Nokia N97 mini - Review

The N97 mini is a smartphone designed and manufactured by Nokia and runs Symbian^1 mobile operating system. It is the younger sibling of the Nokia N97 and feels like a successor to the current Nokia flagship device.The N97 mini has corrected all the mistakes on the N97 by offering a better overall performance, reducing the bulky size, improving the keyboard design and removing the faulty lens conver which scratches the lens on the N97.However the N97 mini sacrifices the 32GB memory on the original for 8GB and offers a smaller display. Specifications Photo Samples

Review

The Nokia N97 was introduced amidst a highly competitive mobile market that showed frustration with the release of the Nokia N97. The Nokia N97 mini is focussed on optimization correcting the wrongs so to say of it's older brother the N97.

Before we go further with the N97 mini review lets take a look at unboxing this device

The device is like an N97 on a diet, its slimmer, lighter and feels really good in the hand. If Nokia had given us the same features of the N97 with this device, we would have had some unhappy N97 customers. The mini cuts down on some of the N97's core features leaving the older device to rule the roost for awhile longer. Lets take a look at the features of the Nokia N97 mini.

Pros

• 5MP auto-focus camera with dual LED flash with VGA video at 30fps
• Quad band GSM and Tri band 3G with 3.6 Mbps HSDPA support.
• WiFi
• GPS with Assisted-GPS.
• Digital Compass
• 8GB of internal storage with micro SD slot supporting upto 16GB micro SDHC.
• Accelerometer
• FM Radio
• micro USB connectivity for charging and syncing.
• stereo bluetooth.
• updated Symbian^1 OS.

Cons

I actually didnt have a list of cons for this device. The N97 mini is a really good device. The only issue is probably the Symbian OS which still has a long way to go to compare with iOS and Android.

Device Closeup

hardware

The device was originally released in garnet and later spawned in Gold, Black and White colors. My trial device was the earthly garnet one. My first impressions of holding the device in my hand was that I was impressed. The device is sleek, and I like the cool feel of the metal back cover. If the N97 was a 'his' phone, I would definitely say the N97 mini was aimed at the 'her'.

The front of the device has a 3.2 inch resistive touch screen which has a resolution of 360x640. The display is excellent under direct sun light which is a feature that I enjoy looking for in Nokia phones. The front features the ear-piece, secondary camera for video chat, ambient light sensor and proximity sensor on the top and the menu key with touch sensitive call answer and cut keys at the bottom.

The right side features the camera key and the volume rocker

The left has the micro USB port, the slider to lock and unlock your device along with the stereo speakers. 

The top features the power button and the 3.5mm audio jack which is also capable of TV out.

The device slides to the side to reveal it's three row QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard is well spaced and I enjoy using it. The device has arrow keys instead of a D-Pad which is welcome. The space key has also been placed more to the center which is also welcome.

The back features the 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED flash. The lack of a lens protector is questionable, but I didn't see any scratches on my trial device which already looked well used, so i figured there must be an anti scratch coating protecting the lens.

The N97 battery is hidden under the metal back cover. The N97 mini features a 1200 mAh battery which boasts upto 320hrs of standby, and around 6hrs and 7hrs on 2G and 3G respectively. My usage saw about 2days of battery usage before a charge, but that was from moderate usage.

software

The N97 mini features the Symbian^1 (S60 v5) mobile OS. Nokia's 5800 was the first device to feature a touch UI from Nokia, but the N Series gets an added bonus: widgets. Widgets allow you to have various bits of information on your home-screen. You can have as many as 5 widgets at a time. A swipe across the screen will either make them appear or disappear.

The menu key opens the S60 menu which is quite similar to S60v3 devices. The icons have been designed to take advantage of the bigger screen and touch friendly. The structure of the OS has some icons which act as folder requiring two clicks to open and some icons can be accessed with a single click. This inconsistency has been fixed in Symbian^3 but I hope that it will be done on Symbian^1 devices as well, as it can become quite frustrating.

A long press on the menu key will reveal the running applications, again similar to the S60v3, you can switch between apps and select the app you want easily.

