I’ve got a BlackBerry Bold, as well as an iPhone 3G. I’m not writing this review exclusively for comparing the N97 side-by-side, but given the price of this phone, the bar is set reasonably high. Obviously, nothing’s really “as good as” a BlackBerry when it comes to e-mail (and you’re using a BES), and nothing available right now is “as good as” an iPhone when it comes to web browsing or application availability. So for reference, those weren’t taken in to consideration.
The N97 arrives in a very nice package, with a pre-charged battery and thoughtfully written manual. The included software doesn’t run on OS X, so I spent very limited time working with it.
Within a couple of minutes of receiving the box, I threw my SIM card in and the phone was happily asking for some settings. What impressed me immediately, is that the N97 seemed to know exactly how to configure itself for data and MMS services. This is the first unbranded phone I’ve used that didn’t need me to enter the settings for my carrier (AT&T).
The N97 almost instantly showed a strong 3.5G signal, and started filling the home screen with information. I placed a couple of test calls, and was extremely impressed with the sound quality. Without question, this is one of the best sounding wireless phones I’ve ever used.
And then, the wheels started to come off…
First task: sync my work mail, contacts, and calendars via ActiveSync.
This started out reasonably easy, until I realized about halfway through the wizard that I had entered a setting incorrectly. Unfortunately, once you have something in the wizard, it’s there. There’s no “Back” button. So, the Mail For Exchange program started complaining immediately.
“No problem” I thought, I’ll just change the settings. This turned out to be far more convoluted than it should be. “Options” doesn’t give you a path to the settings. You have to go to hit the silver button, then go to Applications, then go to the “MfE” folder (which is incredibly cryptic, if you don’t know what you’re looking for) to change the settings.
Once I had them changed, the N97 happy started grabbing everything I wanted from my Exchange server. I went back in to Options and saw some well thought out options, like setting “prime time” for a constant sync, and a schedule for when you don’t need instant access. There were also options for setting Out of Office notifications, and the overall experience was quite good.
Second task: set up my personal e-mail account.
Having used the wizard already, this was straightforward. The program asked if I wanted to connect to get my mail, and I confirmed that I did. Mail showed up, and all was good. Until I tried to leave the program. That’s when I learned that the N97 is apparently incapable of maintaining two mail connections.
Annoyed, but willing to accept this limitation, I tried to put the account on my home screen, along with my Exchange account. Apparently, the N97 can’t do this, either. You can have one mail box on the screen, regardless of the number of mail accounts you may be using.
Third task: connect with my Bluetooth speakerphone.
My car has a Bluetooth speakerphone. Since I can remember Bluetooth being a feature on wireless phones, Nokia seems to have dominated this space by including just about every Bluetooth profile under the sun. Pairing the N97 wasn’t a problem. After it was set up, I made a couple of calls (which again, had awesome clarity) and thought everything was fine. Until…
When I returned to my car later in the day, I noticed that calls weren’t being directed to the speakerphone. As it turns out, the N97 won’t re-pair with anything on its own. So while I could use the speakerphone with my Bold and iPhone without doing anything at all, the N97 requires you to hit the silver button, then go to Setup, then Connectivity, then Bluetooth, then Paired Devices, then pick the speakerphone, then hit “pair” every time.
Speaking of which…
Fourth Task: answer the stupid phone.
I’m not 100% sure this is even possible with the N97. When the phone rings, you have a large bar with an arrow that points to nothing, and is labeled “Answer”. If you tap it, nothing happens. If you hit the green button, nothing. If you unlock the phone and try either, nothing.
Feeling like a complete moron, I had to look it up. It turns out, the bars are sliders, similar to the Unlock slider on an iPhone. Yet, this is really the ONLY thing in the OS that acts like an iPhone.
Fifth Task: get Facebook working.
This wasn’t difficult at all. Enter your name and password, and go. The application looks similar to the BlackBerry version, which I happened to like more than the iPhone version.
It does just about everything you’d expect it to, until it crashes. Yes, that’s right. Until it crashes. Constantly. Sometimes it does a full “I’m kicking you back to the home screen” crash, and other times, you get a red box telling you that your phone needs to be restarted. Sometimes the red box goes away on its own. There’s really no rhyme or reason to it.
Sixth Task: read my e-mail.
Well… on the first try, I had a message that said my phone was out of memory. You see, despite having 32GB of storage for music and movies, the amount of memory your phone can actually use for programs is quite limited. The out of memory message suggested closing other applications, which I did, and which resolved nothing. Rebooting the phone worked.
That’s when I discovered that the N97 is actually quite awful at rendering mail that isn’t plain text.
That’s also where I started to give up on the N97. In between all of this, I also discovered that:
*Your choices for incoming message alerts are either at the same volume as your ringer, or disabled.
*Some things need to be double-tapped, others single-tapped, with little indication as to which is which.
*The Ovi Store is basically a kludgy mess.
*The keyboard will constantly register any key that you so much as brush your finger next to when typing.
*There is virtually no connection between what the battery display chooses to tell you, and how much battery life you actually have.
*The N97 is basically a hopeless mess of a phone.
Admittedly, there are some bright spots:
*The back camera takes surprisingly good pictures.
*The included weather application is actually pretty cool, since it uses GPS and updates often.
*The overall build quality of the phone is quite good.
And sure, there are a boatload of hacks and tweaks you can make to the phone to get it to do things closer to what you want. But in my estimation, the amount of research and effort to do so is unreasonable, given this phone’s cost.
I’ve also heard that a new software update is imminent (as of this review, the most recent version available for this phone is 12.0.24), so that may solve some problems. But with the N900 not costing substantially more and a release date “any day now”, the N97 is for Symbian fans only.
Related Posts
Tags: Nokia N97, Nokia Unlocked Phone
Great post! I recieved alot of money for christmas and I believe I want to purchase this. Your wrote a great post, absolutely the best Ive seen so far. I will be looking forward to your next blog post. thanks again.