My Nokia N97 short user review
I’ve stopped a long time ago checking only expert reviews of the gadgets I wish to purchase. I’m more interested in user reviews, which tend to be more realistic about how a product handles in the long term. That’s why I think the future of IT websites will see new products that are revolving around a community of users expressing their ‘unexpert’ opinions about various products, but that’s not the topic of this post: Nokia’s N97 is.
You want the bad one, get the Black, you want the 'Apple like', get the White N97
I’ve got my hands for a few hours on Nokia’s best phone today: the N97, a QWERTY slider with a tilt touchscreen display. The format factor is not new (remember HTC Tytn II), but that’s not the most important thing. What counts it what it does and how it does it, so here’s my list of pros and cons of using the Nokia N97 for around two hours:
Pros
- construction seems solid, with no problems around the tilt/slide mechanism
- system is very fast, with approximately the same lag you’ll get from non touchscreen Symbian S60 v3 revices
- the QWERTY keyboard has adequate feedback, but there’s room for improvement
- the home screen widgets, the only improvement in interface from Nokia 5800 XpressMusic are really nice
Cons
- the space bar key is located in the right side of the keyboard: that’s annoying for me
- Nokia didn’t include a software licence for QuickOffice (not nice considering the 600 $ price tag of the Nokia N97)
- some options in menus need a single tap, others a double tap, that’s why you find yourself pretty often waiting for the system to respond and the system is actually waiting for your input
- it’s big, too big for my taste and also is pretty heavy
- screen doesn’t look good in bright light and colors seem fuzzy
That’s it for now, but I’ll be back with details so don’t forget to check my blog once in a while. For now the my conclusion is that I’ll stick with the Nokia E71, a more complete phone in my view, with fewer drawbacks than the N97.
