Nokia N97

“I wanted to like Nokia N97, I have tried to find something new and innovative that could make me buy one, but I simply couldn't find a strong reason to do it. There are other communication solutions that offer more than Nokia N97 and for a much reasonable price. My impression is that the Finnish giant launched another unfinished product, which became obsolete right at launch. Technology advances fast and it appears that Nokia simply cannot keep the pace with its rivals.The GoodWell, there are some good things even in a bad phone, so Nokia N97 still has its good parts. These are the impressive display, the full QWERTY keyboard, HSDPA and Wi-Fi technologies, plus the built-in GPS receiver (with three months of free voice guidance). Also, the 5-megapixel camera is superior to most cameras of the same kind. The music player and the 3.5mm jack port are exceptional as well.The BadThe battery is so low that it will drain way too fast if you use the phone to talk too much. Such a big display would've made a nice addition if you had had a good browser or an eye-candy UI. Symbian OS 9.4 with S60 5th Edition UI cannot be compared to the iPhone's UI or Android. The lack of some free business tools like document readers is another letdown.”

“The original N97 wasn’t worth the price of admission. Now that the price has dropped to more reasonable levels, you may be considering picking it up. Here’s the problem: the N97 is a sort of jack-of-all-trades, master of none. It’s got the touch interface, physical keyboard, high-powered camera, WebKit-based browser, but none of these things are done particularly well. They’re just kind of okay.”

“I wish I could have found more positive things to say about this device. I'm sure fans will not be happy with this review, but the simple truth is that the Nokia N97 is the most unusable phone I have ever held to date. I was notified on my second run with the phone (I gave up on it the first time around) that a major software update was available. After hassling with the Windows-only updater and more low battery issues, I finally accomplished the update. I saw no practical improvement.”

“Nokia tried really hard here, but to be honest, speaking from my personal opinion, the second I saw the N97 announcement I skipped right over it in my head. I’m the biggest N95-4 fan you’ll find — but S60 5th Edition with a resistive screen, horrible keyboard and horrible navigational buttons? No thank you. The problem with the Nokia N97 is — and please don’t take this the wrong way — that this exact phone could have been launched 2 years ago and no one would have blinked. What other phone can you take out of it’s current place, drop back two years, and have no one question where it came from? Take the Palm Pre for better or worse, and bring it back to 2007. People would have heart attacks. What about the iPhone? Well, you know how that turned out. BlackBerry Storm? People would have broken through glass to get it. But, no one really would care about the N97 and that, besides not being a device we enjoyed using, is the larger issue. Nokia has lost its place in the sun when looking at the consumer smartphone market and until they get back on track, RIM, Apple, Windows Mobile, Palm and Android are going to continue eating more and more of their lunch.”