Nokia N97
Posted June 25th, 2009 by admin No Comments »
Review Nokia’s flagship phone for 2009, the N97 has set sail – backed by marketing expenditure the size of an African nation’s health budget. But it’s barely got out of port before hitting stormy waters. Some of the disappointment expressed on the web – from phone fan sites and bloggers – is fair; some of it is baffling, but much of it is self-inflicted. Nokia has hyped the N97 intensely, even pitching it head-to-head against Apple‘s iPhone 3G S, with identical UK launch times.
Nokia’s N97
After putting the N97 through a range of practical, real-world situations, the controversy looks a little paradoxical. The N97 is, indeed, flawed in parts, with a UI chosen through necessity that, painfully, lacks the sheen and lustre of today’s top-of-the-range smartphones. Yet, like the Mondeo, it nevertheless does a commendable job at what’s asked of it. You can do a lot worse in the £30-£40 monthly contract price range than the N97.
Nevertheless, it’s expensive and currently, quite buggy – waiting for firmware updates is recommended. So why the fuss? The N97 is the first Nokia touchscreen device with a full Qwerty keyboard to reach the market. Six years ago Nokia abandoned what would have been its first touchscreen Qwerty Communicator, based on the Hildon UI, just before launch. This appeared as the short-lived ‘Series 90’ UI, which shipped in just one phone, but is now better known as the user interface for the Nokia Internet Tablet series. Read the rest of this entry »
