Wise Rhetoric

I just bought my cellphone, at the beggining i was very scared because i use to be a blackberry user all my life because my work, so i bought this phone here at amazon, and its great! YES is a brand new PHONE! so it have a lots of BUGS but almost at lot of the have been fixed, thats why i gave 4 stars! but the phone its amazing i used to have the blackberry storm, bu believe me this one its GREAT the things that i dont like are the backcover its plastic made, the MSN LIVE is not working at all,the video support (only MP4) and they are not to much app right now, but im sure that we will have a lot of apps early in this future. but believe me i love this phone and everybody looks at my phone! it looks great in your hand! AND THE INTERNET SURFING IS JUST AMAZING!!!! im in mexico and im having a 1.3 MB of 3g speed! is not too bad! i gues that in USA will be faster! but i dont need to much speed.

the bugs im having till now are:
*CANT UPLOAD ALL MY PICTURES to FACEBOOK (this is a facebook ISSUE)
*When you have low battety theirs a very low frecuency sound (on the next update nokia said that it will be fixed)
* I cant put to wallpapers at the same time (this is not a bug, you just cant, but i hate that i want a landscape wallpapper an a portrait wallpaper)
*All othe issues have been already fixed (locks, reboots, lights)

The batery life on my n97 its like 24 hours but please believe on this im almost 15 hrs on my phone internet, because i use it alot on my work, and i have this program that i recibe my emails just the moment it was sent, just like the blackberry so its 22 hours on the net! when im not surfing too much on the net it can hold up to 3 days!

Sorry about my english, but im typping really fast, and i dont have a great grammar! but what im trying to tell you is that,if you are not specting a laptop and you are realistic about the things a smartphone can do. this cell phone is GREAT dont hezitate on buying it! it looks great and very like executive! LOL

greetings!

So I started using this phone about 5 or 6 months ago and have recently come to this decision to ditch it for a Nokia E75. I will list the pros and the cons I think that the Nokia N97 has….

pros
*Nice and eye-catching design….Many friends really liked the look of the phone and the sliding keyboard really excited some people
*Satisfying web browsing….It has been really nice to look at some much-visited web pages and do some shopping online with the phone, most web sites load quickly and fully
*Nice camera
*Pretty decent music player….I used this phone with a 16GB card full of music as my primary head-phone music player most of the summer
*Large screen

cons
*widgets are a mixed bag…most of them are not really useful and would not connect consistently
*”lock key” on side of the phone has been a real pain….sometimes it would work, then not work, then not unlock, get stuck, etc
*the touchscreen is just soooo not smooth and slick. I would often wonder if I had pressed something hard enough or not hard enough.
*QWERTY keyboard is not very easy to use. The “character” button is right next to the “space” button so I was CONSTANTLY calling up a page of characters at the wrong time, which really slows down typing
*on screen numeric key-pad is ok for T9 typing but very clumsy…. I am a very heavy texter and this got so frustrating for the amount of backspacing and deleting for most text messages
*not pleasing photo gallery….the biggest problem I felt with this was just how unattractive it looks. I once had a Nokia N85 and the way it displayed the photos was very streamlined and neat looking. This device just lays them all out with no styling and also near the end of my using the device it would take so long to load that it got kind of embarrassing if I were trying to show someone a photo
*general bulkiness of the device
*high price tag

and finally I just got tired of it turning off unexpectedly, re-booting itself, not being able to unlock it with the lock key, etc.

So, as you can see it really isn’t a bad phone. It just fell way short of my expectations for a Nokia “flagship” phone and also as a touchscreen device. I ordered the E75 out of sheer frustration and the desire to get away from a touchscreen. I’ve only had the E75 for a few days but in spite of the smaller screen, I now have a smaller, easily pocketable phone with a VERY VERY VERY nice QWERTY keyboard and a traditional keypad for T9 texting. Very happy with my new phone and kinda glad I don’t have to deal with the frustration of all the N97’s inconsistencies. Thanks for reading!

I have been using this phone for the last month, I use this phone for my corporate email, and occasionally for web browsing. I rarely game on this phone, and don’t expect to game on it. This is a great business phone over the iPhone and E63/E71.

Pros
- Keyboard: Great for email and SMS, but keys might be too small for people with big hands, I have a medium size hand and occasionally still makes typo
- Battery Life: A lot better compared to my iPhone 3G, on average expect 2 days before needing to charge, on par with E63/E71
- Camera: Good pictures, not great but definitely workable. Video are great, I take them occasionally, and then upload them back to my computer, and they are great (not HD, but color is accurate and video is smooth).
- Ovi Store: Good selection of apps, much less choices compared to Apple’s App Store, but a good start. My only complain is that the apps are expensive compare to Apple, even though they are the same program by same developers.
- Ovi Suite: Great program to sync all your note/contact/calendar/photos/sms/programs, it even allows you to do backup/restore from the phone, great if you need to reset and format the phone. Syncing has been flawless!!
- Nokia Map: Works great, same as iPhone, but voice navigation will cost you extra. My complain is that it is slower online to load maps than iPhone’s Google Map. Remember to download Maps for your area to the phone through Ovi Suite, so you don’t need the constant internet connection to load the map.

