Hardware
-Build QualityThe build quality of the N97 is good, the slider mechanism for the keyboard seems very sturdy and seems like it should be able to take a lot of use and abuse. The phone has a mostly plastic body, other than the metal looking border around the front of the device. It has a very nice feel in the hand and it seems like it should be able to handle everyday use.
-KeyboardThe keyboard takes a little bit of getting used to with the space bar being offset to the right side. It took me a couple of days for me to get used to using the keyboard. There isn't a lot of feedback from the keyboard itself, it is hard to tell if you've actually pressed the key on the keyboard or not. You can tell that you are touching a key, but when you go to press the key it feels like you are barely pressing it and it will put a character on the screen.
- CameraThe camera on this device is really good. It has a 5 Megapixel sensor with a Carl Zeiss lens, and it can record VGA quality videos at 30 frames per second. I found that the camera took very good quality pictures. Here are a couple of examples of the quality of the pictures and the videos.
-Memory
The storage memory on the N97 is more than enough with 32 GB and a microSD card slot. I had no problem with loading all my music, pictures, and a few videos on the device. The RAM on the device seemed to be very limited as I had the problem of not enough memory way too many times, and most of those times I only had a few programs running, such as the music player and web browser. It is really annoying when you are trying to surf the web and next thing you know it just automatically stops the web browser and says not enough memory. This is one of the most important problems that I found with the N97.
- FM Transmitter
One of my favorite things about this device would have to be the FM transmitter built in. It made listening to music in my car so much easier, my car doesn't have a CD player or even a Cassette tape player, just an FM radio. All I had to do was find the song I wanted to listen to on the N97, tune my radio to a good station, and turn on the FM transmitter. Depending on the station I put the transmitter on, it was pretty good quality audio.
-Speakers
The speakers on the N97 are good for listening to music, they are fairly loud and are very clear. There are 2 speakers on the device for stereo speaker quality, they are both on the left hand side of the device and it makes it so that when you are watching a video on the device the speakers will be facing you.
-Phone
Just like you would expect from a Nokia cellphone, the call quality of the Nokia N97 is very good. Everyone that I talked to using the device said that they could hear me well and the quality was clear.
Software
- Symbian 60 5th edition
The Symbian OS has been around for along time now and this is the first attempt at a touch screen version. It is fairly finger friendly, but the are so many bugs still in the user interface. The widgets that are on the home screen are really nice to have, but some of the times there were a lot of errors with them. The Facebook and weather widget would sometimes try to load and then say there is a script error. Overall the interface itself seems to resemble S60 3rd edition, but with bigger buttons on the screen to make them easy to touch. At first it seems like a good touch screen attempt by Nokia, but it is really got to were it is just the same old S60 that we are used to with a touch enabled interface. Some of the time I had problems with the interface being very slow at responding and sometimes it would even freeze and I would have to restart the device.
- Music player
The music player on the N97 is good, as usual on any Nokia N series device. It has a built in equalizer that works very well, it has 6 different preset settings, default, Bass booster, Classical, Jazz, Pop, and Rock.
- Web Browser
The web browser on the device is another strong point. It supports flash so I can watch Youtube videos right in the browser instead of a different app. Browsing the internet on the N97 is really good with a 3.5 inch screen. Using WiFi on the device makes the internet fairly quick and easy to load any website, whether it be the mobile version or the desktop version.
- The Ovi Store
The Ovi store on the N97 makes it so much easier to find the applications, themes, videos, and games that I might want or need on the device. There are a fair amount of useful applications that you can get for the N97. I was able to find most of the things that I needed to make the device work good for me.
-Maps and GPS
As you probably already know this device has a GPS receiver inside of it. The GPS seems the work really good. I used 2 different maps software, Ovi maps and Google maps. I haven't really had a chance to test out the navigation on Ovi maps, but it does do really good at finding my location on the map.
