Nokia N90: Huge mobile evolution, user review...

[Apocalypso]

Nokia N90: Huge mobile evolution, user review...

Hi Guys,

First of all I must to say that this not a regular review and I?m not going to write long piece, with lots of useless technical information. This is just a short user opinion based on my huge experience with Symbian phones, which I have used since the first models of Nokia?s 7650.
I hope it will clear some doubts and to help other users to decide whether it is worth buying or not. Also, please keep in mind that this review is based on final handset, not on preproduction models like on some web sites.

So let?s do it?



It was love at first sight; the phone looks impressive in every segment, a technically superb device that caused a ?wow effect? from me and my friends. All of them, even a few hardcore SE fans agree with me that the N90 is awesome and a revolutionary product from Nokia.
The phone is not a classic clamshell, it?s based on a completely new concept and is real metamorphose of the clamshell idea, and my congratulations go straight to Nokia?s team of engineers that worked on this model.

Tested phone:
Nokia N90-1/2.0527.2.3

SW version:
V 2.0527.2.3 06-07-05 RM-42

CPU Info:
CPU ARM ABI ARMI
CPU SPEED 220 MHz
CPU ARCHITECTURE 1280

Memory Info:
RAM Size: 50331648(48.00M)
Free RAM: 12689408(12.10M)
ROM Size: 16777216(16.00M)
Drive C FLASH: 21.46M/25.36M
Drive D RAM: 1.79M/1.81M
Drive E HDD: 310.83M/496.97M
Drive Z ROM: 0.00M/0.00M


Case:






Silver/black (matt) cover is made from plastic materials but it doesn?t look very plastic at all, mainly because the chrome looks like parts from both sides and glass/mirrored border around outer display. Also the plastic seams very strong comparable to the 6630, and is definitely better than the 6680?s. The movement of rotating parts (camera and display) is smooth and easy to use with a noticeable click sound in lock positions.
Phone closing mechanism is pretty strong, I mean it?s almost impossible to open it with one hand.
Also if the any key answer feature is disabled under settings menu you can?t accept call by opening it and from other side phone closing always end conversation no matter about settings.
Its not so good solution, I mean separate settings for active/inactive phone opening/closing is must have function isn?t it!?
Just one more thing, about the plastic Pop-Port cover, it doesn?t fit very well, it looks pretty cheap and after all it?s completely useless


Hardware:
It comes with the same AMR 220 MHz processor like 6630 & 668X phones but it?s equipped with amazing 48 MB of RAM ( quite better than my first PC ). Also it has 30 MB of internal flash memory along with the supplied 64 MB RS DV MMC card (MMC mobile) in hot swap slot.
Another difference is the new ultra small charger connector but the phone is supplied with a charger adapter so it?s not such a huge problem.
On the end there is no vibration alert because it'd affect the camera lens but I doubt that camera lens is so sensitive


Screen:
- Main display





The N90 is the first S60 phone equipped with a High-resolution screen, it still has the same physical dimension like older S60 phone but it has 4 times more pixels. The phone works on a resolution of 352?416 px and a physical size of approximately 35x40 mm and 262 k colours, it means that the display has more than 10 000 pixels on a single square centimetre! In practice this means that the displayed image is almost ideal, the best display that I ever seen. Essentially I can?t find right words to describe it, you must to see it
As I know there is no comparable display in the mobile world and I have nothing more to say about it.


- Secondary (outer) display




The outer display is similar to the displays of Series 40 phones. It uses a grid of 128?128 pixels and is capable of displaying up to 65K colours. In my personal opinion it doesn?t look as good as on the Nokia 6230, the grid matrix is noticeable and the display is closer to S30 phones than the series 40. However maybe I am wrong, maybe I can?t be objective after working with high-resolution inner display. After all I still think that Nokia N90 has the best outer display, it has lot of features, it has the possibility of reading messages, viewing missed calls, accepting or rejecting calls, muting the ring tone, switching between profiles, controlling the volume of speaker phone during music playback, also it shows the battery and network signal strengths, your current profile, the time and date, and also the name of the currently playing song, which is scrolled along on the bottom part of the screen. All of these features are controlled with just the joystick on the right side in a very easy and intuitive way. The only missing thing is switching between songs on a play list; hopefully this can be fixed with a new firmware version because it?s not very practical to open the phone to change song during jogging for example
After all the display can be used to control the camera in closed mode with possibility to set-up and control all of the available camera options.
The display is completely configurable; we can set-up brightness, wallpaper, power and screen saver, which can show even an animated image. So do you agree with me guys!? Quite impressive and surely the best outer display on the market!?

