First Impression

Take the N8 out of the box and you will be immediately impressed by the build quality. The anodized aluminum body comes with a nice finish, and the phone I had dark grey one, although the phone is available in multiple colors. Nokia have done a great job with the body- making it scratch less. In case the surface does get scratched, just wipe it with a cloth, and the scratch disappears!

The 3.5 inch screen is accompanied by one single button on the front panel- the Menu one. Well, there is a front facing video call camera, but that is safely hidden away from sight. One side panel has the volume control, the camera and the screen lock buttons, while the other side has the sim-slot as well as the slot for the memory card, The microUSB port is also on this side.

The rear panel has a monster 12 MP camera, and just to fit the camera in, Nokia had to raise the area around the camera just a little bit. What this does is open the camera to a risk of scratches when you place it on the table or even keep it in the pocket with other stuff like keys and pens.

Also, Nokia has tried to give the phone a powerfully rugged feel by making two screws visible on either side panel. It may look good to some, but seems like an unfinished product to me. The multiple color options are also a thoughtful addition, something which widens the scope for more buyers who can now choose the phone depending on their color preference.

Performance

The ARM11 processor powering the N8 clocks at 680MHz, and I believe that is more than sufficient if the loaded operating system is efficient. The OS this phone comes loaded with is the Symbian^3, which makes this the first phone in the world to do so.

The 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen is a delight to use, and I have to admit, I did not expect it to be this good. Plus, the fact that it is AMOLED also lends a really high quality feel to it. Nokia have really come a long way since the pathetic touchscreen efforts of the N97 and the 5800 XpressMusic. The N8 responds instantly, pinch and zoom works well and the screen is a delight to watch multimedia content on. The touchscreen quality is superb, in a nutshell.

Moreover, this touchscreen is the Gorilla Glass type- which does not get scratched, no matter what you do with it. Good thing, since most phone buyers don’t bother buying a screen protector and the screen inevitably gets badly scratched.

The 12MP camera is just the biggest camera we have seen in a smartphone, so much so that Nokia had to give it an elevated platform on the rear panel to allow it to fit in the device body! Images are great and comparable with any compact camera- as far as a brightly lit environment is concerned. In the dark, this one too becomes a bit temperamental, just like most phone cameras. HD video recording is smooth as silk, and I had no complaints there. Basically, the camera is the best thing this phone has, by a very long way.

The 680MHz processor, in the opinion of a lot of people, is a tad underpowered for a smartphone. Most Smartphone these days come powered with a 1GHz processor. I don’t agree with this logic, however. For me, 680MHz processor is more than enough, if the phone’s OS is able to manage the power properly. If the N8 is able to play 720p videos successfully, then the processor is more than adequate- And yes, the N8 handled HD videos perfectly. No stutter, phone freeze or the general jerkiness. No complaints about the processor speed, at my end!

Another testament to the fact that the processor is more than adequately powerful is that a gaming session playing the NFS Shift (downloaded, for Free, from the OVI Store) unveiled a smooth gaming experience and absolutely no jerkiness.

16GB built-in memory and the ability to expand to 48GB more via the external memory slot is a feature worth it for people who click and store a lifetime of memories in the photo gallery and keep the entire soundtrack of their lives in the Music folder!

The HDMI out is a thoughtful feature. I connected this to my Samsung LCD television and watched a couple of HD videos off the phone, and it was perfect quality. Even more so that if someone just walks into the room and does know that the video is being played off the phone, he/she will certainly imagine it’s some device like the WD TV media player or a BluRay player. Apart from this, when the phone is connected to a television, you can see on the TV everything you can see on the phone screen.

There’s something unique about most of Apple’s post-unibody hardware revisions that gives a real sense of permanency; an even stronger impression than before that you’re holding something more than a piece of hardware. iPhone 4 feels as much a natural object as a manufactured one. The abstraction layer that’s removed by iOS’s hands-on interface (needing no peripherals and few buttons) only furthers the effect. Picking up and using iPhone 4 is an incredibly organic experience.

