Nokia N97

Nokia N97 – A Touch Screen Mobile Computer

Nokia N97 stirred the world of mobile phones and it is a complete smart phone with all the features that you could ever dream off, even though there is room for some shortcomings. The Nokia N97 is quite large with dimensions of 117.2 x 55.3 x 15. mm and weight of 150 g. The Li-ion 1500 mAh battery is pretty much satisfactory with a standby time of 432 hours for 2G and 408 hours for 3G, talk time of 9 hours 30 minutes for 2G and 6 hours of 3G as well as music play of 40 hours.

Nokia N97 has 3.5” resistive touch screen, with a pretty decent resolution of 360 x 640 pixels. The sunlight legibility is very good and it definitely makes the Nokia N97, a winner. As the screen is resistive, you can freely use the stylus to activate the menus and options. At the bottom of the screen, you will find the call and end touch sensitive keys. Contrastingly, the menu key is a regular button. There is a video call camera which enables video calling. The slide out design of the full QWERTY keyboard is impressive; however, the build is mostly plastic. Keys are big and arranged in three rows.

The Nokia N97 features a huge 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED flash. With extensive settings, it is a very good camera to use while on the go. However, there is no smile detection, face detection and blink prevention features available with the competitors of Nokia N97. The videos are of MMS quality as the camera can shoot videos with VGA resolution at 30fps.

The music player of the Nokia N97 incorporates a few changes and it is designed for a touch screen mobile phone. A number of formats are supported by the music player and the equalizer options make listening to music in the Nokia N97, a pleasurable experience. You can work with other features of the phone with the player running at the background. There is also an FM radio with RDS support. The FM transmitter is an interesting addition to the entertainment package of the Nokia N97 because now, you can stream your favorite music to a FM radio receiver in your range.

The large screen of the Nokia N97 encourages using the video player with decent features. However, lack of XviD and DivX is disappointing. Onboard memory is a massive 32GMB and externally, it can be extended to up to 16GB using the microSD slot.

The Nokia N97 uses Symbian S60 5th edition user interface and it makes the touch screen more usable. If you have already used the S60 platforms in other Nokia mobile phones, the Nokia N97 will be your piece of cake. There are several widgets available and you can customize these widgets on the home screen. The screen rotates for your convenience as you slide out the keyboard. Thumb scrolling is enabled, even though using the scrolling bar makes things easier with the Nokia N97.

The phonebook of the Nokia N97 is similar to other Nokia phones. Editing and organizing contacts is much easier with the new interface. Voice dialing option is pretty much easier to use, but surprisingly, the Nokia has left out the smart dialing feature in the Nokia N97. Common messages SMS, MMS and emails are supported by the Nokia N97 using the same common editor. Audio messages can be recorded and sent separately using a dedicated editor. Alphanumeric keypad is available on screen in both portrait and landscape modes, but the QWERTY keyboard is much easier to use. Handwriting recognition is impulsive and useful.

The connectivity options for the Nokia N97 are extensive, thanks to 3G support. The web browser is neat and supports flash and java content. The built in GPS receiver and Nokia Maps lets you navigate without confusion. It appears that the Nokia has completely forgotten to load at least one preinstalled games, though you can download and play Java games.

Specifications:

2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network	HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100
	HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 - American version
Announced	2008, November
Status	Available. Released 2009, June
Dimensions	117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm, 88 cc
Weight	150 g
Type	TFT resistive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size	360 x 640 pixels, 3.5 inches
	- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off - Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate - Full QWERTY keyboard - Handwriting recognition
Alert types	Vibration; MP3 ringtones
Speakerphone	Yes, with stereo speakers
	- 3.5 mm audio jack
Phonebook	Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records	Detailed, max 30 days
Internal	32 GB storage, 128 MB RAM
Card slot	microSD, up to 16GB, buy memory
GPRS	Class 32
EDGE	Class 32
3G	HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology
Bluetooth	Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port	No
USB	Yes, v2.0 microUSB
Primary	5 MP, 2592x1944 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, LED flash, video light
Features	Geo-tagging
Video	Yes, VGA@30fps
Secondary	Yes, VGA@15fps
OS Symbian	OS v9.4, Series 60 rel. 5
CPU	ARM 11 434 MHz processor
Messaging	SMS, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
Browser	WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds
Radio	Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual radio; FM transmitter
Games	Yes, N-gage + downloadable
Colors	White, Black
GPS	Yes, with A-GPS support; Nokia Maps
Java	Yes, MIDP 2.1
	- Digital compass - MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ music player - WMV/RealVideo/MP4 video player - TV-out - Voice command/dial - Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF) - Video and photo editor - Flash Lite 3 - T9
Battery	Li-Ion 1500 mAh (BP-4L)
Stand-by	Up to 432 h (2G) / 408 h (3G)
Talk time	Up to 9 h 30 min (2G) / Up to 6 h (3G)
Music play	Up to 40 h