Taking calls on the N97 mini is treat. The N-Series continues to give a high level of audio quality during calls. The device also features voice dialing which can be accessed with a long press of the call answer button. The voice commands are not something that impressed me much, the iPhone does a much better job at this, and I hope Nokia will improve on this soon.

A feature the N97 adds is allowing a call to be silenced by flipping it over. useful if you want to quickly switch your device to silent mode. It looks like Nokia has worked hard on the mini and improved the N97 experience on this device.

Messaging on Symbian^1 has not gone very far from the S60v3 experience either. The Messaging App allows SMS, MMS, and e-Mail messages. The problem with the OS is that the on screen keyboard takes too much space, leaving very little room for the text. The QWERTY keyboard solves this issue, but a touch only phone like the 5800 has to deal with this issue. You can also input text using a stylus or your finger, while this feature works quite well, I don't see it as necessary for such a small screen.

The image gallery has been downgraded from S60v3 version, but is better than the gallery found on the 5800. The kinetic scrolling is available through the gallery, but zooming without multi touch would have been better without the delay when you zoom. The volume rocker can be used to zoom in and out as well, but the experience doesn't improve.

The Media Player on N97 is adequate. I like searching for content on the device but I am not happy with the time it takes to load the data for the first time. The fact that it doesn't support codecs like DivX or XVid can be irritating as you will have to convert your videos to a format compatible with your device.

The FM radio is also available on the device, but unlike the N97 the mini does not feature an FM transmitter.

The auto focus camera on the N97 mini had Carl Zeiss lenses and dual LED flash. The photos seemed sharper than those produced by my N900 but about the same in terms of quality. The Photo App has a range of settings you can adjust before taking your photos including geo-tagging. Camera centric features like face and smile detection are not available and probably should be expected in the next N8x device from Nokia.

Check out some of the photos taken using the Nokia N97 mini camera at the Baltimore Zoo in Maryland.

In terms of video the mini does OK. It shoots VGA quality video at 30fps. But in a competitive world the N-Series doesn't stand above all others anymore with a camera which seams already outdated. The video recorder however gets the job done, and my only disappointment was the zoom which was a little choppy.

The internet is another aspect that is important on modern smartphones. The Apple has made the iPhone's web browsing experience one to be envied. The N97 mini does not have such a comfortable experience. The browser is built on webkit and supports java and flash, but the lack of pinch to zoom doesn't make moving between and reading the web pages easy.

The Ovi Experience has gone touch as well, bringing a whole new set of apps for the new operating system. You can use the Ovi Store App to download wallpapers and games for your device or even games. Ovi Maps 3.0 is part of the experience allowing you to use the GPS and maps on the device for assistance in travelling. The maps feature is unfortunately nowhere close to that of the iPhone. The advantage I found with Ovi is that you can download your maps and not be forced to download them at every instant you use them like on the iPhone.

Conclusion

All in all the N97 mini just like the N97 is an upgrade to the S60 UI. Adding a touch layer to an existing operating system doesn't make it revolutionary. Nokia has a long way to go with Symbian before it can be accepted as equal or better than iOS or Android. Nokia's fan-base is large, but unless these issues are resolved we will continue to see users bail from the Nokia ship.

The N97 mini to many looked like Nokia's answer to the problems on the N97, on the contrary the N97 mini is a different device which I feel was aimed at a different market, check out my comparison of the Nokia N97 vs the Nokia N97 mini for more on that.

I personally love the Nokia experience. I think blaming Symbian alone is not the answer to Nokia's problems. Nokia needs to make decisions on their device hardware before it is released. They need to make devices that are competitive in the mobile market.

I think Nokia made bad decisions with the N97 hardware.The processor and memory were far from adequate to run their operating system optimally. The future of the N Series is going to shift away from Symbian and lie in the hands of Meego (linux) which in itself wont be enough unless the device is more than capable of running it.

[NOTE] The trial device was provided by Nokia, but the review is in no way influenced by Nokia and is fully un-biased