{"id":1536,"date":"2009-06-05T05:53:40","date_gmt":"2009-06-05T10:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/?p=1536"},"modified":"2009-06-08T02:43:48","modified_gmt":"2009-06-08T07:43:48","slug":"nokia-n97-quick-impressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/06\/05\/nokia-n97-quick-impressions","title":{"rendered":"Nokia N97 &#8211; Quick Impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"<table border=\"0\" bgcolor=\"lightyellow\">\n<tr>\n<td><i>This is part of an ongoing series on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/tag\/nokia-n97\">Nokia N97<\/a> phone. Get started with Nokia N97 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/06\/05\/nokia-n97-quick-impressions\">Quick Impressions<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/06\/08\/nokia-n97-quick-impressions-ii\">Quick Impressions II<\/a>.<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>I had the pleasure of playing with the Nokia N97 about two weeks ago, as Text100\/Nokia decided to showcase the device at Alexis. Naturally, I got a little excited, considering I&#8217;ve been using Nokia phones for over a decade, and have seen their phones and their platforms evolve. I&#8217;ve been using the E71 for nearly a year now, and have been using phones with keyboards for the last few years, so the Nokia N97 melds this for me.<\/p>\n<p>Is this an upgrade from the E90, I asked? Apparently, it is. Is this an upgrade from the N96, I asked? Apparently, it is. To me, that seemed weird, as Nokia is melding the N and the E series together, which is kind of melding fun and business together. <\/p>\n<p>I hate writing thoughts on anything, that I&#8217;ve played with for a couple of hours, so I took out my handy Moleskine, and started writing notes. At the end of the night, I came up with three pages worth of scribblings, so here is my take of the Nokia N97. Note that I don&#8217;t own the device (yet), and chances are I probably will, <em>if the price is right<\/em>. Its going to be tough, as the new iPhone&#8217;s come out, though ;)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The camera lens has a cover now, and when you open it, it starts up the camera application. This is smart &#8211; no more will I have issues of the lens scratching, anymore.<\/li>\n<li>Build quality seems pretty good, but the one thing I dislike is the back cover. Its typically N-series (I remember this kind of back on the N73), so its got a coat of paint, and after a couple of months of heavy usage, you&#8217;ll realise that it will nicely scratch itself, and peel off. The E-series devices tend to come with metal backs, and while that will get scratched, it won&#8217;t look worn\/chipped. So, this is cutting corners, definitely.<\/li>\n<li>Changing profiles from General, to Silent, and to others, is all done via touch screen now, and you don&#8217;t need to jab the power button any longer. So much better, because chances are, everytime I try to change profiles, I end up turning my phone off.<\/li>\n<li>It has the Keyguard for locking and unlocking the phone, which is exactly like the Nokia 5800. This is smart, and you now no longer need to have a two key combo to unlock\/lock the phone.<\/li>\n<li>Charging is now improved. You can do it via micro-USB, so chances are I can charge it easily from my laptop. This is smart. The charging port is at the left hand side of the phone, as opposed to it being at the bottom &#8212; interesting, no?<\/li>\n<li>Browsing around is similar to the iPhone &#8211; you scroll up and down, with next to no problem. The keyboard is lit up when necessary, and to be honest, was a little harder to use than the E71, but I figure its just a matter of getting used to. Moving from the E61i to the E71, I took a few days to get used to the smaller keyboard. I&#8217;m sure after a couple of days, I should be mostly happy.<\/li>\n<li>Opening\/closing the lid to show me the keyboard or hide it, is dead easy. I was curious as to how long it might last &#8212; I was told that it should last at least during the warranty period ;-) Ha! I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;ll last longer, it doesn&#8217;t seem that flimsy, but who knows? It needs stress testing. And if you&#8217;re currently used to using the E90 (or other communicator devices), note that the screen doesn&#8217;t go all the way back now.<\/li>\n<li>In grid view, you single click. In list view, you double click. Click, tap, whatever. This is a limitation of the Symbian platform, and I <b>hate it<\/b>. If you&#8217;re using to using the iPhone, everything there is single tap. UI matters, and the experience of knowing when to click once or twice, is annoying enough.<\/li>\n<li>The screen is clear, like the iPhone\/iPod Touch. It has rich colours. It can also play HD quality video, naturally.<\/li>\n<li>The phone will come with a stylus in the box, but there is nowhere to place the stylus on the phone! You&#8217;re meant to place it in the case that ships with the phone. I don&#8217;t know about you, but I never use a case for my phone. So, if I was to use a stylus, I&#8217;d completely lose it. Not smart&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>The camera does seem to rock. In fact, you seem to be able to take macro photos pretty darn well, using it. Its a great improvement over anything in the E-series world (I can&#8217;t compare to the N-Series, as the last that I looked at and used was the N73).<\/li>\n<li>Turning Control <b>rocks<\/b>! What this means is that when you receive a phone call, and want to silent the ringer, you just need to face the phone downwards. This works for alarms too (it snoozes it). Very smart feature.<\/li>\n<li>It comes with a digital compass, so you&#8217;ll always know where north is. I don&#8217;t know how this works, but its definitely something interesting. Will it be useful in Malaysia? Doubtful. No one says &#8220;go north five kilometres, then head east&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Widgets<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Facebook is on the front. Its a widget, and you can see up to three of your friends status messages scroll by. Kind of useful, as Facebook has become more Twitter like these days. I wanted a Twitter widget, but apparently this doesn&#8217;t exist just yet.