Gadgetory

when it comes to cell phones Nokia is the biggest and baddest hitter on the block it has market share dominance over all its competition and when the market leader releases his new flagship device expectations are overwhelming in this review we'll find out how Nokia's new n-series device can take on these high expectations this is LP from TechnoBuffalo and welcome to the n97 in-depth review hey and welcome back okay today we're going to put the n97 to the test we'll be taking a close look at the devices hardware and software and we'll also be putting the n97 through some of the same tests and benchmark I recently put the touch pro2 through I'll also be taking the n97 on the road to see how it's GPS navigation works with the software included on the device we'll be taking a look at the Symbian s60 5th edition software and especially focusing on the devices web browsing capabilities here it is in all its entirety it actually resembles the 5800 xpressmusic it's not at all a bad looking device there I say it looks quite elegant there's a chrome rim around the whole handset and to my surprise it looks fairly good on most occasion I rather see chrome on rim of a car than on a mobile device sure the chroming on a phone looks good when the device is nice and new but after a few hits and some wear and tear the chroming starts to look like ass other than that the device has an unique nokia esque look to it unlike my Touch pro2 which people opt a mistake for a damn iPhone the back cover of the device is raised from the edges which will prevent the phone from getting scratched up when laying it on top of different surfaces the cover comes off moderately easy and under the cover is defined the 1500 milliamp battery beside the camera optics we find the microSD slot and under the battery there's a small hatch for the SIM card so no unfortunately there is no place to hide your small liquor bottle in fact I assume the engineers and Nokia ran out of space when thinking of where to hide the stylus because unlike the 5800 xpressmusic that came with the stylus built in this device comes with a funky-looking separate one sure you can attach your stylus to your phone with a cord but seriously you probably don't want any weird attachments dangling off your device probably the main reason for not having the built-in stylus is the fact that it's really not needed unless you like a doodle on your mobile device the next feature I'll be covering is the system seller the mechanism itself is quite impressive the keyboard pops out with a bang even though the angle is not adjustable the keyboard mechanism is one of the most impressive things about this device the screen pops out so fast that it almost shoots out as it to take flight even my girlfriend was impressed and she usually hates everything with a microchip in it the keyboard itself has only three rows of keys the keys are not too bad and evenly spread out even these fat babies can easily press and hit the keys the layout of the keyboard is pretty standard excluding the positioning of the spacebar which is being moved to the right after composing a few emails the spacebar seems to be placed in a logical position and feels decent the n97 keyboard is very good but perhaps not as good as the fibro creaky bird on the touch pro2 beside the keyboard on the left is a very functional d-pad which is a nice addition to the slide-out pad itself like other devices with slide-out keypads the n97 is a bit on the chunky side it's really only fifteen point nine millimeters thick which isn't too much but the device has a definite presence in the hand thankfully the device is quite narrow which makes it a better fit in the hand and for example the touch pro2 even so the device is quite thick and you probably won't be carrying this device around in your side pocket a very distinct feeling I get when taking hold of this device is that the n97 is made for use the phone is entirely made out of hardened plastic despite this fact it feels quite sturdy in the hand you won't be having to wear silk gloves when operating this device and the phone feels like it could take a small beating but it's always a smart idea to handle a 650 buck device with care ok ergonomically the device is just appropriate sized for single hand navigation every part of the screen is reachable with your thumb you even though screens on competing devices may have bigger resolution n97 makes up for this with good contrast in colors blacks are moderately dark and the brightest whites are also be sipped but I've said it time and again that on devices at this price range it would be nice to see an OLED screen which are superior in every aspect thankfully Samsung is coming out with omnia pro later this year that will be equipped with an Ola screen so let's take a look at the hardware in more detail on the left side of the device we have the lock key slider enabling the slider will put your device into sleep mode and lock the device as well when disabling the lock the device is wakened accompanied by a small vibration on the opposing side we have the up and down volume keys and the dedicated camera button when inside the camera application the volume up and down Keys can be used for zooming as well the front of the device sports only a single mechanical hardware button which is the Menu key beside the Menu button are the two touch sensitive answer and end calls Eve's answering phone calls on the device is simple enough you can either use the touch sensitive keys which gave out a nice vibration feedback or use the touchscreen itself for answering calls moving on thankfully on top of the device nokia has added a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack I was pretty pissed off that the touch pro2 does not have this feature in my opinion the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack is essential because there will come a time on occasion when you need to hook your device up to some external speakers to show off your Abba collection or not you can also plug in for example your high-end headset the device also sports a pair of stereo speakers which are located on the side of the device and while we're here let's give the speakers a world nothing too amazing but sound quality is decent the device comes with a whopping 32 gigabytes of storage space dare I say overkill but if you happen to run out of memory you can always add another 32 gigabytes with a microSD card okay let's move on and take a look at the user interface the Symbian s60 operating system is back for the fifth edition and I have to say off the bat that compared to you is like 86 touchflo 3d the Symbian interface is starting to look a bit aged don't get me wrong the Symbian operating system is not bad it's very simple to use and good in plenty of aspects but when putting the UI side-by-side with the modern competing UI the Symbian looks like something out of a cave painting it could be the Nokia decided to stick with the old Symbian because the hardware inside ncage device which probably can't handle a heavier interface even though the Symbian s60 5th edition runs smoothly with the device's Hardware there are times when it could run a bit faster screen rotation on the device is also quite fast there's not much of a delay when opening the QWERTY keypad the AR M processor handles programs with ease and you can have simultaneous applications open at the same time pressing