Camera Phones Plaza

Nokia N97 was one of the most awaited phones of 2009. Long before the appearance on sale, I was supplied with all sorts of information, official or not. That made us want to put our hands on it as soon as possible, because it promised to redefine the notion of smartphones. For Nokia, N97 is as innovative as the N95's, in his time. The phone is seriously approaching to a computer, especially in terms of browsing.

N97 comes with improvements to the Symbian S60 5th Edition operating system, after its first version, installed on 5800 XpressMusic. The operating system dedicated to the touchscreen phone users impressed. Starting next year, Symbian will become fully open source, which should attract even more interest from software developers.

Inside the box, I found many useful accessories. We have a charger and an adapter for older rechargers, the handsfree headphones and a USB cable. Nokia N97 comes with a stylus, but it does not always stay in the phone as the 5800 classic. It can be attached with a cord, like on Samsung i900 Omnia.

Nokia N97 has a length of 117.2 mm, a width of 55.3 mm and a 15.9 mm acceptable thick. At these sizes, the phone weighs 150 grams. The modern technology implemented in this device has managed to decrease by more than 2 mm the thickness of this device if we compare it to N96. The phone is available in two color versions, black and white.

The front side of the phone is dominated by the large 3.5 inch screen which occupies about 80% of it. Under the screen we have 3 buttons. The call / reject call keys are tactile. In addition, we have the menu access button. The light and proximity sensors are found above the screen. The approach sensor will stop the screen when the phone is close to your ear. Above the screen we also find the secondary camera for video calls. The right side of N97 is hosting the volume control button and the dedicated camera button. Both buttons are well placed, easy to handle and very comfortable. On the left side, the phone has stereo speakers, one at each end. Here we also have the microUSB port. It is not protection against dust, which means you have to watch where you keep your phone. On this side, we have a dedicated button that blocks the screen. The 3.5 mm audio jack is perfectly positioned on the top of the phone, next to the on / off button. At the bottom of the phone, we have only the opening fixture of the hand strap.

In the back side, we find the 5 megapixel camera. This is visible only after opening the protective cover. The Carl Zeiss lenses are well known and a double flash with LED technology accompanies them. The protective lens cap is very good. Unfortunately, dust builds up pretty fast in its area and it is not very easy to clean it.

The user interface is very well optimized for finger touching. Symbian S60 5th Edition has been very well received from the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and it now comes with some improvements in terms of the standby screen. The icons are large, so you will not feel the lack of the stylus. The interface moves better than the 5800 classic, mainly because of the stronger processor (ARM11 434 MHz)

Nokia N97's screen is one of the best touchscreens so far. It has a generous dimension of 3.5 inch; this is enough to read a text or look at a picture in good conditions. The resolution is WVGA and it has 360 x 640 pixels. The number of colors is 16 million.

Nokia N97 is a good phone for a multimedia user. The large screen makes it very suitable for video playback. The 3.5 mm audio jack lets you connect any headphones. Video and audio players are not bad at all. Furthermore, the Flash Lite support allows you to access web pages with multimedia content.

The music player is very similar to the one on 5800 classic, but it is not very different from the one on Symbian S60 3rd Edition. You can sort your music by artist, album, genre or composer. The search in the music library can be done very easily. The player can also display album art (album cover) and has 5 equalizer presets, but you can create others. The audio quality offered by this device is very good. The phone has overcome N95 8GB or N96 models.

The video player is good, but unfortunately, it has a big minus: does not support DivX and Xvid formats. There are other phones that have these codecs, and I do not understand why Nokia ignored this thing. It is a shame you cannot copy any movie from your PC to N97, to run it without problems. For now, you can use Nokia PC Suite to convert movies from your PC in a format recognized by the phone (3GP or MP4). However, it is a pleasure to watch movies on this phone, the screen is big, bright and has vivid colors.

The FM radio has RDS and offers the ability to automatically scan your local stations. It works only with the headphones connected, because they serve as an antenna. The FM transmitter is not very common in phones, but is a useful feature. You can play music from the phone to a certain FM frequency, which you can receive for example at the car radio. Therefore, you may listen to your favorite music without wires and without trouble.

The camera has 5 megapixels and takes pictures at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. The lenses are Carl Zeiss, and the camera has a double flash with LED technology. The camera application is similar to that of 5800 classic. You have the possibility to do a lot of settings, so you will take the best picture. You can set the white balance, ISO speed, contrast and more. The pictures have a good quality and vivid colors. Taking into account that this is a phone, we are very pleased with those pictures.

Nokia N97 is a smartphone, so it must have excellent connectivity. Data transfer can be made both through WiFi and GPRS / EDGE / 3G / HSDPA 3.6 Mbps. The phone has a microUSB port, with which you can connect to the computer. The Bluetooth supports A2DP, meaning you can use wireless stereo headphones.

The web browser is one of the most advanced and efficient browsers. I often expressed admiration for the web browser on Symbian S60 3rd Edition. If you had the chance to use the 5800 classic, you know what I say. Web pages loads quickly and look almost like on the computer. Flash works well, thanks to the Flash Lite support.

Nokia N97 has GPS. I have nothing particularly to mention here; it is working very well. The phone comes with Nokia Maps 2.0 pre-installed and you have three months of free navigation. You can also install other navigation applications.

Nokia N97 will definitely not disappoint you.