Cons
- Memory Implementation: My biggest complain, Nokia decided to split the 32GB of memory into 2 parts (System-74MB, and Mass Memory-31GB), this just doesn’t make sense to me. As some program forces you to install on the system memory, you can run out of memory literally within days or weeks. After it is full, some of your program which require the memory simply won’t run unless you clean it up, which Nokia doesn’t provide a good tool to do.
- Tilt Sensor: Poorly implemented during calling/hanging up, I had to tilt and tilt the phone around and around to answer call and hanging up. I just decided to disable the auto sensing feature all together. Nokia should allow the user to further customize the tilt function so you can choose which program you don’t want the tilt to work.
- Games: This phone is not meant for gaming. Games are horrible on this phone, there are few choices in the store, and pressure sensitive screen aren’t as good as the touch sensitive screen on the iPhone.
- Hang & Freeze: Right out of the box, my phone hanged on more than 10 separate occasion during end calls, and closing application during its 1st week. Honestly the firmware and my carrier aren’t working together, after a master reset, and reinstall all the application myself, things were much improved, only 1-2 hang & freeze when I try to run multiple application at the same time and syncing at the same time.

Tips
- Master Reset: My carrier decided to install lots of program into my system memory, leaving me a poor 5MB, I literally ran out of memory first day using the phone for emails. I recommend you do a master reset to remove all the application, and install the ones you really need and install them to Mass Memory if possible. My phone is working flawless now, 4 email accounts, 30 apps installed, and still 10MB left on the system memory.
- Version 2: Upgrade your phone firmware to version 2, should be an improvement.

So far I like it, it’s very stable for the most part but ocasionally it has issues with connecting to the net, this might be due to the phone or due to the fact that the at&t network in my small town has been neglected last 6 years and barely works. it tends to drop calls easily but overall is pretty good. also it doesn’t get nearly as good of signal as a blackberry in low signal areas. it does require quite a bit of fiddling to get some of the settings the way you like but overall it’s very easy to use, I love the 32 gigs of internal memory, provides lots of space for apps and music, the video quality on the phone is also very good but the format support is limited. the camera is exceptional, it takes extremely clear crisp images and the video quality when using in video mode isn’t bad either. the second camera for video chat is of poor quality, it’s not good for making pictures but it is perfect for what it’s ment for, video calling.

some questions I had about the phone when I ordered it I would like to provide answers for in case others have same question.

first off, the phone has several types of memory avalible, your ram, which is required to run programs, it’s got quite a bit for a phone but I think it could use more. second is the phone memory, I’m not sure how much is avalible total, never bothered to check, but I believe it’s around 40-60 megabytes. this is the primary location you’ll install most of your applications. the third area of memory is the 32 gigs of storage space, you can store anything in it and even install more programs here, please note not all applications will run properly from this memory, but most do. be careful about installing apps that are always running into this memory, cause when you plug the phone into your computer in mass storage mode, this memory is not accessable to your phone and apps running from it will run into problems. the same is true for the last area of memory, micro sd cards. insert any size you want up to 16 gigs and you have just that much more storage added to your phone. works just like the 32 gig memory, you can put apps or whatever on it, same thing about apps that run all the time in background applies to cards too. also some older apps will only recognize the first memory card device, the 32 gig memory looks like a card to most apps. meaning many older apps will see it, but will not see the sd card. this is a limitation of the older apps, not the phone.

the gps reciever in the phone isn’t very good, it takes a long time to get a lock and looses signal pretty easy, but it does work and works well enough to get the job done.

I can’t tell you how good 3g is on it, I do not live in area with 3g coverage, but edge is decent, that is, when I’m away from home, edge network here creeps at about 2kbs, it used to be much much faster but at&t neglected the network and it’s gotten very slow and unreliable in past few years.

problems I’ve found with the device is sometimes the os will get unstable, it’s rare, but when it happens you’ll just have to reset the phone in most cases, there is two methods to reset, one is to dial a code, the other is to hold a combo of keys while turning it on. I know both work as I’ve tried both, however I can’t remember them of hand, google can help. the back doesn’t seem well made to me, but it’s held on rather well so maybe it’s a little stronger than it appears. there is one app, accuweather that comes on the phone, I’ve had issues with this app from the start, it rarely works, recomendations on fixes or a better app is welcome. often times the phone will have issues connecting to the net, for no reason whatsoever the web browser will keep giving connection errors, most people have recomended powering the phone on and off to get it to reconnect. I found a quicker way that usually works. exit your browser and go to home screen, hold the end call button till it asks if you want to end data connections, answer yes, relaunch browser. works nearly everytime but sometimes you still have to resort to restarting the phone.

overall my thoughts on the device are it’s worth the money. most of the problems it has are fixed with the current firmware update, there are still a few lingering problems I hope the 2.0 update coming out will fix. but for someone who wants a decent media phone with lots of space, it’s definately worth the money.

I have had this phone since July 3, 2009. Since purchase I have had to deal with one issue after another, all related to the software and application interface. The hardware (physical) phone itself was great.