Apple’s widely praised new ‘Retina Display’ is so named because at normal viewing distances the pixels are so small your retinas literally can’t distinguish between them. This may not sound revolutionary (as you may not consciously notice pixels when using previous models) but holding the two displays side by side quickly shows that this is no small leap in display tech (especially when viewing text). iPhone 4 makes 3GS feel two or three generations behind on this front. On top of the incredible resolution (960×640 at 326 pixels per inch), the contrast is higher, the colours pop with more vigour and the viewing angle is enormous (thanks to its IPS tech). Retina Display is my favourite hardware change on iPhone 4. Stunning.

Another thing you’ll quickly notice is the camera changes. The rear camera is now accompanied by a handy LED flash (which works for both still shots and video) and has a 5MP sensor, up 2 megapixels from last generation. It shoots full-frame 720p video with amazing results. There’s a whole new camera on the front which facilitates Apple’s new video chat feature, FaceTime (you may have seen the commercials already, sniff). These changes combine to make capturing of images and video a whole new experience when compared to previous generations. The rear camera really does replace a point and shoot camera in a way no other phone has (in my experience). The best camera is the one you have with you, and iPhone 4 will serve you well.

Performance

In terms of performance, the jump is more difficult to accurately gauge. iOS 4 runs very fast on the 3GS and in in most cases there’ll be nothing shocking about iPhone 4’s performance by comparison. Launching heavier apps is noticeably faster, but things like scrolling lists and actually using installed apps are more or less the same as most rarely lag on 3GS. If you’re coming from iPhone 3G, though, it’s night and day. iPhone 4’s performance will be a revelation. Everything from boot time to scrolling speeds to app launching will feel near instantaneous. Those with 24-month iPhone 3G contracts expiring over the coming weeks have plenty to look forward to.

What iPhone 4’s beefy new innards also allow is a whole new generation of more demanding apps, like Apple’s own iMovie for iPhone. The significant memory bump to 512MB allows for this seriously impressive video app to exist, which puts authoring and editing of beautiful 720p clips in your pocket everywhere you go. It’s incredible to see, and time will tell how just many apps will tap into iPhone 4’s extra resources for such impressive results. Of course, such apps will be iPhone 4 exclusive, like iMovie for iPhone, which will be a sour point for many. But progress comes at a price.

As a phone, iPhone 4 has many enhancements. You’ll notice a tiny hole on the top edge next to the headphone jack. This is actually a secondary mic, and works together with the main mic to cancel ambient noise and wind (it’s also used for FaceTime calls). Call quality is significantly improved by this. I’ve certainly noticed the change when calling iPhone 4 to iPhone 4. Crystal clear.

Also, cellular network support has been upped to quad band (850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz). This makes a considerable difference for some networks in regional areas which operate on 900MHz, which wasn’t supported on prior models. Optus performed terribly with this restriction and we may see the playing field levelled somewhat in terms of signal strength and call stability between networks with the introduction of iPhone 4.

In addition to this, the brilliant and now-controversial design change of making the antenna an external component of the phone (the stainless band around the phone acts as the antenna system as well as offering structural rigidity) improves signal strength significantly. So much so, in fact, that Telstra have recently awarded iPhone 4 its Blue Tick status, officially endorsing it for people living in rural and poor coverage areas.

If you’re like most iPhone users, only a small percentage of the time you have it in your hand will be used to make phone calls. But Apple has made sure that when you do, your experience will be better than ever.

Antenna Issue?

So, what about that antenna issue? I’ve been trying hard to drop a call by invoking the antenna issue the world’s been furiously fussing over and I’m happy to report that on Australian soil with a decent network behind it (Telstra) the signal attenuation experienced when touching the bottom left corner is so minor it has little or no affect on a call or its quality in real use. Yes, you heard that right; I’ve never lost a call or even (yet) seen more than one bar drop on iPhone 4 as a result of the issue, despite my best efforts. And I’ve never triggered this without trying. I have to very deliberately bridge the antenna gap to replicate, as neither my natural left-handed or right-handed grips approach the offending area.

