The N97 sees Nokia at an interesting time. It's schemed smartphones for 15 years, but now sees rivals capture the market's imagination. Palm's Pre ups the stakes considerably, showing that boldness and imagination isn't confined to Apple. Vodafone's Android phone has a lovely UI and is something you could safely recommend to a relative.
Instead of real innovation, Nokia is relying on its big name brand and just adding features to compete. Its hardware engineers match anyone's, but it has a huge structural problem in delivering enchanting devices into users' hands.
Are multiple features a substitute for innovation?
Nokia has a double bind. It's committed to Symbian, which means it has to maintain a 'platform', licensed via a quango to all-comers, as well as ship products. It's also in a bind because the Symbian features that will help make it competitive are still in the labs. It's probably time to shoot that organisational model for good, and devote every penny of Symbian R&D to making its phones better.
So, I predict that the happiest customers of the N97 will be punters who've never read a phone blog, or visited an Internet phone fan site. Nokia puts great store by 'social media'. The 'buzz marketing' theory – sold to the company by consultants, and at great expense – is that these enthusiasts, with their arcane dialogs and weird obsessions, are tastemakers on behalf of the rest of us. But they're not, they simply poison the water for the company, and cause great harm when a half decent product ships. I don't know why Nokia bothers; it's like wrestling pigs - Nokia gets dirty, and the pigs enjoy it. What a waste of money.
Verdict
Nevertheless the N97 sort of scrapes by, for now. It's fast and responsive, the worst bugs will are certain to be fixed, and the most violently ugly parts of the user experience will be quietly thrown overboard. That leaves an OK iPlayer, an OK music player, and a phone. Put the N97 against the iPhone or the Pre, and the comparison isn't flattering, but put it against another subsidised midrange offering, and it might find a loyal customer. ®
More Phone Reviews...
Apple iPhone 3G S |
HTC Touch Pro2 |
LG Arena |
HTC Touch Diamond 2 |
Nokia N97
COMMENTS
I have one and it's amazing!
I have an N97, after finally letting go of my N95. I have had NONE of the memory problems described and find the keyboard very easy to use! No, it's not a traditional QWERTY layout but who cares? The positioning of the space under your right thumb was inspired! I have read a lot of negative reviews which I can only ascribe to lazy reporters copying old pre release reviews! The N97 is amazing to use, feels really well made and is suprisingly light. It is not perfect but it is a very worthy upgrade from an N95! Claiming it is just a 5800 with a keyboard was, quite frankly, moronic!
Ho Ho Ho! Now I have an N97!
I can say my experience with the keyboard differs greatly from Andrew Orlowski in that I find it very useable and can bash out texts, facespace updates, emails etc... a lot faster than I can with, say, my iPod Touch.
I admit I'm still learning how to get the most out of it, coming straight from an N73 (it has a *lot* more that's customisable, for instance) but it's still very intuitive if you're already used to S60.
You won't be jacking in your iPhone to get one of these, the iPhone is much more of a mobile computing platform than a Smartphone, but it is an upgrade from just about any Smartphone out there and now I can point and laugh at anyone with a Blackberry Storm. Ah, sweet vengeance!
Umm...OK
OK, fair enough. The iPhone has a couple of capabilities that the N97 can't even begin to compete with - it can change colour and you can fry an egg on it.
Umm - yes, I did.
Thanks for re-iterating my comments anonymous coward. You could just try the N97 for yourself like I suggested before you attempt to ridicule my opinion.
Yes, I did register simply to add my comment. Is there another reason to register other than to add comments?
I feel the review lacks balance and I wanted to share my thoughts on the N97, I think it's a great phone. I have had no problems at all with the keyboard size/layout or the interface. I agree that the touch sensitive screen is not as functionally rich as the iPhone's but it certainly works well for my purposes (it does take a little getting used to though).
Taking everything into consideration, this is one hell of a piece of engineering. Yes, 21st Century Swiss army knife - I stand by every word.
One other thing which is important to me...this phone is damn tough. Have a look at the N97 test videos on Youtube to see for yourself - try that with a [insert latest smartphone of choice].
Damien.
Was waiting to see...
I was involved with dev of a series 60 device a few years back. Found it unintuitive (how many softkey presses to send a txt???) frustrating, slow and clunky.
Sad to see nothing has changed. Contacts tell me Series60 internals are a mess - that's why they're still producing and releasing buggy handsets.
Nokia are still somehow managing to keep going off the back of the 3300 series years ago, it would seem. I think it's time I relented and bought an iPhone - everybody else is trying to catch up, and failing, with legacy platforms being crowbarred into trying to be slick and responsive, but failing dismally... plus, of course, the existnig major handset manufacturers are struggling under the weight of their own pasts in terms of design methodology.
Good review though, but it feels like all the reviews I've ever read of Nokia handsets. "Disappointing".