Negatives:
Too numerous to list all of them here, but essentially the software and applications are not intuitive and have MAJOR issues. I am fairly tech savvy and I cannot even imagine how someone who is less knowledgeable in this area would be able to deal with this phone. Very high maintenance.
–It took me, and several tech geek friends, A LOT of time to figure out how to set up 2 email accounts.
–The wireless access would not “remember” my wireless WEP key and typing that long# in repeatedly is not fun! It started ’saving’ it on its own one day. (see reboot story below – now it doesn’t save any more)
–Facebook app and “Favorites” app won’t load onto the home screen (just says “Loading” but never does). I tried to reinstall the Facebook app, but had to go to a 3rd party site to find it. Nokia’s Ovi store no longer has a FB app available. Once an app is gone from your phone – good luck trying to reinstall it. Impossible. If you can even find the app anywhere.
–Apps randomly work, then don’t work. Very mysterious.

Yesterday I had to do a hard reset back to the factory settings (which means I had to back up and then delete all of my data, photos, text messages, music, and loose all of my settings, including difficult-to-set-up email connection settings, etc), to try and get the non-working/disappeared apps to work. There wasn’t much else I could do the software was so messed up. It was the last resort to get the phone to function properly. However, resetting it essentially “killed” the phone interface entirely. It is so bad that I just sent my phone to Nokia’s repair site in Alabama (their “customer care” phone and email are essentially non-existant: phone tree loop and a “generic” email response is what they consider “care.”) Now, I am waiting to see if/when they fix the phone. Here is how the phone was “working” after the hard reset (that was supposed to bring it back to the original factory settings):

–The key pad won’t function (on screen) so I can’t even try another hard reset.
–The phone doesn’t work (can’t access it).
–The camera won’t function.
–Most of the apps are missing. Including facebook and ‘favorites’.
–Most of the apps that are still on the phone won’t function.
–The phone shuts off when connected to the computer to update software.
–The phone randomly shuts on and off when you try to access an app.
–The ‘memory full’ message keeps appearing when there is nothing on the phone and there are no apps open.
Among other issues…

My main concerns about having to mail my new, $700 phone to a far away repair place are:
(1) now I am stuck with NO PHONE for “7-10+ days” and I am trying to run a small business (ironically enough it is for usability testing of products such as this – and boy does Nokia need to test their N97 interface – have they actually read the Nokia Users Discussion board?), and;
(2) the “Repair form” instructions for returning the phone state that they will “call me with an estimate of the cost(shouldn’t it be free?!)” or that they will “return the phone if it is not repairable.” That’s just great. Can you tell that I am really annoyed? The phone cost $700!!!

Positives:
Nice hardware. The keyboard is easy to use and read. I liked the matte feel of the keys. The screen is large and crisp in terms of readbility, and I love the fact that you can use your finger or a stylus (or finger nail – which you can’t do on the iPhone) to activate the touch screen. I love the weight and solid feel of the phone. The silver buttons and edging is also a nice touch. The camera, when it worked, took nice photos that rivaled my digital cameras’ pics.

The white phone is pretty cool looking – too bad it doesn’t work!

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.

When I first learned of the n97’s release, I was excited. I had been waiting for Nokia to release another ground-breaking phone, like the n95 of years ago. The n96 wasn’t it, nor was the n85. Then the n97 came – with a touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard to boot! I was sold at once, but did all of my research anyway and found it to be full of innovative ideas and modern must-haves. I bought it nearly two weeks ago at a reasonable discount from NokiasUSA after Amazon ran out of stock and jacked up the price.

**If you read the specs, you will find all of the high points, but here are some more:

-I found the phone to be fast and responsive when given input. The keyboard is phenomenal – the key spacing and feel is just right and the offset space bar is not as big of a deal as it is often made out to be. The only thing I could ask for is a little click to acknowledge the button was pushed, though if the sound is on the phone makes a small noise. The keyboard could have been even bigger yet if they dropped the D-Pad, which I rarely find myself using as it is a touchscreen (maybe make it a secondary feature for other keys?).

-The GPS unit quickly finds a satellite signal (faster than most Tom-Toms) and accurately places you on a detailed map. The turn-by-turn voice directions work well, except they do not read the street name. Best of all, it doesn’t make you agree to do-not-drive-as-you-use-this-device waivers every time the program launches.

-The call quality is excellent.

-No contract and not bogged down with un-deletable carrier apps and tacky logos that remind you who bought your soul.

**The bad and the ugly:

-My first thought when I handled it was, “a little chintzy, eh?” It does give off the impression for a little while, primarily because of the battery cover. They used a plastic, snap-on/ pry-off cover whose snaps are easily bent out of shape, but did not break and easily bent back. The rest of the construction, especially the hinge, seems to be very solid now that I have used it extensively.

-The 5MP camera takes remarkable photos and videos, unless you want to use the flash, which is too close to the lens and whites out a third of the image. Thinking about this more, I decided Nokia has used a very similar camera since September of 2006 when the first n95 debuted and such a quirk is unacceptable in something that has been around the technology world for so long.

-The battery life is terrible. With normal use, it will most likely get 24-30 hours.

-Reception is bad. The internal antenna does not pickup signal where my Blackberry does and my Samsung (4 years ago) before it did, to include my apartment in Boston (not exactly East Reeve, Wisconsin).

-The FM transmitter is hardly worth having. After trying numerous stations I know to be unused in my area, the reception in my newer Audi with rear-mounted antenna was terrible unless I held the phone out the sunroof. I assume if you have a hood mounted antenna, it would be a little better (does anyone know?).

