17 May 2009

Weekend Reading:
Nokia4Life's Impressions From
12 Days Long Testing Of The Nokia N97

Here I'll post some experiences from a good German mobile phones reviewer called Nokia4Life.

He got a testing unit of Nokia N97 on May 5th, so he has been testing the performance of the device for the last two weeks which is more than enough time to play around with it and to get a good feel for device.

Tested hardware is in its final retail version while software is still in beta phase and some things will be sure improved in the retail version. I collected all his experience from the huge and well known German mobile forum "telefon-treff.de" and translated it in English for SF readers.

The Impressions are not very much because the guy is actually very busy. And he just writes something if someone asks him in the forum. I’d collect all the questions and answers from him, translated it and post it for you. It’s not all very interesting, but its just based on the questions the users had for him.

The speed of the web browser is fine, but I hadn’t compared it with other devices using a stop watch. I’m pleased with it and with support for flash contents like YouTube videos that running in the browser too.

Multitasking seems to work good on my device. I can left the web browser, Nokia maps, music player and SMS application open and the speed is fine. You can use T9 functions in the hardware QWERTY too, with an adjustable correction level.

There are no events for a contact on the widget screen. If you click on a contact it just opens the phonebook and you can choose to make a voice call or write a SMS or an email. The Volume of the unit is ok. But the 5800 sounds a bit louder.

The QWERTY works very good and i can write very fast with it. The keys are clear apart from each other and have a good feedback. Even the highest row of keys is easy to reach and has no space between the other rows.

The keys are less flat as from Sony Xperia. In the German Version the Letter "Ü" has a special key. Other things like point and comma are just available with the blue shift key. The illumination of the keyboard is white on both - black and white device. The special functions on the keys are enlightened in blue.

The voice dial recognition works really well. You say a name from the contact and it displays and speaks the name you said. After that it shows up the numbers from the contact and you can touch on the number you want. If you don’t touch anything it uses the standard number of the person. N97 will be in storey with Nokia maps 2.0 only but it will be possible to download version 3.0 separately later. Active Notes are also included on my device.

I’m really pleased with the joy of the FM transmitter. If you are a long time on a ride and have no CDs with you for your cars radio you can stream all your mp3s from n97 to your radio. I know the discussion about the CPU speed, but I don’t say anything to it, cause it don’t say much about the harmony between hard and software. I actually like the speed of n97, but I just will rate it if I have a final device.