facebook. There are no flick shortcuts from the homescreen, with a flick instead hiding all the items on the homescreen except the clock.
The menu button opens up a pretty standard menu, which can be organised to the users taste. It includes the main menu functions such as music, contacts, web, messaging, settings and other areas. From here you can also access the list of applications. The applications are set out in the same way as the menu, and can also be organised to put the most used at the top. The Ovi store is used to download more applications and games, but there aren’t that many for it at the moment, though there is some third party support for this and the 5800 which is useful, especially as you can use these without having to change the phone.
The music player is pretty solid, and the earphones that come with the phone are actually pretty good. Music quality is as good as a standalone music player, and whilst the onboard speakers aren’t great (when are they ever), that’s not something I use the phone for. Artwork is a bit tempermental, and won’t always transfer over to the phone, and I can’t figure out why. It’s not a big deal for me anyway, but it will be for some people.
The web browser is really good, and when connecting by wifi is incredibly fast, too. The phone can access most websites easily due to the built in java and excellent screen, but the best part for web browsing is the keyboard, which just makes it that much more enjoyable.
The camera on the phone is 5 megapixels using a Carl Zeiss lens, and takes pretty good pictures in the right conditions. The video camera isn’t as good, but still isn’t that bad.
All in all, the N97 mini is a solid phone with lots of capability, and I haven’t had any major gripes with it since getting it. The amount of customisation of the phone is one of the main reasons for this, as if I didn’t like a layout then I could just change it to one I prefered. For those that are looking for a smartphone with a keyboard, then the N97 mini is definitely a contender.
Rating: 5 / 5
For years now I have always bought Nokia phones (1 a year on average). The main reason was they were reliable and I had a lot of accesseries that used the pop port.
My last few phones have been slightly disappointing as Nokia don’t appear to be able to keep up with the competion.
The N97mini looks and feels a nice little phone. The slide out keyboard is an excellent feature for texting and browsing. The large display is clear but not quite bright enough to see outside on a bright day.
I have now had mine for 6 months and I hope I have found all the bugs.
The software on this phone is diabolical!!
If you but one you will have to live with the phone constantly resetting (rebooting) or just locking up (you won’t know it has until you reliase no one has called you).
The operating system is slow and the user interface is not consistant e.g some items need double tapping others single tap, and some only scrol by dragging the bar whilst other screens let you flick (very good inertia flow on these screens).
Nokia maps is free but that is still overpriced. You can’t trust its routing and you need a data connection to find your destination (which is a bugger when the phone resets as your driving and you have to stop to reprogram). You can’t view the route easily so you have to trust it.
The browser is still not the same as a pc (most sites seeing it as a wap device).
There is no car kit available except bluetooth devices and these have poor sound quality when connected to the N97mini.
The orientation sensor is a pain and causes problems when trying to answer a call.
My opinion is to buy an alternative brand of phone if you want a smart phone as this will drive you mad.
Rating: 2 / 5
With phones like these, it is clear why Nokia have introduced free installable maps for their Smartphones, because quite honnestly, it is the only thing that makes this phone any good. To be fair, the hardware is probably quite good on the whole. The keyboard is comfortable to use, the GPS is quick, the screen is clear. Perhaps the touch screen itself could have been better (that doesn’t mean it had to be capacitive to be good – it just means that on this device it is a little heavy on the fingers).
No the real failure with this device is the Symbian OS. What a load of junk. It is completely outdated – slow, cumbersome and unbelievably badly designed from the user’s point of view. It is clear that Nokia have seen that there is no future with the OS and are now moving to linux driven devices.
My advice is go for the N900 if you can put up with the bulk or lack of battery life. Only buy the N97 if the free installable maps are essential for you (it is what convinced me to buy this I have to say…)
Rating: 2 / 5
This phone is as described and a little more, i am able to do everything i wanted and although i have not had time to read the paperwork each app has a help screen. Brilliant phone and well worth the purchase.
Rating: 5 / 5