The affect of the bridging may vary in weaker areas (I’ve been way out in the sticks and it still hasn’t faltered) and will almost certainly vary between carriers, but any way you look at it this problem has been blown enormously out of proportion. To be honest, it’s frustrating to discover. This is the best smartphone I’ve ever owned, by no small margin. By all accounts it’s a huge leap above all previous models and represents the most impressive piece of hardware I own. But the media have made it their mission to bait every click they can by posting report after report on this antenna issue, which Apple have apparently been right about from the start. The result is that many prospective owners have been turned away from the device entirely because of a single (and, for most, inconsequential) issue. Attenuation really does happen on all smartphones in varying degrees, which Apple have proven in their many video demonstrations on competitors’ current models. It’s all unfortunately been made to look worse than it is by Apple being tied to an already buckling network in the U.S (AT&T) whose signal is very unreliable in many states and is simply tipped over the edge by the attenuation that can occur on iPhone 4.

HTC has presented a new gem with Android operating system 2.1 Eclair. Its name is HTC Desire and here is our review of this nice little smartphone.

First of all, it has some really nice features not under its body: a Qualcomm CPU 1GHz, 512 MB ROM and 576 RAM. Regarding connectivity mention HPSA support and Wi-Fi. Other features include a joystick-type optical trackball, a 5 megapixel camera and 3.7-inch AMOLED display. All packed in 135 grams of weight and dimensions of 119 x 60 x 11.9 millimeters. Of note is the redesigned user interface HTC Sense. Desire should land on the market in April, at a price not yet announced.

The HTC Desire was introduced by HTC 2010 along with HTC Legend on the MWC. The HTC Desire is broadly consistent with the Nexus One except the Sense UI. According to HTC, the Desire is specially designed to meet the needs of all potential users of their smartphone to exploit intensively. Thus the device provides extensive functionality for the visually news, contacts with friends, photos,Favorite places and all other important things to experience on a smartphone. The HTC Desire is available from April and costs about €499 ($673 US dollars).
These prices are without subscription. You can get it for a cheaper price if you agree to sign a longer contract with a telecommunications company.

HTC Desire follows the footsteps of Nexus One

A month after its release in store, the Nexus One by Taiwanese company HTC (High Tech Computers) presents the HTC Desire, much like the phone that Google has launched with bullying in the market for smartphones. Along with the HTC Mini and HTC Legend is one of 3 phones so far by HTC officially presented during this Mobile World Congress.Like the companions it runs on Android operating system (while the HTC Mini relies on Windows Mobile 6.5). The HTC Desire has a 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen, a 1GHz of Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth 2.1 and GPS, FM radio and a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash. On the software, in addition to remembering Android operating system 2.1 (Eclair), very interesting is the interface HTC Sense, already models HTC Hero, and according to the studio itself, designed to allow maximum customization possible, certainly much more than the Nexus One.

Also in terms of software will be FriendStream, application can aggregate content from several different social networks, and Adobe Flash 10.1 (it is one of the first smartphone to support it). It will be on sale in Europe from the second quarter of 2010.

The exact HTC Desire release should be on 1st of April in Europe.

• 1 GHz processor by Snapdragon
• 3.7 inch AMOLED touchscreen capacative with multi-touch support
• Resolution: 480 x 800 WVGA
• Platform: Android 2.1 with HTC Sense
• Memory: 512MB ROM + 576MB RAM
• Expandable memory: microSD expandable to 32 GB
• Bluetooth 2.1 and WiFi 802.11 b / g
• 3G/GPRS/EDGE
• Battery: 1400 mAh
• 119 mm x 60 mm x 11.9 mm
• 135 grams
• Network: HSPA / WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• 5.0 megapixel camera with auto-focus, LED flash and face recognition
• Optical trackball
• 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
• GPS
• FM Radio
• Tethering – share your Internet connection d.m.v. USB
• G-Sensor/Digital compass / Proximity Sensor / Ambient Light Sensor

LG ARENA GT950

Customers will enjoy a crisp viewing experience on the LG ARENA GT950 with a 3-inch WVGA screen. Customers can also shoot and share photos and DVD-quality videos with ARENA’s 5.0 MP autofocus camera and with multiple messaging options and access to popular social networking sites, sending and posting geo-tagged photos and videos to friends and family has never been easier.

