Nokia N97 - Transition black (Unlocked) Smartphone

The Nokia N97 is the tip of the spear in Nokia's smartphone lineup. It is the most powerful, smartest and fully featured phone of the company. It is also the first Nokia phone to make use of a large touch-display and that alone has raised the expectations from die hard Nokia fans that have refused to switch over to the iPhone. And Nokia has put quite a lot of work and thought in the N97. I had a first look when Nokia was still developing the N97 and I was looking forward to get my hands on the final product. In this review, I will tell you how I used it, and how well it did. Does the Nokia N97 live up to the hype?
Context

Rushing a review is great to get links, but not the best way to get a good feel for something, so I used the Nokia N97 for a few weeks, mainly as a smartphone with Exchange support. Web browsing was tested regularly to read news and check various sites. Facebook was accessed via the Facebook application included in the phone.
Phone Highlights

* 3.5" Touch Display
* 32GB internal storage + 16GB optional storage vis flash card
* 5 Megapixel Carl Zeiss Lens
* GPS
* WIFI, Bluetooth
* 3.5G
* FM Radio
* Complete specifications (pdf)

Phone Basics (Very Good)

As with any phone, the first thing that I check is how good the sound quality is, and how easy it is to dial a number or a contact. The good news is that the sound quality is good, although the volume is not very loud. It would be nice to have a more powerful sound output.

Dialing a number is quick and relatively efficient. There's no need to use the physical keyboard as the virtual numeric pad works great and there was no typo whatsoever while dialing numbers.

Dialing a contact is a bit more complex, if you have a bunch of them. From the contact list, you can scroll and click, or type a name and click. Typing a name requires the use of the physical keyboard, which is not very practical if you phone was closed. The T-Mobile G1 suffered from the same lack of virtual keyboard. Every qwerty slider phone should have one.

As you try to dial, the phone will ask you if you want to place a video call, each time! I've not seen anyone use video calls (ever), so I think that Nokia should have the option to skip that question. After a week, it was getting on my nerves.

Answering calls is easy, so is placing people on hold, or hang up. Good job Nokia. Locking and unlocking the phone is also easy and foolproof, thanks to the side button.
Physical Design (Good)

The Nokia N97 is a nicely designed phone. The design is agreeable to look at, and the build quality is good, except maybe for the battery cover which has a plastic feel - but it needs to be flexible because it's *removable*. The display is a mixed bag: it has a resolution of 640x360 but the colors seem a little faded and the clarity seems inferior to other touch phones. I suspect that one of the display layers has something to do with this. Two people that I've shown the phone to immediately made the same remark as well.

Next to the speaker, you will notice a front-facing camera and a proximity sensor. The 5 Megapixel camera is in the back, protected by a sliding lens cover. There's a "camera" button that makes taking picture more natural than taping on the screen (which often induces a last minute shake that could makes photos blurry). The keyboard sliding mechanism feels solid.

Iphone has nothing compared to this amazing phone!!! Everthing about it is perfect. A+++++. The Nokia N97 features a touch screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, and 32GB of internal flash memory. The smartphone also offers 3G support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS and comes equipped with a 5-megapixel camera.The Nokia N97 features a touch screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, and 32GB of internal flash memory. The smartphone also offers 3G support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS and comes equipped with a 5-megapixel camera.

i love everything about the phone. it is very useful and enjoyable. i am going to keep this phone for a while. The Nokia N97 features a touch screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, and 32GB of internal flash memory. The smartphone also offers 3G support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS and comes equipped with a 5-megapixel camera.

Pros: 32 gb!!!!!!!
carl zeiss lens!(sony)5mp camera
secondary camera
qwerty keyboard
3.5 nhd screen
Quad Band world phone
Cons: 256mb ram
not alot of apps
call quality no to good
battery life eh... (so so)

I had to play around with this phone for a week so I could have a good feel of it. I have been waiting to have this phone for such a long time, but when it first came out the price range was not very friendly towards my pocket, so I decided to wait for a couple of years until I actually saw it as available in my eyes. I know there is better phones out there now, (since this phone became available in 09) but my tech heart belongs to nokia so I had to get their N97!
the phone in itself is slender and has an elegant look. when the qwerty keypad is revealed, the screen tilts slightly up, one of its other perks that this phone has. the 32gb internal memory is the most exciting part of this phone, since I use my phone both as a mean of communication, and entertainment (I.E videos, MP3) however it has the problem, that it does not have much ram to back it up, so the phone could slow down and even freeze at times if you fill it up. The OVI store does not have much interesting apps for the N97, and since I live in America, where apparently HTC, Samsung, Motorola, Blackberry, and Apple are king, there is a limited amount of apps that are available for my lovely N97. In all it is a wonderful phone to have if you are interested in having an all in one device that can play your music in stereo speakers and help you write an essay and post it on the web. (like it did with me)

The Nokia N97 is a wonderfully versatile smartphone running the Symbian OS. If you are unfamiliar with smartphones this actually might be a good phone to start the transition with. The user interface is well designed and although power users will notice a lag in the menu click throughs a newbie to smartphones will enjoy the increased usability of this phone.

The slide-out keyboard is wonderful and tactile giving you the added benefit of an actual keyboard rather than the soft-keyboard on the touch screen. The added feature of having the screen tilt when you open the keyboard puts it in perfect viewing for movies!

The touchscreen is a resistive screen which uses your finger or a stylus for more control and precision. Unlike a capacitive screen like on the Iphone or Adroid devices this phone does not have multi-touch but is responsive and exceptionally bright.

At 16 million colors and one of the larger size screens you can definitely watch near HD (nHD) quality movies on this phone and store quite a few media files on the massive 32 gig hard drive.

Definitely a worthwhile buy.

If you are a power user though, you will find this phone to be a tad slow and the feature set more vanilla and in this case I would suggest something such as the Droid/Milestone or Incredible if you are interested in the Android OS or go for an Iphone.