-The resistive touchscreen is outdated and somewhat unresponsive. Resistive touchscreens are great if you wear gloves, and if they are huge, but that doesn’t happen on a mobile phone. Resistive touchscreens use a grid-like system to figure out where they’ve been touched, as they have invisible lines that make a grid across the screen. When the selected area is touched, the corresponding up/down and left/right lines are pushed against sensors on the screen’s edge and send the information to the processor. Capacitive screens measure minute differences in its electric field cause by the conductive human body and are generally much more accurate.

-The inertia scrolling is not as one would expect, probably because of the aforementioned screen. It does not matter how fast the screen is flicked, the information displayed travels the same measly distance and stops rather quickly no matter what, if it works at all. Navigating web pages is probably the only reason I would use the provided D-Pad just because the scrolling with the touchscreen is so terrible.

-The accelerometer, which detects the direction the phone is tilted, is often incorrect and the phone is very slow to change the screen’s display between portrait and landscape.

-Oftentimes, the phone must be unlocked 2 or 3 times to get the LCD’s backlight to turn on. This may be a software or a hardware malfunction, I do not know.

-The talk and end button are not raised but should be, especially because the phone does not acknowledge them having been pressed for a second after. Plus, real buttons are always preferred.

**Then there’s the software:

-The user interface is not so good. Every application has an options menu, but after the application has been customized, you probably will not find much need for any of the other options except exit, which is buried at the bottom of the menu and needs to be scrolled to.

The phone screen is inefficiently laid out. On the screen there is a “Call” and “End” button, both of which are physical keys on the phone itself, as well as a “Contacts” button which can be found on the previous screen. I would rather just see bigger numbers. Also, the phone is setup to display two lines of numbers and forces a single number from the area code on on the second line when I would rather like to see bigger number buttons and ALL US numbers on a single line.

-The homescreen widgets do not update as freely as one might like, the AccuWeather is rarely connected and my Hotmail account will ONLY refresh manually. The FaceBook app is good.

-The homescreen has a button on it to change the sound profile, but tapping the power button brings up the same menu – Nokia should just get rid of the redundancy and dedicate the space to, well, uhhh, anything else.

-No QWERTY keyboard option on the touchscreen.

-Being able to run multiple apps is great, but switching between them shouldn’t mean a fight with the options menu, there should be an external button to switch between them.

-The homescreen has an option to compose a new message, but not one to read old messages. The button should be dedicated to going into the messenger application instead.

-Half of the menus require a double touch while the other half require a single touch.

-Plus a dozen smaller “Oh, that’s silly” features not worth mentioning.

-My phone has needed to be reset because one or more different things were not working correctly at least once a day, though it has never frozen completely. Once, strangely, the touchscreen would highlight the selected app/item, but fail to execute the command completely.

Overall, it is a good phone, but certainly not worth the money. I recommend you wait for the first major software update to be released and reviewed before purchasing.

This is a follow up on a review I wrote for the black version of this phone (”Beauty and Brains, Together at Last”), where I covered more of my initial impressions, including some of its pros and cons. Here I will go into more detail about certain discoveries I have made using the phone for a little while.

I should probably first mention again, though, that in all honesty this not the phone for everyone. In particular, the user interface is a bit quirky (inconsistent, and not always as responsive) – and it does take a certain amount of persistence to explore and appreciate all the features and capabilities that this phone offers.

=== Hooking up to your car stereo ===

Chances are that one of the first thing you will want to do is to set this phone up for handsfree use and perhaps streaming music over your car stereo. Doing so is going to be hit or miss.

First, it would not work in “Bluetooth Audio” mode (i.e. to stream music over the A2DP Bluetooth profile) with Pioneer DEH-P7000BT unit that I had installed in my car, and which worked perfectly (albeit after a Nokia-specific firmware update from Pioneer) with my previous two phones, the Nokia N85 and Nokia N95 — though it worked fine as a handsfree unit in “Bluetooth Telephone” mode (over HSP/HFP).

I went through several car receivers (both buy/return and in store) to get one that actually worked:
* A Sony MEX-BT2700 (works fine, nice intuitive controls, but inferior sound and also inferior handsfree pickup),
* A Clarion CZ509 (complex controls — I had to download the user manual on my N97 right in the store in order to figure out how to pair it; would only work in “Blueooth Audio” mode and NO SOUND would come through in handsfree mode)
* An Eclipse CD5030 (very nice unit, good sound, integrated steering wheel controls for Toyota and Honda; but same problem as the DEH-P7000BT: No A2DP/AVRCP with my phone)

I skipped on Kenwood, because from prior experience using a KDC-X492 along with a KCA-BT200 adapter, there was a delay from when Bluetooth Audio were initiated from the phone until it was heard over the speakers. This may seem like a nitpick, but I also use my phone as my GPS/navigation system – and the result was that instructions like “In 400 yards, turn left” would become “n left”. No dice. The Pioneer unit, at least, did not have this problem.

I did finally find something that works for me: A newer Pioneer unit, the DEH-P6100BT. From my original unit, I also knew that this one has excellent sound quality and controls (good dynamic range, good sound shaping features, etc). The one problem I’m still having though is that each time this unit connects to my phone, it initially gives me only “handsfree” functionality (not stereo audio). I need to manually go into the menus EACH TIME and enable A2DP and AVRCP (that’s quite cumbersome), OR start playback from my phone (in which case A2DP, but not AVRCP is enabled automatically). In other words, getting my steering wheel controls to do what they are supposed to do – control the playback – is usually more hazzle than it’s worth (except for longer trips).