The LG ARENA GT950 is also the latest AT&T Mobile TV-capable device to hit stores. AT&T Mobile TV subscribers enjoy around-the-clock access to full-length live and time-shifted programming from FLO TV, including content from top entertainment brands such as ABC, ABC Entertainment, ABC Family, ABC News, ABC Sports, CBS, CBS College Sports, CBS News, CNBC, COMEDY CENTRAL, Disney Channel, Disney Channel Original Movies, ESPN, ESPNEWS, ESPN 2, FOX, FOX News Channel, FOX Sports, FUEL TV, msnbc, MTV, NBC, NBC 2Go, NBC News, NBC Sports, nickelodeon, Playhouse Disney, SOAPNet and the movie channel Crackle. AT&T Mobile TV is available for $9.99 per month, and new subscribers receive the first seven days of their subscription for free. For more information, visit www.att.com/mobiletv.

The hardware buttons are pretty minimal on the exterior, with a slightly-too-recessed unlock / power button on top, a volume rocker and voice command-activator on the right side, and a camera button below them. On the face is an optical track pad which clicks, next to capacitive buttons for menu, home and back. The row is thankfully offset from the bottom of the LCD, avoiding the fiasco of the Nexus One’s easily actuated row, but you can’t help but think the black expanse in between is wasted somehow. The optical trackpad is very nice and sensitive for what it is, but we hardly use it; we’ve yet to see an Android device that makes a compelling use case for a trackpad, D-pad or scrollball outside of the occasional textual revision. A very minimal blinking indicator light is to the left of the primary buttons on the face, trying to tell us something, though we haven’t quite ascertained what yet.

There’s a rather dramatic recessed headphone jack centered at the top of the device, which isn’t as discriminatory in sleeve as the original iPhone, but still restricts the fattest of our 3.5mm plugs. We’d be more miffed if Android didn’t make such a poor music player as to make the jack fairly pointless in use with any premium headphones. There’s a relatively large speakerphone grill at the bottom of the phone, which pumps out clear if not overly loud (by Verizon’s standards) audio.

At the end of the day, the phone is probably too fat and bulky to be winsome to its presumed Sidekick-familiar audience looking to graduate to a sexier device. The side loading battery is probably one of our favorite bits of the build, at last rectifying the age-old battery pop-out we used to when dropping our phones, and providing a way to get at the 8GB bundled microSD card without turning off the phone, but at the same time the unique assembly probably contributes the most to the phone’s girth. Sure, the handset is really just barely thicker than the Droid, but it lacks the speedy processor or incredible screen of its big brother that might make such heft excusable.

The slide-out keyboard is another in a long line of missed opportunities from Motorola. For a company so bent on putting keyboards into its Android phones, you’d think it would be a bit more serious about being good at it. Granted, the keyboard is vastly superior to the Droid’s mushy mess, with fairly well-separated keys and no D-pad to push them off center. Unfortunately, the keys feel just a little too flat to be truly great, almost like an quasi-separated membrane keyboard than an actual collection of separate keys. The other problem is that Motorola has given the numbers their own dedicated row, pushing the spacebar up in between V and B… making the keyboard extremely frustrating to learn, or to switch between this and other devices. For a regular user this probably will cease to be a problem eventually, and we could see someone getting theoretically very good at this ‘board, but it’s still no excuse for such a frustrating layout.

The capacitive touchscreen is nicely responsive and certainly decent in pushing pixels, but it simply pales in comparison to the jumbo-sized high resolution screens we’re starting to see on other devices, and its colors seem slightly washed out, though it does offer up some pretty strong blacks for an LCD.

Software / Performance
So, another foray into Blur, and this time with a faster processor (a Qualcomm MSM7627, the same chip used to power Palm’s Pixi). To be honest, Blur isn’t much of anything to get up in arms over. It occupies the home screen (though its widgets can easily be moved or removed) and attempts to merge a few forms of messaging, but it has neither a far reach, nor annoying habits that might hurt the rest of the Android experience.