<\/li>\n<li>Apparently, you can create widgets via HTML and AJAX, and not the Series 60 development kit, so I have great dreams of developing on the Mac and Linux now. Plus, I don&#8217;t have to futz with the SDK, and C++, so I&#8217;m guessing the barrier to entry is now a lot lower to start creating widgets for the Nokia phones<\/li>\n<li>Its worth knowing that you can distribute widgets via the Ovi Store. You can sell them too. You can run advertising off them, as well. So think the iTunes\/Apple AppStore, but on the Nokia platform.<\/li>\n<li>There exists a Friendster, Facebook, The Star (newspaper), Sin Chew Jit Poh (newspaper), Hi5, YouTube, Qik, Boingo, and a few other widgets. Interesting, no?<\/li>\n<li>The device I was playing with had pre-release software, and the Ovi Store itself doesn&#8217;t work on it yet, so I didn&#8217;t actually get first hand experience at playing with it.<\/li>\n<li>You can run several widgets, without the phone being sluggish.<\/li>\n<li>Assuming I get to play with this phone more, i&#8217;ll give more thoughts on widgets&#8230; In the meantime, I&#8217;ve also downloaded Aptana Studio, and am taking my hand at writing widgets too.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Other bits<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>It supports over the air (OTA) updating of firmware. I wish the E71 came with this, to be honest.<\/li>\n<li>You can now subscribe to video podcasts as well. I wonder how the 3G networks will handle more video feeds?<\/li>\n<li>The battery seemed to drain quite quickly on WiFi. The suggested lifespan is supposed to be impressive, and maybe it was a case of the unit I had being buggy&#8230; Only time can tell.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s an app that  says &#8220;Videos &#038; TV&#8221;. However, it doesn&#8217;t have an in-built TV tuner. Sure, there might be next to nothing to watch on terrestrial TV, but I still think thats a good feature to have &#8211; look at Japanese phones.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Anyway, the N97 launches today (June 5th 2009) in Malaysia, and quite possibly around the world. I&#8217;m headed to Mandarin Oriental for the launch, again thanks to Text100. Maybe this time, I&#8217;ll get to take some video of the device&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Nokia%20N97%20-%20Quick%20Impressions&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2009%2F06%2F05%2Fnokia-n97-quick-impressions&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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Get started with Nokia N97 Quick Impressions and Quick Impressions II. I had the pleasure of playing with the Nokia N97 about two weeks ago, as Text100\/Nokia decided to showcase the device at Alexis. Naturally, I got a little excited, considering I&#8217;ve been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Nokia%20N97%20-%20Quick%20Impressions&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2009%2F06%2F05%2Fnokia-n97-quick-impressions&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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Get started with Nokia N97 Quick Impressions and Quick Impressions II. There were just some items that I neglected to cover in the first article on the Nokia N97 - Quick Impressions. Last Friday, I was invited to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"The Nokia N97","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3567\/3602456159_7bf165b13d.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1627,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/12\/18\/the-nokia-e72-quick-impressions","url_meta":{"origin":1536,"position":1},"title":"The Nokia E72: Quick impressions","date":"18\/12\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week I was invited by Nokia Malaysia to preview their latest flagship E-series device - the Nokia E72. A bit of background to this device and me: I was dearly using my Nokia E71, right up until it was replaced with a Nokia N97, and before that I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1502,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/05\/21\/evernote-on-symbian-series-60","url_meta":{"origin":1536,"position":2},"title":"Evernote on Symbian Series 60?","date":"21\/5\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been a big fan of Evernote for a while now, but have found it lacking in some areas: no Symbian Series 60 support for my mobile phone (yes, there is a mobile interface, but I'd like a native application), and no native Linux support (yes, there are workarounds through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1474,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/04\/29\/review-the-nokia-5800-xpressmusic","url_meta":{"origin":1536,"position":3},"title":"Review: The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic","date":"29\/4\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I've had the pleasure of using as my second phone, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, for the last month or so. Let's take this mostly step-by-step, and this should generally be pretty darn lengthy. If you're interested, check out the tech specs, and this is broken up into: The phone, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2182,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2011\/09\/13\/the-nokia-n9-meego-and-you","url_meta":{"origin":1536,"position":4},"title":"The Nokia N9, MeeGo and you","date":"13\/9\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I saw the Nokia N9 sometime in June 2011, when it was launched not by Stephen Elop but by Nokia SVP of Design,\u00a0Marco Ahtisaari. I loved it -- good build quality, great design, good interface, superb camera, finally usable browser. All the makings of a winning product, no? Sometime later\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":431,"url":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2006\/10\/06\/nokia-n73-impressions-on-the-optus-network-and-a-mac","url_meta":{"origin":1536,"position":5},"title":"Nokia N73: impressions on the Optus network, and a Mac","date":"6\/10\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I am now the proud owner of a Nokia N73. Thank you Optus. Of course, getting to use it is a little quirky. I've not been able to get the Flickr Upload working. Maybe this is something Optus decided to disable? Anyone can confirm this? Instead, I've decided that a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1536"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1543,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions\/1543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}