and holding the Menu button will give you access to these open programs the home screen is widget based which means you can add your favorite programs to your homescreen to suit your everyday needs on the top of the home screen we have the clock the date and the status icons which are not adjustable but underneath these icons are five adjustable widget slots the default widgets are pretty useful in the top slot we have quick launch icons for composing messages the web browser the navigation application and the media player the second slot is occupied by the weather application and it's actually one of the best weather applications I've come across a queue where the widget gets you hourly weather updates on your current location and finally we have some nice weather too bad I'm stuck at the office making this review the Facebook widget on the home screen works well also you can actually have the newest status update scrolling on your home screen because it's always good to know when your friends are off to buy milk or brushing their teeth under the Facebook widget you can add your favorite contacts or not as default the lowest slot is occupied by the email widget on the icon itself you can see headers of the two newest emails and pressing the icon will get you to the email application the email application works well and composing emails with the QWERTY keyboard is delight typing with the n97 QWERTY keyboard is very fast although not quite as fast as typing with the touch pro2 keyboard it would have also been nice to see a dedicated row of keys for the numbers customizing your home screen is a walk in the park removing and adding programs is a simple process there's about a dozen widgets to choose from and more witness can be downloaded from the new Nokia Obi store the Obie store is Nokia's new application store where you can find a variety of stuff spanning from a free wallpapers to all kind of application you can buy the calendar application on the Symbian is pretty basic nothing too fancy but it's fast and easy to use and gets the job done a slight disappointment on the device is the YouTube application or lack thereof it the YouTube icon in the application menu is a bit deceiving pressing it only links you to the YouTube mobile web site so it's not exactly a dedicated YouTube application you see on other devices but you can always download the third-party YouTube application made for Symbian s60 so it's not too big of a deal in the other hand the Symbian web browser was a very positive surprise the browser works well and scrolling and zooming within pages is smooth and fast the Symbian browser works well in both landscape and portrait mode the big screen on the n97 is ideal for web browsing most of the time you won't even have to zoom in to read text but in certain circumstances you want to get in nice and close and zooming in is done by double tapping the screen loading times for content-heavy sites on the Symbian are about the same for example when loading with Opera Mobile on a windows mobile device navigation on the web browser is done by using the touch screen there's also a very good alternative this if you prefer not to grease up your screen on the left side of the courtesy board is the d-pad which works great with the web browser when comparing the two navigation methods I personally prefer using a d-pad it's fast and accurate and doesn't smudge up the screen all in all I'm quite pleased with the performance of the Symbian web browser it's relatively fast and seems to be stable which is a factor when dealing with mobile web browsers the camera application on the n97 launches with haste the five megapixel camera on the back is accompanied by dual LEDs LED flashes usually tend to be on the weaker side so adding a second LED is not a bad idea I took some test sauce with the device in different lighting levels autofocus and the LEDs work great and the camera on the n97 is one of the best I've seen on a mobile device it takes very good pictures in high light and the thing that impresses me most is the camera takes very good pictures in low light as well you can check out my tests on full resolution at techno review calm okay let's check out some of the more interesting features the n97 comes pre-installed with Nokia Maps it's a navigation program that uses the built-in GPS as well as internet a very cool feature in this application is the compass function that rotates the map to where you're going in practically real-time this makes the n97 a very good navigation device for when you are on foot for example trying to find your favorite sushi bar while driving around my car I noticed the GPS signal was not constant and I also had some GPS lag but the application got me where I was going and I'm pretty satisfied with the free application on the device as I mentioned earlier the device comes with a whopping 32 gigabytes of internal storage space so that's plenty of space for pirated I mean purchased music and videos the music player on the Symbian is pretty decent albums are easily accessed and sound quality's satisfactory unfortunately I can't say the same about video playback the device supports only limited amount of codecs not including DivX xvid and h.264 which are probably the most common formats around these days so if your entire video catalogue is in DivX you're pretty much screwed unless you want to convert your entire catalogue into 3gp format I could not get core player or DivX mobile to work with the device because they are yet not supported by Symbian s60 5th edition eventually these formats probably will be supported but for now DivX is a no-go but the format's the n97 does support it plays with ease excluding flash video which is quite the slide show for my benchmark video I'll be using the trailer for a movie called 2012 I was pretty excited when I saw the first teaser for the movie but after discovering that roland emmerich is directing the movie my expectations aren't too high his last movie 10,000 BC was the worst piece of I've ever seen I mean it was so bad that I almost cried but I actually did like Independence Day though anyways the picture quality on the n97 is pretty decent colors and contrast are very good and the screen resolution is quite adequate for video playback the n97 doesn't even skip a beat when playing the 3gp format at relatively high bit rates even though the image quality on the 3gb format may not be perfect it is still a very decent format for mobile devices I was quite impressed to see that the n97 could handle the format at 7000 kilobytes per second even though I am unimpressed by the lack of supported codecs I am impressed by how well the device plays the codecs it does support in conclusion the n97 is quite a mixed bag external features in build quality are excellent I'm still impressed by the keypad mechanism and the QWERTY keyboard itself but the Symbian operating system may be a bit too old-school for my taste but it works okay and the Symbian browser was not bad at all is it a perfect device by all means no it has a few flaws here and there but I thought the n97 is definitely a viable upgrade for Nokia fans the new n-series device arrived with the highest of expectations and all things considered the n97 was able to handle most of it so that's pretty much it for my review thanks for watching and get ready for some more very exciting content to come from TechnoBuffalo LP signing out