Below is the few images, I will updated it tomorrow because I have few quite better images on my Dig cam ?


Keypad:



Keypad is the really huge due the bigger size of the whole phone, definitely it?s deigned for large male fingers in my personal opinion it?s even too large, you can expect some slow down in typing because relatively large distance between keys, I mean
Technically the keypad is made from black plastic (apart from the chrome main navy joy pad) with very good build quality, also there is no space between the number and function keys and it can cause some errors in typing. It will definitely require some getting used to
There are another two soft keys on the top of the display that can be used only in portrait mode, same as the camera shutter button on the right side.
The joystick on the right side has two functions; it is used for controlling the camera features, for the gallery in portrait mode and for controlling the outer display when the phone is in closed state to.
In portrait mode you will need both hands, because is impossible to control the camera or gallery submenus with only joystick, so we are forced to use soft keys on top of the display, also in camera mode the whole keypad is in inactive state and it can?t be used apart from text input in the editing menu.


Reception (signal strength):
Cell reception is very good but it is definitely not as good as with the 6680 for example. The phone aerial is in the bottom part, and although it is very good for our health but it?s not so good for signals strength especially in areas with weak signal. Mainly this is caused by covering the aerial with your hand during regular work with phone


Battery:
I?m a little disappointed with this; I mean it?s not a very good decision to put a BL-5B battery in such a powerful smart phone with huge multimedia possibilities. Essentially, the BL-5B is the worst battery in Nokia?s power management portfolio, it?s a little bit shorter than the BL-5C used in a few previous models, it has 760 mAh compared to the 900 mAh of BL-5C.
In ?normal? use there is no huge different compared to 6630 but the main question is what is normal use of a multimedia smart phone such as this one!?
I mean for me normal use with this battery means charging every 12 hours and I?m really disappointed with this, especially because the phone requires a new smaller charger and sometimes it can cause problem so my suggestion to keep supplied adapter in your car, or even better in your pocket
Anyway as I said the average user could expect better cell durability but if you are a photography enthusiast keep in mind that working with the camera or video recording will drain your battery extremely fast and this can be a huge problem if you are on picnic in the mountains and the nearest charger is far away from you.


Sound:
I know that it?s very subjective but I feel that N90 has a slightly better loudspeaker (still mono) than the latest s60 phones, it has better bass and less distortion on higher frequencies, I suppose it?s the benefit of a very good position on top of the phone, and placed inside the camera module. The better and louder loudspeaker is noticeable during music playback as well as with playing games. I tested MB II on 6680 and N90 at the same time and it definitely sounds better on N90.
Earphones sound is very good, same as on previous models, nothing more to say about that.


Menu:









I don?t know what the guys from mobile-review tested but its not the same phone as mine definitely Browsing through the menu is pretty fast, it is comparable to 6680 and even faster in some areas. There is no difference in comparison with older phones it?s the standard S60 menu arranged in grid of 9 icons. The only noticeable difference is the folder icons, now we have a few different (Tools, Connections, Office, etc) icons instead of one unique icon like previously. Also all the installed 3rd party applications don?t go to the root dir, they go straight to ?My own? folder and I like it.


Messaging:




The first improvement is under the messaging menu; finally we have the option to arrange (sort) messages in every folder by Date, Sender, Subject or Message type. Now we only miss a powerful search feature
I almost forgot to mention that there is a huge bug in messages settings; every phone restart causes loss of some message settings like the delivery report, this bug existing even on the latest firmware version (530)?