All this said, a Bluetooth-enabled stereo is not necessary with this phone. If you have an auxillary input or a tape deck in your existing car stereo, you can hook up to its 3.5mm jack using a standard auxillary cable or a cassette adapter. You should then dock your phone close to your driver’s seat (I use a Bracketron Grip-IT holder until a N97-specific holder is available from ProClipUSA), since you’ll be using the internal microphone when making calls. (I actually got better sound as well as better handsfree pickup with this setup and my factory stereo compared to the Sony I mentioned above). You will need to use the phone itself to control music playback (as opposed to the receiver or steering wheel controls) – but that’s why there is a “Music Player” widget available for the home screen.

EDIT: If you read the N97 specs carefully, you also know that it (like the N85 before it) has an FM transmitter. I did not even bother to mention this initially, because quite frankly, I don’t see the point. It is far too weak to produce the signals required for your typical FM receiver, even as the antenna is fairly close. All you get is static.

=== Tethering (phone as modem) ===

A little known fact about GSM/GPRS-enabled phones (except the iPhone) is that they can be used as a modem for your laptop or other device, e.g. while on the road. You can connect via a USB cable (one is included in the box) or Bluetooth. In fact, if you have a Mac from the last 3-4 years (e.g. MacBook Pro), it will automatically set up this modem connection when you pair it with your phone (There is a checkbox that says “Access the Internet with your phone’s data connection”). For Windows, you can download modem drivers from Nokia’s support site.

You will need an Access Point Name (APN) from your cellular provider, as well as a dial-up number (often optional), username/password (ditto). This information is readily available on the Internet. It should be noted that such tethering is NOT included in the price of many data plans, unless they specifically state so (this is why it is not enabled in the iPhone as sold in the US) – and it certainly would not be wise to use this as your main internet connection. I find it invaluable for light web and e-mail access on the occasional road trip though.

=== Downloading Applications ===

The N97 comes with a number of third party applications preinstalled, including JoikuSpot, which allows you to turn your phone into a WiFi access point for internet access; Adobe PDF, QuickOffice, and even an Amazon app. But of course one of the primary joys of owning a smartphone like this one is being able to continuously explore new applications and uses.

The N97 runs the “Series 60″ User Interface, 5th edition (a.k.a. S60v5) on top of the Symbian operating system version 9.4. S60v5 is the first version of this platform to support touch-screen input, and this is only the second phone from Nokia to do so; previous N-series devices (such as the N95, N96, N85) all ran on S60 3rd edition.

This means that even though the N97 represents a new type of device for Nokia, it is mostly capable of running applications that were written years ago. Many of these are being updated for the new touch platform, to be sure, but the main outcome of this backwards compatibility is that you will find some pretty esoteric stuff out there. For instance, I make frequent use of Salling Clicker – an application that lets you use your phone as a remote control for your (Windows or Mac) computer (over Bluetooth or WiFi), e.g. media/music control, powerpoint presentations, etc., even though that application is not specifically written for the new platform. I also use the PuTTY telnet/SSH client, which HAS been updated to take advantage of the new touch screen, but otherwise was developed long before the N97 (or even the iPhone). Then there is Nokia SportsTracker – always invaluable; keep it open while you go jogging, biking, etc; you can later view your route superimposed on a map, speed plots and summary, and even what music you were playing at various times.

In addition to Symbian/S60 specific applications, and like most (non-US made) phones, the N97 can run “generic” mobile applications written for Java (J2ME). For instance, Opera Mini is an excellent and super-fast web browser that can run on most mobile phones (not the iPhone, Palm Pre, BlackBerry though) — thanks to its use of proxy servers that compress the traffic sent over the air to your phone. I myself got a kick out of a HP 45 calculator emulator I found recently, which uses the original HP45 program code and even has a picture of it. :)

As you can guess, the applications that you can download for the N97 are not concentrated in one location, as they are in the iTunes App Store for the iPhone. This is a fact that Apple exploits very well in their own marketing – and to be sure, discovering or searching for applications is unfortunately quite a bit more cumbersome for Symbian/S60 than for the iPhone. On the positive side, that means that there is no central control (you know, where someone decides that there shalt be no third party web browsers, mail readers, or GPS/navigation apps). In fact, it is this very open architecture that allows the “write once, run everywhere” paradigm of the J2ME platform, whereas Apple, RIM/BlackBerry, and Palm/Pre are only capable of running applications that are specifically written for those devices.

Now, Nokia has had a “Download!” service for years, and have recently opened an expanded application store, the “OVI store”. The content is still somewhat meager in both places; moreover, as I found by trial and frustrating error, once you have purchased and downloaded an application from the OVI store, there is no way to re-install it (should you happen to uninstall it at some point). I was attempting to get a newer version of RoadSync (a Microsoft Exchange client with very decent HTML support) working, but because it got into a state where I wanted to re-enter my Exchange Account information, I had to reinstall. (This is also an issue in RoadSync — there should be a way to reset the information without having to uninstall/reinstall). However, the original installation package was never saved on my phone, and there was also no way to download it without purchasing again. For me it was thanks, but no thanks – both to RoadSync (poor design) and OVI store (poor design).