Final conclusion
I really enjoyed using this device for two weeks as my primary phone. but I have to say that it isn't really something for me. I like it, but not being able to have a few apps running at one time makes it hard for me to use it like I normally would. Especially considering the fact that my E71x can run the programs I need to run without crashing anything. If you are looking for a device that is excellent for multimedia, messaging, and web browser here and there, this it a good device for it, but if you want something that won't run out of RAM on you, I wouldn't recommend this phone. I would have to give it about a 7 out of 10 if I were rating it.
The storage memory on the N97 is more than enough with 32 GB and a microSD card slot. I had no problem with loading all my music, pictures, and a few videos on the device. The RAM on the device seemed to be very limited as I had the problem of not enough memory way too many times, and most of those times I only had a few programs running, such as the music player and web browser. It is really annoying when you are trying to surf the web and next thing you know it just automatically stops the web browser and says not enough memory. This is one of the most important problems that I found with the N97.
- FM Transmitter
One of my favorite things about this device would have to be the FM transmitter built in. It made listening to music in my car so much easier, my car doesn't have a CD player or even a Cassette tape player, just an FM radio. All I had to do was find the song I wanted to listen to on the N97, tune my radio to a good station, and turn on the FM transmitter. Depending on the station I put the transmitter on, it was pretty good quality audio.
-Speakers
The speakers on the N97 are good for listening to music, they are fairly loud and are very clear. There are 2 speakers on the device for stereo speaker quality, they are both on the left hand side of the device and it makes it so that when you are watching a video on the device the speakers will be facing you.
-Phone
Just like you would expect from a Nokia cellphone, the call quality of the Nokia N97 is very good. Everyone that I talked to using the device said that they could hear me well and the quality was clear.
Software
- Symbian 60 5th edition
The Symbian OS has been around for along time now and this is the first attempt at a touch screen version. It is fairly finger friendly, but the are so many bugs still in the user interface. The widgets that are on the home screen are really nice to have, but some of the times there were a lot of errors with them. The Facebook and weather widget would sometimes try to load and then say there is a script error. Overall the interface itself seems to resemble S60 3rd edition, but with bigger buttons on the screen to make them easy to touch. At first it seems like a good touch screen attempt by Nokia, but it is really got to were it is just the same old S60 that we are used to with a touch enabled interface. Some of the time I had problems with the interface being very slow at responding and sometimes it would even freeze and I would have to restart the device.
- Music player
The music player on the N97 is good, as usual on any Nokia N series device. It has a built in equalizer that works very well, it has 6 different preset settings, default, Bass booster, Classical, Jazz, Pop, and Rock.
- Web Browser
The web browser on the device is another strong point. It supports flash so I can watch Youtube videos right in the browser instead of a different app. Browsing the internet on the N97 is really good with a 3.5 inch screen. Using WiFi on the device makes the internet fairly quick and easy to load any website, whether it be the mobile version or the desktop version.
- The Ovi Store
The Ovi store on the N97 makes it so much easier to find the applications, themes, videos, and games that I might want or need on the device. There are a fair amount of useful applications that you can get for the N97. I was able to find most of the things that I needed to make the device work good for me.
-Maps and GPS
As you probably already know this device has a GPS receiver inside of it. The GPS seems the work really good. I used 2 different maps software, Ovi maps and Google maps. I haven't really had a chance to test out the navigation on Ovi maps, but it does do really good at finding my location on the map.
Final conclusion
I really enjoyed using this device for two weeks as my primary phone. but I have to say that it isn't really something for me. I like it, but not being able to have a few apps running at one time makes it hard for me to use it like I normally would. Especially considering the fact that my E71x can run the programs I need to run without crashing anything. If you are looking for a device that is excellent for multimedia, messaging, and web browser here and there, this it a good device for it, but if you want something that won't run out of RAM on you, I wouldn't recommend this phone. I would have to give it about a 7 out of 10 if I were rating it.
As always, thanks for reading and God bless!
-Drew Adkins
-Drew Adkins