Of course, that’s a pretty weak compliment. In reality, we just find Blur to be mostly useless due to what we’ll term the “do you really care about them?” factor. Basically, while we love everyone we’ve ever friended on Facebook or followed on Twitter, there are simply too many people to make the home screen ever relevant. The top widget displays our latest status update (mildly helpful), but the Twitter and Facebook widgets show the face and text of the most recent update or DM by our fourth grade swim coach or our mom’s old quilting circle buddy — sure, they’re fine folks, but we really wish they weren’t occupying a third of our home screen at the moment. If you tap into Twitter or Facebook you get a linear, one-at-a-time view of friend updates that you can swipe horizontally to browse through before you quickly lose stamina. There is an inbox-style view for DMs that’s slightly more helpful, and the “people” button at the bottom right provides the true, “core” integration of status updates and contacts available on the device in an actually usable list view, but we’d give all of Blur up in an instant for good individual Facebook and Twitter apps. We’re not saying this sort of integration can’t be done well, but Blur sure isn’t the answer.

Luckily, some of the performance woes that typically have dogged Blur haven’t been so evident here. We’re not sure if that’s due to recent updates Motorola has made to the software, or thanks to the peppier new processor, but we often found swiping between home screens or even occasionally jumping in and out of apps to be a tad more responsive on the Devour than the Droid. Unfortunately, the real legacy of Blur isn’t its failure to be useful, but the fact that it’s going to delay this phone from getting real and useful updates of Android as a whole — it’s perfectly designed for fragmentation, and if you find yourself unhappy with the initial experience, you’re going to be extra-frustrated by the unpredictable and snail-paced update schedule.

We’re still pretty happy with many elements of Android floating around here, like that best-in-class email experience, vibrant developer community and useful widget UI, but there’s nothing about Blur or the Devour that really make them better. The browser is of course decent, but without multitouch or a “superphone” processor to make it scream, it’s hardly a selling point. It does pack Flash Lite, but without support for Hulu or YouTube for Viddler, it’s kind of moot.

This crystal device has its own distinctive appeal due to its transparent slide out touch resistive keypad. The dimension of this phone is very stylish, 105 mm x 13.5 mm x 52.5 mm and a very portable in weight with just 127 grams. There are many several inbuilt tools.

Specification are:

• 3 inches TFT colored display,
• Gesture Shortcut,
• Multi-touch input method S-Class Touch UI,
• Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate,
• Handwriting recognition
• Proximity sensor for auto turn-off,
• 8 mega pixels camera along with LED flash and auto focus feature,
• 3G HSDPA,
• USB, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth with A2DP, GPRS and EDGE etc.
• internal memory of 1.5 GB and expandable upto 32 GB
• In-built games, music player and FM radio with RDS technology
• In-built Standard Li-Ion 1000 mAh battery that delivers up to 6 hours in talk time and up to 300 hours in standby mode

The iPad does house a few other components you should be aware of: a volume rocker and screen position lock (which forces the device to remain in landscape or portrait mode) on the upper right hand side, a power / sleep button and headphone jack on either side of its top edge, and Apple’s famous 30-pin dock connector alongside a single thin speaker on the bottom of the unit. There is nothing outwardly notable about the buttons or layout on the iPad — if you’ve used an iPod touch or iPhone, you’ll find yourself right at home… and that’s exactly how Apple wants it.

As far as ergonomics are concerned, the standard seated-with-iPad-in-lap move is a completely comfortable experience, but there are definitely use cases where handling a flat slab becomes a pain. For instance, single finger typing becomes a bit of a game of hunt-and-peck, and that’s the situation you find yourself in if you’re ever standing with the iPad or holding the device with your other hand. We mentioned that iPad has some weight to it, and while it’s comfortable to hold, it is considerably more of a handful than an iPhone. You’ll feel that weight in your arms after extended period of keeping it aloft. Apple promo videos like to show their users happily grabbing the iPad and swinging their legs up onto a table — Fonz style — but if you’re like us, most of your heavy text entry is done while seated at a standard table or desk, which means that unless you have a dock you’re going to be typing on the iPad as a flat surface. The thing is, we actually found the flat-typing experience to be pretty good; it takes a little getting used to, but it’s not totally bizarre either. In fact, we’d say it’s a much more enjoyable experience than single-hand typing. Still, just as with the iPhone, there is a learning curve here that may diminish some hit-and-run shoppers’ interest.