The bottom line is that if you expect to be fed with a teaspoon from a central app store, then maybe the N97 and Nokia’s infrastructure is not for you.

=== Cohabiting with the Mac ===

The N97 comes with software for Windows, but not for the Mac. Well – that’s standard fare. Unlike most mobile phone manufacturers, Nokia have at least developed software for the Mac. :)

You will want to download two things from them for ANY of their phones: Nokia Multimedia Transfer, and an iSync plugin.

Nokia Multimedia Transfer is a background application (access it via a little menu bar applet) which allows you to, well, transfer multimedia between the Mac and your phone when connected via USB (using the “PC Suite” mode on the phone). It imports captured photos and movies from your phone camera into iPhoto, synchronizes selected playlists between iTunes and the phone (transcoding any movie files that are not natively supported on the phone in the process), and allows you to synchronize web bookmarks between Safari and the phone’s browser.

The iSync plugin WOULD let you use iSync on the Mac to synchronize contacts, calendars, and todo notes with the phone. Unfortunately, almost a month after initial release, there is not yet any such plugin available for the N97 — frustrating since they already have one for the N86 MP, which has not yet been released here. In the meantime, you can at least transfer contacts from your Mac Address Book to the phone: Select all contacts (Command + A), select File -> Export -> Export vCard; transfer the resulting “vCards.vcf” to the phone (E:\Other\Contacts), then open “Contacts” on your phone to select “Options -> Copy business card -> From other memory”.

How to do the latter, you ask. Well, once you have paired your Mac with the phone, you can browse the phone filesystem from your Mac by clicking on the little “B>” (Bluetooth) icon in your menu bar, then selecting the phone, and then “Browse device…”. You can also simply send files from here, or from right-clicking on the file itself and selecting: More -> Send to …

Finally, as mentioned above, you can use your phone as a modem by simply pairing it over Bluetooth. Or, you can plug in the USB cable, then open the “Network” System Preferences pane.

=== The Copy/Paste snafu ===

Unlike previous S60 phones, there are no keypad shortcuts available for Copy/Paste on the N97. Instead, you need to access these functions in the menus (”Options -> Editing Options” in most places). The problem is that not every input field has such a menu available! For instance, if you are entering settings for a new e-mail account, or the WEP/WPA/WPA2 key for a wireless access point, you are working inside a pop-up dialogue box with no menu available.

Ridiculous as this sounds, in these places you actually need to CLOSE the keypad, then tap on the input field in order to bring up the virtual numeric keypad, as if you were using multi-tap or T9. On the top of this screen there is a context menu — if you first drag to select the text you want to cut/copy, then those two options are available in that menu; if there is text in the clipboard, “Paste” is available.

Or, you could use a Bluetooth keyboard — more on that below. In this case, Ctrl-C/X/V works as expected.

=== Laptop/Netbook Replacement ===

You laugh. Go ahead.

If you are an owner of any other recent N-series device (N95, N96, N85), you already know that it can hook up to a TV using the included TV-Out cable, CA-75U. Well, the N97 does not come with such a cable, but you can order one separately and it still works.

Also, while the N95/N96 come with a “Wireless Keyboard” utility pre-installed, it is not included in the N97. You can download and install it from Nokia’s web site though; go to the support pages for their own SU-8W keyboard. It will complain that the application is not compatible with this phone, but it will work anyway.

So, there you have it. QuickOffice is already pre-installed to allow you to view Microsoft Office documents – you can purchase an upgrade that allows you to edit these documents too. Adobe Reader LE is also installed (though note that unlike on previous phones, it is now only a trial – you have to buy it after 2 weeks or so..).

Personally, I access remote UNIX hosts over SSH using PuTTY. Obviously you can also do web browsing, mail reading (incl. Microsoft Exchange), etc.

=== Reaching Nerdvana ===

Just to be exceptionally clear on this point if you haven’t figured it out yet – this is a phone for geeks. People who follow Boy Genius Reports, for instance, best stick to their iPhone and the eye candy that is afforded them there. It takes a little bit more persistence to appreciate S60 devices like the N97 – but in return, it will grow on you for a very long time as you keep finding new features and new ways to use it. For starters, the sheer wealth of hardware that exists on this device (5MP camera with flash and video recording, GPS, 640×360 pixel screen, pull-out keyboard, a hundred different types of sensors including electronic compass, accelerator and proximity sensor) are just ripe for new sorts of applications.

After installing the battery and turning on the device:
As an illuminated white screen became adorned with those blue branding letters, the friendly handshake, and the ubiquitous Nokia jingle, I could only think of immediately setting up a Bluetooth partnership with my MacBook. All seemed to work perfectly as I keyed in location, date, and time information, and then it appeared…the home screen and its grouping of widgets. When the AT&T network secured its grip on the SIM inside and brought the 3.5G reception signal to life, my index finger proceeded to explore the interface. I kept a word document to record my initial experiences with the N97.

-Bluetooth setup
Bluetooth partnership setup with my MacBook Aluminum was flawless. Network access (a.k.a. Tethering) appears to be possible, so I will test this later with my bluetooth connection.

Update: Tethering the N97 network connection via Bluetooth was just as efficient as the E71.