RED key:

Yea, right that the good old red key has completely new function on N90, now it can?t be used for sending application in background, it kills applications instead of sending it to background. By my personal opinion this redesigned function of red key is implemented to prevent memory loss from background application that is a very common mistake of newbie?s.
I know this is not such a problem for power users because we know how to control what is in the background but for beginners and users that haven?t experience with smart phones and multitasking before it can be serious and annoying problem.
By the way, so far I find that two brief presses on the menu key can be send the application to the background.


Themes:

Well, the new themes look awesome, it?s the benefits of new high resolution screen but also there is another improvement that comes with feature pack 3, it?s the support for SVG (scalable vector graphic format) I have no time to describe what is benefits of vector graphic in comparison to raster graphic format, its completely different story?.
However the bad point is that we have huge restriction under theme editing submenu. On the 6600 we had a very good editing submenu with lots of possibilities and on later phones we have lost this function by function and now we have only three options, Power saver, Wallpaper and To do wallpaper, there is no longer the possibility to choose the screen saver, icon pack or even colour palette!?


Gallery:










Completely redesigned look and navigation through the Images gallery, it works in portrait and landscape (image mode only) mode and after all it looks very cool and it?s very easy to use. The bad point is that gallery becomes slower and slower as the number of images grow; I suppose this can be fixed by arranging images into Albums but I haven?t tried it yet.
The gallery contains a very good & easy to use image editor which has features like Resizing, Cropping, Rotating, adjusting sharpness, adjusting colour tone, and adjusting light & contrast, it also has a few borders and the possibility to insert clipart or text in any colour or size, essentially all inserted elements can be moved, rotated or resized? There is also the possibility to fix red eye but I?m not very satisfied with it, sometimes it works fine but sometimes it?s completely without success.


Phonebook:




There?s nothing important to say, it?s the same phonebook as on the previous models. By the way there is one annoying issue for me; the older thumbnails don?t fit very well to the new screen. There is a pretty ugly white border around the thumb in phonebook view. Also, during a call or when receiving a call, the caller image looks very blurry and pretty ugly.


Voice controlling:



Yea, I know older s60 models also have voice recognition along with voice commands, the news is that Nokia N90 is able to recognize orders without needing to record voice tags, it means that all you need to do is press the camera shutter and say what you want to do, change profile, launch BT or any other application. The same feature is available in the phonebook too.
Anyway I don?t use it very often but I definitely like it, it?s the first sign of artificial intelligence


3rd party application/games:



As a power user I?ve tested a large number of application and I can say that almost all ?must have? applications work (App manager, Sys explorer, fexplorer, iVCM, quick office, Torch, WiB capture, Teletext, sBirthday, sVcard, yFTP, yEdit, About phone, and so long). Essentially the phone resizes older applications to fit the high-resolution screen with interpolation of the missing pixels, with full screen applications this result can be very blurry or maybe better to say ugly interface. It is close to Windows? safe mode, I mean you get similar effect if you switch from the monitor?s native screen resolution to lower, for example if you force a 21? screen to work on an 800x600 pixel resolution.
I haven?t tested too many games (MBII, Sky force, Mosquito?s, Super miners, etc) but usually they look better than applications and are quite playable. Also I?ve found a few java games that work on real N90 resolution and it looks awesome, other java games run on ? screen size.
I?m still waiting for the first application/game that is developed straight for N90, with such a screen and RAM amount the future of mobile gaming is awesome


Camera:





What is there to say!?
Maybe it would be better to make separate camera review!?
Anyway I will give you a few important facts about camera?
First of all working with the N90 camera is very close to working with real digital cameras, it?s a real and huge improvement in comparison to older Nokia camera phones.
Technically it has a 2 Mega pixel camera (1600x1200 px) equipped with Carl Zeiss Tessar lens with focal length of 5.5 mm, aperture size of f/2.9 and of course Auto focus / Macro shoot features.
Also it has surprising & extremely good quality video recording at 352x288 px.
The famous Carl Zeiss optic along with 2-mega-pixel sensor resolution produces very good pictures comparable to digital cameras of the same resolution.
With all of the offered features, the N90 camera is capable of meeting even professional needs. I mean it offers almost all possible controls in capturing: white colour balance (it can be adjusted to fit surrounding light conditions), seven scenic modes (from sport to landscape mode), red eye reduction, exposure and colour tone (Sepia, black & white, negative).
The most important improvement is auto focus along with macro shoot, the camera focuses automatically and it can take up to three seconds, also it can fail to focus in low lighting conditions.
The macro shot works just fine and I?m very satisfied with it, the bad point is that the focusing algorithm is not too good and it always focuses in the middle of scene to be captured, or maybe I expect to much
There is a special macro mode under the scene menu but in practice there is no necessity for activation because macro shot works in automatic mode as well.
Also it has 20x digital zoom that works with a combination of interpolation and resolution reduction. I know it sounds quite impressive but don?t forget it?s just a digital zoom, in my personal opinion it?s nothing more than commercial trick because all you can do with it is destroy your photos. Anyway if you really need zooming then take a regular photo and afterwards enlarge it with Photoshop on PC, and you will get a noticeably better result, believe me.
PS:
No optical zoom either, which seems strange in a body that looks suited to optical zoom.


BTW:
I?m curious about N90-1 sign!?
Does this mean that we can expect another phone based on the same concept!? The ?N90-2?!? I hope so, the improved version would be an awesome phone, there is no doubt, the camera body and concept is definitely suited for optical zoom, 3.2 mpx ccd sensor would be nice too same as strobe flash


In conclusion:
HIGH processor speed rate,
HIGH amount of free RAM,
HIGH quality still imaging,
HIGH quality video recorder,
HIGH resolutions screen,
And finally,
HIGHLY recommended by Apoc ;lol:

So?
What do you think guys!?
Have I missed something!?
All comments are welcome, and I?m ready to answer any questions

Sincerely yours,
Apoc

[Apocalypso]

Bonus:

Very nice & cool intro CD, I like it






With PC suite version 6.5

Cheers,
Apoc

[Cynix]

Wow, i said the review was good before, but it seems even better actually on the site, i suppose its the superb pics and screenies i hadn't already seen which are also great.

Good work, it's sort of made me want one, but seeing as i have already ordered a PSP ...i'll be more than happy with that (when it arrives) im sure .
My next phone at the moment for sure can the N70n possibly compete with this?

Thanks again, a great review!

Chris

[mirkocrocop]

So?
What do you think guys!?

Well i will just say one thing HIGH QUALITY REVIEW

All comments are welcome, and I?m ready to answer any questions

Here is my question where to get money to buy that thing, where to get some good sponsor

[Andy]

It is a review that tells me just the right things I was curious about Me too was thinking of taking it but...I did not and will wait for the n70 to come.

The review is WOW

[twincam]

Nice review apoc......just like Chris, i want one

By the way, is it possible to type sms using one hand? How long does it take for the phone to start up? Any creaking sound from the plastic cover?

Thanks.

[Alien™]

Review is big...
Big effort and many time spent on it...
Thanks for sharing infos with us and keeping us up to date

[Apocalypso]

[i]So?
What do you think guys!?

Well i will just say one thing HIGH QUALITY REVIEW

Thx my friend

Here is my question where to get money to buy that thing, where to get some good sponsor

Don?t even ask me
I sold my third wife and first son

Now seriously, I sold my 6680 for very good price and find N90 on black markets at extremely cheap price (around 550 euros) and that?s it, without sponsor, without credit, without bank guaranty

[Apocalypso]

Review is big...
Big effort and many time spent on it...

In matter fact U have right, I spend almost all my free time last weeknd, as the chris said ? It must have taken ages to upload all of those images to Imageshack ?
Anyway I?m glade to see that it?s not useless and it worth posting...

Thanks for sharing infos with us and keeping us up to date

NP, 10q my friend

Regards,
Apoc

[Moonlight Cat]

Very good work indeed

I promise that I will write an user review of N70 when I get it,.

I'm just curious about that blonde girl on one of the screenshots who is she