The phone comes with EDGE technology, Bluetooth® technology, USB cable connection, fast port & GPRS. The user can use any of the connectivity options to connect their Sony Ericsson W580i to a compatible PC, laptop or printer to transfer files between devices. The Bluetooth® technology provides a wireless connection between compatible Bluetooth® devices & allows the user to enjoy a tangle free wireless experience.

The built in EDGE technology provides a fast & effective transfer speed which allows the user to enjoy a fast experience on their mobile device. The mobile technology does not stop their as the user can access the World Wide Web using the integrated Access NetFront™ Internet browser.

The W580i features a “shake control” – you flick your wrist when the music player is on and a random song is selected to play. Gimmicky but cool. Another gimmick is the built-in pedometer. It’s a useful feature if you do a lot of walking, but pedometers are cheap and readily available – do you really need one in your phone?

The main feature of the W580i (apart from making phone calls, of course!) is the music player. We’ve written about the quality of the Walkman music range many times on this site – take it from us, it’s good. The W580i has the new version 2.0, and is also equipped with an FM radio. A stereo headset is included in the sales package, and there’s also support for an optional Bluetooth stereo headset. The available memory is not generous – just 12 Mbytes built-in (enough for 3-4 songs) but the memory is expandable to 1 Gbyte (Memory Stick Micro™) or 4 Gbytes (Memory Stick PRO).

The phone also comes with a 2 megapixel camera with video recording capabilities, but this cannot compare with the autofocus-equipped cameras on the K800i or W610i.

Features of the Sony Ericsson W580i include:

• 2 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom
• Video camera
• 3D Java games
• Display: 262,144-colour TFT LCD, 240 x 320 colours (2 inches)
• Music player (Walkman 2.0)
• FM radio
• Megabass™
• PlayNow™
• TrackID™
• Polyphonic ringtones & music tones
• Speakerphone
• Sound recorder
• Pedometer
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email
• Animated wallpaper
• Personal organiser functions
• Flight mode
• Memory: 12 Mbytes plus Memory Stick Micro™ support (up to 1 Gbyte)
• Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB mass storage
• WAP, EDGE
• Web browser, RSS feeds, picture blogging
• Vibration alert
• Size: 99 x 47 x 14 mm
• Weight: 94g
• Quadband (GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900)
• Talktime: 9 hours
• Battery standby: 370 hours

The Nokia 2630 comes with an integrated VGA camera feature which allows the user to take a quick still photograph or record some moving footage. The camera comes with a 4 x zoom which allows the user to get closer to their subject & gain the perfect photograph or video. The integrated camera comes with a dedicated camera key which allows the user to access the camera feature in an instant.

The user can share their photographs with others using the MMS messaging service, email or Bluetooth® wireless technology. The user can store their video recordings to play back at any time they desire or share them with others using the messaging service or by using the built in technology.

The Nokia 2630 is a simplistic looking handset which comes with easy to use features & the built in capabilities will suit most mobile phone user’s needs.

The 2630 is a classic bar design handset which allows the user to communicate with others easily. The mobile phone offers the user a slim & slender design which is easy to carry & the built in features allows the user to enjoy fun multimedia & communication features. The Nokia 2630 is only 9.9mm thick which makes it’s so easy for the user to operate & carry.

Nokia 2630 comes with a WAP Web browser which allows the user to access the Web on their mobile phone. The WAP browser is a 2.0 XHTML Web browser which the user can access from the main menu system. The phone comes with an email service which allows the user to view, send, receive & store emails on their handset. The phone supports a variety of messaging service which includes the popular MMS messaging, SMS messaging, audio messaging & instant messaging. The instant messaging service is availability is dependant on the user network operator. The MMS service allows the user to share photographs & videos quickly & easily with compatible MMS users. The audio messaging service allows the user to share audio recording with compatible users. The SMS messaging service is a text input message service which allows the user to communicate with others using text & icons in their messages.