-Missing Sync for Symbian
Had absolutely no trouble downloading Missing Sync for Symbian to the N97. I figured it logical that if the XpressMusic 5800 running S60 5th edition was supported, then another device with the same OS should work just fine. All of my PIM data of contacts, calendar events, and tasks synched successfully to my N97 with no problem. Even the contact photos synced properly! Bluetooth proximity syncing worked perfectly whenever my MacBook was turned on with the N97 nearby, but there was an error message with a stop sign graphic that appeared after each sync session: “Unable to execute file for security reasons”. After about a second this pop-up disappeared and all was well, so it did not bring any inconvenience. I can only assume it stemmed from this model not being officially supported by the Missing Sync app. Overall, I am very pleased to see that this crucial application continues to be supported through the newest NSeries device.

-Stereo speakers
While it was nice to have stereo speakers from the mono variant of the E71, their volume was not impressive in comparison to what I remembered from owning the N95. They were certainly not bad and did give a suitable audio playback experience. Ring tones and alerts had no problem in being heard throughout the day amidst public surroundings. The speakerphone was acceptable in volume and a bit louder than the E71.

-Music player
There was nothing special about the music player other than its widget for the home screen and the enlarged album art for the Now Playing screen. An unexpected surprise was the absence of visual art effects that I remembered from the N95 and E75. There was a FM transmitter included with the N97 that was simple to configure with my car stereo, but my use of this would be an extreme rarity due to my iPods.

-Contact Search
Searching for a particular contact was interesting with a new type of searching that reminded me of the SureType technology from the BlackBerry Pearl. When the text field was touched, blocks of alphabetic characters applicable to the first letters of all contacts filled the screen. When a letter was selected, all blocks were then narrowed down to only the characters that could be second to that first selection. As each of these blocks was touched, the contact list itself was also narrowed down appropriately to the possible matches.

-Camera
The 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens was very nice for stills and video. I was amazed at the 16:9 widescreen ratio for the captured video footage as well as the included video light feature. Playback of the MPEG4 formatted file on my Mac happened in a default widescreen view in the Quicktime player and showed acceptable results via the 30 frames per second with suitable sound recording. The image mode for the still pictures appeared to not support widescreen in any way. One nice touch was the live preview window for setting color tones and selecting a white balance feature.

-Portability
The sizing of the N97 was similar to my E71 and iPod Touch and I had no problems carrying it in my pocket despite its thicker dimensions.

-Reception/Call quality
Signal strength was no different than my E71, but I did run into a situation with the first few calls I made on the device. A friend of mine on a voice call noticed a faint hissing noise in the background on his end, but I didn’t hear any of it. While it could have been my friend’s iPhone, it was also clear that the only plausible fault in this situation was the N97 since every previous call with the E71 had been trouble-free. Since then, every call thereafter was clear and normal just like the E71.

-Nokia Email client
Difficulties certainly came with the downloaded Nokia Messaging app for email access. I was not surprised to see that the enhanced email client of Messaging was not preloaded to the N97 since it’s main purpose is multimedia. However, some software issues from this particular app irritated me.

(more…)

I absolutely hate touch screens, yet I bought this phone.

Why?

This is a question for Nokia: if other people hate touch screens like I do–and they do–why do you think they’d buy the N97 with its inferior resistive touch screen over the iPhone’s superior capacitive screen?

Here’s the reason: FULL QWERTY KEYBOARD.

So when you make a phone with a “full qwerty keyboard,” and then you omit a dedicated row of numbers, it’s not really a full qwerty keyboard now, is it? I come from a long line of QWERTY Nokia phones such as the 6820/6822, E70 and the Nokia E90 before this. The E90 has a full keyboard, complete with ctrl key so you can do seemingly simple things like copy (ctrl+c) and paste (ctrl+v). With my Nokia E90, typing was a breeze. You could even skip between words in sentences while typing text messages by holding ctrl and pressing left or right like you can in Windows (or even highlighting those words by pressing “shift”).

So imagine my disappointment when it took me a full minute of hunting through menus to forward a contact’s phone number to someone via text message. Short of looking up the number, writing it down on a piece of paper, then typing it back, there’s no other way to do this. What was a simple task on E90 and E70 (simply click options on the contact and it takes you to a sub-menu where you can copy the phone number into your clipboard), is an unwieldy chore on the N97. Here’s how to copy a phone number to your clipboard: Contacts->Click on the contact->Options->Edit->Click on the phone number->Options->Editing Options->Copy->Start->Drag your finger across the number->Click Done. Absurd! And Lord knows how to paste it once you have it on your clipboard (you can only paste in apps that support the “Editing Options” submenu, so forget about pasting information in forms and menus on the phone for a quick lookup). I’ve scoured the Internet and there’s simply no way to do this.

Nokia has literally reduced functionality on this phone.

Also, I can’t stress enough how annoying it is to have to shift to type numbers, and to have to shift to type a comma. Are you kidding me? Commas are (or should be) the most used punctuation, up there with the period. Nokia’s choice to make you shift to get a comma is dumbfounding.

About the apps:
—————-

-Browser: the browser is frustratingly stupid. In older Nokia phones, you could simply type shortcuts while browsing 1 = enter URL, 2 = search, 3 = reload, 5 = switch between windows, etc. They removed this functionality from the browser. Why?! It’s so annoying I could punch a vase. Why did you remove functionality that you had before, Nokia? Why? Nice one.

