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Being the previous owner of a Sony Ericsson w850 for over 2 years, I decided that it was time for a mobile phone upgrade. I had a few different phones in mind, the Apple iPhone, Nokia N97, Nokia 5800 Xpress Music and the HTC Touch Pro, in the end I chose to buy the new Nokia N-Series phone. It was a clear choice over the iPhone because of the price, also you do not have to buy the phone AND pay a monthly contract fee with the N97.
Buying The Phone
After choosing the phone I decided that I wanted to switch to contract instead of pay as you go. At the time the phone was only available on the Vodafone and Orange networks, but I believe that you can get it on most major networks now. I had previously been with Orange and wasn't too impressed with their service, so I chose Vodafone, they also had better deals for the N97. I am on a pay monthly plan of £45 p/month (18 months) which includes unlimited texts, unlimited internet and 1200 free minutes. However you can now get the phone for £40 p/month with the same plan, or a cheaper option at £35/month with 900 minutes. Whichever plan you choose the handset is completely free. These deals are straight from the Vodafone website, you can get cheaper deals if you pay partly for the handset on other websites and networks, or even pay for the handset itself and pay as you go.
Insurance from Vodafone is optional at an extra £5 per month, I personally didn't choose insurance for my phone, but a close friend who has the N97 did and wasn't overly happy with the service she received when her screen broke. She still had to pay to get it fixed, the insurance didn't fully cover her, so make of it what you will.
The process was easy and fast through the Vodafone website and I received my phone within 5 working days.
The Phone & Its Specs
The phone arrived in a neat little black cardboard box, with 'Nokia N97' in silver writing embossed on the front.
Included in the box was:
* Nokia N97
* BP-4L 1500mAh battery
* Charger
* USB data cable
* Earphone-remote handsfree kit
* Manual and warranty docs
* Nokia Ovi Suite installer
* Wipe cloth
* Detachable stylus you can loop into the phone Design - In my opinion the N97 looks similar to the iPhone, just a little chunkier but overall smaller in size. The exact measurements are 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm (18.25 mm at thickest point) and it weights 150g including the battery. In my opinion the phone is a little too bulky for my liking. My phone was black but you can also get it in a sleek white. The 3.5 inch screen takes up most of the front of the phone, at the bottom end is a silver menu key and send/end touch keys. Around the sides of the phone is a chrome look strip which looks very stylish and compliments the black very well. The USB connection and key lock are on the left side, the up/down volume buttons and image capture button are on right, and finally to the top of the phone is the on/off button and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Not forgetting the main camera and its cover on the very back of the phone which we will look into further on in the review.
The Screen & Keypad - As said previously the touchscreen is 3.5 inches in size and resistive. The resolution is 640 x 360 pixels, up to 16.7 million colours. I think that the touchscreen could have been better, it certainly isn't as responsive as the iPhone in that category, I sometimes find myself having to click the screen multiple times before it registers what I am trying to do. Image quality makes up for this. The phone has a full slide out QWERTY keyboard which is very useful if you are a text addict like me. The keys are also well spaced out, I hardly ever press buttons by accident because they are just the right size. The keys are well lit with a backlight, great for texting in low light conditions. In general the keypad slides out effortlessly from the main phone and I am yet to have any problems with it. Battery Life - Something I'm not too thrilled about is the battery life, I find myself having to charge the phone every few days if not more often, I didn't have this problem with my W850 however I appreciate that the N97 needs more battery to 'do its thing'. Charging is easy, just plug the wall charger in and use the usb connection on the phone, it usually charges fully within 3-4 hours.
Memory - The phone has an amazing 32gb internal memory which can be expanded up to 48gb with a microSD card. Unfortunately the phone can't handle running multiple applications, along with widgets and everything else that comes included with the phone, I think this is down to the CPU which sometimes makes the phone slow and sluggish to use. Sending & Receiving Texts - As said before you can send texts efficiently with the full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, you can also use the on screen touch keyboard if you prefer. There's no need to worry about deleting your important text messages, there's lots of space to keep them all, just make sure you are saving to the mass memory and not the phone memory. I made this mistake and it slowed down my phone to the point where it was near impossible to use. Overall I am impressed with the ability to save all these texts and how fast I can send them with the keyboard.
Music Player - Another one of the phones highlights, with the 32gb internal memory you can't go wrong when it comes to music. I use it as a substitute to my iPod, I can store just as many songs on the phone and upload them from my computer just as easy as I would with my iPod. Along with the Nokia music store where you can download songs from thousands of artists, which is basically iTunes but ran by Nokia themselves. There is a widget which you can download from the Ovi Store free of charge that allows you to operate the music player from your homescreen. The 3.5mm headphone jack and outer volume controls make this one of my favourite parts of the phone. Camera - You can take photographs and shoot video with the N97, which I have found to be considerably better quality than most phones. The camera is 5.0 megapixels and takes fantastic pictures which can easily be viewed through your photo album. There are a variety of scene modes to choose from including an impressive macro mode, you can also change the contract, sharpness, brightness, flash etc. It has Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, dual LED flash, up to 4x digital zoom and a secondary camera for video calls. You can upload your photos straight to facebook, flickr and your ovi account. I don't think there are any negative things to say about the camera.
Internet - A useful tool, especially if you have unlimited internet as part of your plan, most webpages load effortlessly and I haven't had any problems so far. The only downside is I think the browser doesn't support javascript? I have trouble loading YouTube videos and flash. The best thing about the internet connection is the constant Facebook and Twitter updates on my homescreen! Games - Not something I use very often but I will try my best to comment. I think my phone came with a game or two included for free, possibly a guitar hero game? You can use the touchscreen or the keypad to play games. You can download games for free from the Ovi Store or pay for better quality ones such as Sonic etc.
Applications & Ovi Store - There's a good collection of applications available for the N97, most of which are free! Just sign onto the Ovi Store and see what you can find. I mainly use the 'Fring' application which allows you to connect to MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger etc on your phone, very useful. There is also an application called Qik that allows you to use the camera on your phone as a webcam. Other features worth mentioning are:
- Maps/GPS
- Calendar
- Bluetooth
- TV/video
- Contacts
- Clock/alarm
- Calculator/currency converter
- Voice recorder
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