The N97, released officially this week, is the most eagerly awaited Nokia
phone for years. Nokiaphiles, in particular, are hoping that it will give
the handset manufacturer a rival to the iPhone.
So is that hope justified? I have been using the N97 for the past few weeks
and it is the most exciting Nokia I have ever used.
The N97’s spec is impressive: 32GB on-board memory with potential for
expansion via microSD card, a touchscreen as expansive and as clear as a
lake in Nokia’s Finnish homeland and a Carl Zeiss 5MP digital camera with
flash and autofocus.
However, the most exciting feature of the N97 is its customisable home page.
You can add interactive widgets for installed applications such as email and
contacts and also for applications downloaded from Nokia’s Ovi application
store. To do so, you select edit content from the Options menu and then
anything on the screen can be played with. Click an existing widget and you
can choose to remove it. Click an empty space and you can add a new widget
from a list of preinstalled options or download new widgets from the Ovi
Store.
The interactive element means that if you are connected to the internet via
wifi or over the 3G network, the widgets can display live content. For
example, the Facebook application shows the three latest status updates from
your friends while the Bloomberg application shows you up-to-date news
stories which you can click to read. If you have a corporate Microsoft
Exchange account, you can see the two most recent emails here. If you don’t
want to be constantly connected, you can switch all this content to offline
mode.
The N97’s touchscreen hides a pleasant surprise – a slideaway keyboard. Slide
the two halves apart and the screen tilts upwards to reveal the keyboard.
The keyboard has evidently been the subject of focus for Nokia’s designers.
The keys are pleasantly rounded and have a certain amount of travel, making
typing remarkably pleasurable.
The N97 comes in white or black versions and it is a slick baby. The left hand
side of the handset features a sliding button to lock and unlock the
keyboard and touchscreen as well as a micro USB connector. The top edge is
home to the power button and a 3.5mm audio jack. The right side includes a
pair of keys that have the dual function of volume and zooming as well as a
camera shutter button. The back face is punctuated by the camera itself,
which is hidden away behind a sliding lens cover. This face also includes a
raised lip at the bottom edge, making it very easy to hold securely.
The front face includes the stainless-steel edged touchscreen, a 30 frame per
second video camera and send and end buttons for the phone. There's also a
button that accesses the application menu although, oddly, this is off to
the lefthand edge, giving the device a lop-sided look.
Fat-fingered typists will welcome the inclusion in the box of a very cute fat
stylus. Usefully it comes with a loop so you can attach it to the phone if
you think you might lose it.
The phone works well too – unlike many touchscreen phones. Other handsets
sometimes have a nasty habit of being too touch sensitive when you are using
it as a phone rather than as an internet device. Not so the N97. It has a
proximity sensor at the top left of the screen which disables the
touchscreen when you place the handset next to your ear.
The N97 is the first Nokia phone that has been designed specifically to work
with the Ovi store. Accessing applications is relatively straightforward.
You can select from categories such as games, audio and video and
recommended applications or do a search, either across all applications or
within one of the above categories.
As of 25 June, the store included 876 items for the N97 - 246 general
applications, 151 audio and video clips, 108 games and 371 personalisation
items such as ringtones and wallpapers. This compares with the 50,000 plus
applications available on Apple’s store for the iPhone and the 2,300 plus
available through Andriod Market for phnoe’s based on Google’s Android
operating system.