The mobile phone comes with 11 Mbytes of built in memory which provides the user with memory for storing their contacts details, messages, photographs & videos. The user can connect their Nokia 2630 to compatible Bluetooth® devices using a Bluetooth® wireless connection to transfer files. The phone comes with connection ports for the user to connect their phone to a compatible headset & phone charger which are include in the phones kit. The battery will provide the user with up to 312 hours of standby battery time & up to 6 hours of talk time from a fully charged battery. The Nokia 2630 is a dual band phone which covers GSM 900 & 1800. The user can view their clock in either analogue or digital format & the user can use the alarm clock to get the up each morning.

The Nokia N97 is a nicely designed phone. The design is agreeable to look at, and the build quality is good, except maybe for the battery cover which has a plastic feel – but it needs to be flexible because it’s *removable*. The display is a mixed bag: it has a resolution of 640×360 but the colors seem a little faded and the clarity seems inferior to other touch phones. I suspect that one of the display layers has something to do with this. Two people that I’ve shown the phone to immediately made the same remark as well.

Next to the speaker, you will notice a front-facing camera and a proximity sensor. The 5 Megapixel camera is in the back, protected by a sliding lens cover. There’s a “camera” button that makes taking picture more natural than taping on the screen (which often induces a last minute shake that could makes photos blurry). The keyboard sliding mechanism feels solid.

The Nokia N97 is a little thick (15.9mm). The bottom part is basically as thick as my Blackberry curve or an iPhone, and the display is 3mm (or so) thick on top of it. These 3mm represent what it takes to add a physical keyboard to a phone like that. The T-Mobile G1 is even thicker at 16.35mm. If you want a big display and a full keyboard that’s the price to pay right now.

Touch Phone (Just OK)

For many things (but not all), the Nokia N97 can be used as a pure touch phone. The company has done an “ok job” on the tactile user interface. It’s mostly intuitive, except for the setup menus (I question their logic). Nokia uses a double-tap system to avoid accidental clicks vs. drag interpretations (see video). For example, in the menu, if I want to go to my contacts, I need to click once to select “contacts”, then click a second time to actually launch the application. Depending on your tastes this can be great or annoying. We’re not fans of it, but I got over it.

The N97 has a lot of email options and the one that I prefer for work is Exchange: it is well implemented and works flawlessly. Emails arrive instantly and the only thing that I noticed is that upon a soft reset (battery removal), the phone does not cache the Exchange email and spends time doing a “sync” from scratch (that can take a couple of minutes).

I also setup a GMail account. From the @gmail.com address, the N97 was able to preset all the mail server settings. All that I had to provide is my email and password. By default, that email was setup to use the 3.5G connection, so you might want to set it up with the “default” connection, to make it work over WIFI as well. All in all, the setup couldn’t be much easier.

The N97 comes loaded with Nokia Maps, and I can say that it is my best “out of the box” experience with a default navigation app. Unlike Google maps, the Nokia maps are cached on the device itself, so once they are onboard, they are not downloaded (over the air) again. Better yet: you can pre-load an entire city, country or the whole world (4GB) so that Nokia maps doesn’t load the maps while you’re traveling. That cuts down on roaming charges, waiting time and frustration.

Nokia Maps is fast and lets you scroll the map smoothly. Upon a zoom in/out it will take a second readjust the level of details (see video). I found the compass be not very useful in pedestrian mode. Using it makes the map rotate left and right -all the time- which doesn’t help the overall map readability. Nokia should also improve the search and use a single text field like Google Maps does. It is also not possible to select an origin/destination directly on the map. That would be easy to add.

The Nokia N97 has a good browser, it worked with pretty much all the sites that went to, including Yahoo Finance and Google Docs. Y! Finance is usually an interesting site to try on a phone because it’s hard to render on small displays. The N97′s resolution is high enough to display it correctly, so that’s a win. It is possible to log into Google Docs and view text documents, but sheets did not work, even in read-only mode. Adobe Flash Lite is supported. You can go on YouTube, follow links to YouTube and do things that you would normally do on a computer, without going through a YouTube “app”.