Nokia N97 review

First off I would like to thank Womworld Nokia for loaning this device to me for the past couple of weeks. I have really enjoyed using the Nokia N97 for the most part.

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.-Keyboard
The 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.- Camera

The 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.

As always, thanks for reading and God bless!
-Drew Adkins

Nokia Display Speakerphone HF-510 review

Along with the Nokia N97 that I received from Womworld Nokia was a bluetooth car kit speakerphone. I had never had the chance to use a car speakerphone, but this makes me want to go out and buy one for myself.
The speaker quality itself was very good, but it could have been louder. Sometimes I found myself having to lean closer to the speaker in order to hear the person, but that is mostly due to the fact that my car is a little on the loud side while driving.
The microphone on the device seemed to work good, everyone that I talked to using the device said that they could hear me loud and clear. I only had one friend say something about not being able to hear me good, but they just had the volume on their phone turned down.
I really like that I can sync my contacts onto the bluetooth device and use it to find the person that I need to call. It makes it so much easier than trying to dig my phone out of my pocket, look up the contact, and then call then person.
This device helps out so much with driving and talking on the phone. Since my car has a manual transmission it makes it difficult to drive, shift, and hold a cellphone in my hand. Overall I must say that the HF-510 is a very useful device for my everyday life, it helped out so much while driving and talking to people. If someone is wanting to buy a bluetooth speaker for their car that has a display on it, I would defiantly recommend it.

Womworld Nokia N97 and Bluetooth HF-510 in Car Speaker 2 week Trial!

Well, I received an email from a woman at Womworld Nokia about being able to have a 2 week trail with a Nokia N97 and a HF-510 in car bluetooth speaker. This should be really cool. I've never had a chance to trial any type of cellphone, but I will hopefully have a good amount of time to test the phone and the speaker in my everyday life and tell the world about it. I know I will be able to test the phone during my time going back to school starting a new semester, that will make it to where I can test it as a student.

Thank you Womworld!!

Nokia E71x Review

So, this is going to be my first review ever, hopefully it turns out okay. First off, I must say I am in no means what so ever a writer, the only writing that I have ever done is at school in English class. This will probably be a little scatter brained, I just kind write as ideas come to me about the phone. If you have any type of suggestions for my writing skills, please leave a comment, and I will try to work on that for my next review.
For starters this is my first Nokia Smartphone, I have never used Symbian Series 60 before, but I am very interested in Smartphones and have used Windows Mobile and Palm OS. I have a little bit of experience with the iPhone OS, and Blackberry OS.

I have had this phone for about a month now, and I have to say that I really like how customizable S60 is and how many application there are out there for it. I do have to say that when I first started using it took a little while to get used to where everything thing was at under all the folders on the menu, but after I got used to it, it was very easy to use.
One of the things that I use this phone the most for would have to be text messaging. The QWERTY keyboard on this phone is very good, it did not take me very long to get used to using it. The messaging on this phone is very good, the only thing that I would have liked to see in the messaging app would have to be threaded texts, so many phones out there that have threaded SMS on them, even the old Palm OS phones have that feature.
Another thing that I use my E71x for is web browsing, the default web browser is great, but I also us Skyfire and Opera Mobile. Using the WiFi on this phone is very good, it is easy for me to get a good connection with it while I am at home or at school. AT&T's EDGE network isn't the fastest, but it works pretty good when I just want to load up Facebook mobile or a small website that doesn't take up a lot of data. This is also my first 3G enabled phone and using 3G on AT&T is amazing when I am in a city that has 3G, I can't help but stay on my phone browsing the web, the speed is amazing!
I also use this phone as an mp3 player, I have an 8GB Micro SD card that I use for all my music. I also have a small device that allows me play the music from my phone through the speakers in my car. The music player is really good, it has some cool equalizers that can make the music sound better than it normally would.
Using the camera on this phone is really good, it is 3.2 MegaPixels and has a flash on it. I take a fair amount of pictures that I put on Facebook. Using the camera is awesome, it has autofocus and takes great pictures.
One other great feature on this phone is the GPS, I use Google maps and Ovi maps to find my location and give me directions. The GPS works really good most of the time. I really like how Ovi maps work, it is probably the best free GPS app that I have used.
So, over all I really like this phone, there are many other great things about this phone that I didn't really have time to add in this review, but I did highlight most of the really good features that I use all the time.

As always thanks for reading, and God bless!
-Drew Adkins

Life Has Changed Yet Again!

So, my life has changed again, now I bought a new cellphone, a Nokia E71x, I wrecked my Beretta, and now have a Subaru Justy, I really like both of them. I also have another job now, I work for Frantz Building Services, I buff floors at different office and medical buildings. It isn't too bad of a job, it could be worse!
Also, this Friday I will be going to Sadie Hawkins at Daviess County High, it is going to seem a little strange going to a high school dance while I'm out of high school, but I should have a lot of fun!
It has been so long since I've blogged, I really don't even know if there is anyone that reads this anymore, I can only hope there is atleast one good reader out that, even if I don't get to blog very often and I never really say a lot of stuff in my entries.
I have been thinking about doing reviews of different thing that I use and like to use, such as my phone and my laptop, I'm not sure how well that will go, because I'm not really a person that likes to write a whole lot, but I really like technology and different types of gadgets that I have or would like to have.

Life has changed a little bit!

So, I am now single.
I just started my college classes yesterday, so far they seem like they will be good.
So far working at Taco Bell is, it could probably be better, but I get paid for it, that is all I need right now.
I have been thinking about buying a Nokia E75 with the some of the money that I earn, but I haven't gotten to that point yet, I've only been working for 2 weeks so far. I will hopefully be able to buy on some time next month, that would be great!!