-Facebook widget is okay; mostly sizzle, little steak. The presentation is nice, and it updates pertinent information, but you can only scroll through 20 or so entries in the live feed. There’s no way to go trawling through a day or two of updates like you can by simply pointing your browser to the mobile version of Facebook.

-Amazon app: throw it away. It’s little more than a mobile front page that literally takes you to browsing on Amazon’s mobile site.

-AP News: does what it’s supposed to. Video quality was good, news is what you’d expect from AP. Fairly functional app.

-Guitar Rock Tour (like Guitar Hero): boring and unresponsive on the touch screen.. you have to tap too hard to register a click, so it slows the gameplay down and is exhausting to play.

-AccuWeather: fairly accurate weather forecasts, though typing “weather [zip]” in Google seems to give more accurate results (AccuWeather seems to return results for the city you’re in, but in a large coastal city like Los Angeles for example, a few miles can make a big difference).

Usability:
———-

-There’s a volume control button on the side that pivots up or down, and it only seems to work on calls. Since the buttons are there anyway, why not put them to use by allowing users to scroll up or down through menu items or web pages? Dragging around on the touch screen is frustratingly inaccurate and a chore.

-There’s a nice lock button on the side of the phone that seems fairly responsive (you can lock/unlock with a flick of your thumb). It did occasionally leave the screen black when I unlocked. I’ve updated to the latest firmware and haven’t noticed the issue since, but it’s disconcerting when it happens.

-Exiting applications is TORTURE. In other Nokia phones, it’s fairly easy to exit (just click the menu item, press up and it takes you to the bottom of the menu to exit). Or simply press the red “hang up” button and it will exit most apps. Not here. Pressing the red button does nothing (it only takes you to the home page). So before you know it, you have 20 different apps running in the background, all hogging up memory.

-When you enter a sub-menu like the one for choosing symbols by pressing the “Sym” button on the keyboard, it’s impossible to exit this menu. You have to choose a symbol, even if it’s one you don’t want, and then erase the symbol you chose. This underscores how poorly thought out the usability is.

-Typing while in touch screen mode requires you to use a 10-key pad like on a traditional cell phone, and doesn’t allow you to type using a full on-screen keyboard. This is so incredibly stupid that I almost vomited.

Anyway, the phone has some pluses, such as the 5 MP camera, good 3G support, good storage, fairly quick, etc, but I won’t go into the positives because there are a lot of other reviews on here that do. I’ve found that the negative reviews are always the most helpful on Amazon, even when an item has thousands of reviews (the negatives always point out stuff that I would also find annoying), so I hope that’s also the case with this review.

As I write this, I look at my pretty new N97 sitting next to my clunky old E90. The E90 is a beast of a phone, and yet, it did what it was supposed to do, and didn’t make you jump through hoops to do it. I’ll probably go back to the E90 and its dated apps, even if I have to use the terrible EDGE network for Internet. What I lose in transfer speed will be made up for in typing speed.

————————————————————————
Update: 11/30/2009

I’ve now used this device for a few months, and have a few more insights and grievances:

1. There is very little thought put into the alarm clock function. This is something basic I use all the time–instead of a real alarm clock in fact, so it’s important for it to work well. When you set an alarm, the default setting is to create a permanent alarm that would repeat in 24 hours. Most people use alarms for quick reminders, such as when you park at a meter, or to take something out of the oven. So it’s super annoying to have to go through and click “do not repeat” through a sub menu 5 times per day. Here’s what really annoys me: even Nokia doesn’t believe it should repeat 24-hours by default, because when you set an alarm for an event in your calendar, the default is to NOT repeat. Why the inconsistency Nokia?

2. The slider button to unlock the phone is STILL GARBAGE. I thought it was a good idea, but it works correctly only 2/3rds of the time, even after numerous firmware updates (I always keep up to date). The slider leaves the screen lit every now and then, even when the phone is locked. Sometimes it does nothing (it vibrates but screen stays dark). Sometimes it’s laggy so when you unlock it, it does nothing, then you do it again and it quickly unlocks and locks. Stupid. Get it together, Nokia.

3. When you’re on a phone call and you have to access any applications (such as your contact list to give someone a number), it’s hard to get back to your dialer quickly (so you can switch to loudspeaker or switch calls). You have to hold down the button in the lower corner for 2 seconds, then flip through your open applications to your dialer. Stupid. Why does everything take so long to do on this phone?

4. Speaking of, the entire phone is TOO SLOW. Basic functions like flipping from portrait to landscape, or pulling up your contact list, or going from locked to unlocked when you answer a phone call are almost always laggy (even with no running applications).

5. Browser still has no keyboard shortcuts.

6. Copy function is slightly improved (you can drag your finger across text in a text message and a “Copy” button will come up), but pasting is still IMPOSSIBLE unless the application specifically allows you to paste. So if you get a text message with an address in it, and you copy the text message into your clipboard buffer, you can’t paste it into another application like say, Google Maps. You know, THE ENTIRE POINT OF COPYING AND PASTING ADDRESSES. UGH.

7. The proximity detector doesn’t work half the time. I’m so tired of the phone going to mute or to some random application because it was held up to my head while the phone’s screen was active, so it thinks I’m pressing buttons with my face. Stupid.

8. I hate this phone. The only reason I’m still using it is because of a few opensource apps that only exist on it, and it supports the US 3.5G networks, which the old E90 doesn’t.

I miss my E90.