Nokia N97, well done Nokia!

Nokia did well with the announcements of Nokia World. Biggest news in mobile town being the N97. It has all a n-series phone needs: Wopping battery life, 5MPixel photo, 30 fps 640x480 Video and all the trimmings of the N95-class phones. I have only three complaints.

1. No Xenon flash, let's be honest. Dual led for video simply sucks, and it pales completely in comparison with xenon flash for photo's. At least the current dual led models do. And it will be a while until they get that right it seems.
2. 12 cm's long? Okay to be precise 11,7 cm. Still it's a bit to clumsy. A smartphone that is not pocketable is not a smartphone, its a netbook/laptop/fancy piece of heavy luggage.
3. 150 grams? Another pocketable size complaint. 120 grams please at the most 130 grams.

With the new Symbian v5 touchscreen software, Maps, NGage and the social contact integration on the standby screen it looks like a winner. Early adopters of the N95 like me will pine about this machine until it's available. Still I think it's current size and weight will make people hesitate to buy it. Only time will tell whether the N97's size will position itself for as a E90 replacement for businessmen or as a anytime, anyplace phone for a larger group of smartphone addicts.

All in all it is pretty close to my personal wish list for Christmas, though it seems Santa will be half a year late ;-) I would love to test this phone and see if it can cope with one of my 14x16 hours trips of  satnav, e-mail, phototagging and videorecording. It killed the last two N95 I owned, despite being never dropped.

I guess

The N97 will likely be the most expected phone for the first half of 2009. Supplemented with the new maps and e-mail integration into OVI Nokia seems more back on track than ever. The new social contact integration on the home screen of the N97 could very well indicate further developments in the new Symbian OS. Gearing it more towards the social demands an internet junky like me has. This includes multiple internet identities (work, hobby, private, etc.) and syncing per identity. They might even start thinking of simple things being allowed to simply cloud tag your e-mail. Who has ever properly used the subject line in an e-mail? And yes, gtalk/jabber with video running on it would be a blast too.

• N97 movie 1
• N97 movie 2
• update: hands on video movie 3

       

Comments

[Sloan]

Yea it may be a bit big but its still perfect in my eyes. I have been waiting a very long time for this device. I'm currently using the N810 to quench my thirst. Now I think I can finally be a one device man. Well in theory at least.

[djah]

i will ask it for santa claus

[Kevin Neely]

Is the Ovi email stuff really for this type of phone? I was under the impression that Nokia Ovi Email was targeted toward the lower-end phones, particularly S40 devices.

People with a smartphone will probably use it to check Gmail or Exchange.

Snoyt here: Ovi e-mail is currently for the S40 phones. However S60 will be added in the future. Currently I run MailForExchange as well as 5 imap accounts. A single pushgate via OVI i.e. would improve battery performance without doubt.

[onggon]

Hi Darla.. i quite interested on your writings.. Lots of useful info and manymany tips about this Symbians thing.. Well done Darla.. Keep it up!

I think N97 try to follow what the apple guys doing, yes, the iPhone.. In my country, Malaysia, our telcos still fight for their license to dristubute iphone.. Celcom, Maxis and Digi.. :)

[John]

I just hope the N97 is as responsive in real life as in the 1st movie. I find my iPod touch UI much more responsive than the N95 8Gb.

snoyt here: There is a hands on video, I updated the post

[christexaport]

I'd have gone for a better camera resolution and a T9 option, but it'll do. Lets hope its the new TI OMAP 3 processor, and not a speedier N95 setup as rumored.

A real issue I hope you guys mention whenever possible is the US 3G situation. Rumors are the Euro N85 with 1800/1900/2100MHz work in many at&t areas. If this is so, a NAM model with 1700/1900/2100MHz could appeal to alot larger part of the lucrative American market's high growth smartphone market, working on at&t and T-MobileUSA. Frequency choices will be key in America. Leaving T-MobileUSA subscribers on the broadband sidelines even with the blazing new network is becoming unexcusable.