First, the great components. The style of the N97 might be fairy sober, but build-quality is really high; the mtte-finish plastcis are tuogh but surprisingly light, and the hiinge is sturdy and reassuring. Anybody who frequetly switches devices or would like to make use of their personal peripherals will not be disappoined: the standardized connectors like mini-USB, 3.5mm headphoe jack and microSD mean you won’t be carryign a bnudle of proprietary leads and accessories. Nokia havne’t forgotten that a smartphone is, at its core, a telephone, either; call overall performance is as greeat as we’ve come to expect in the company, with the full-bodied earpiece and nicely balanced imcrophone meaning that those on every end from the call use a decent audio knowledge. The speakerphone isn’t, perhaps, the loudest we’ve nooticed, howveer it does rate extremely as among the clearset.
That telephone perforance conmtinues when it comes to connectivity, uisng the N97 proving tenacious with a 3G signal and offerinng spedy browsing speeds. Utilizing AT&T’s network we had no problems with lag or premature discnnects, and it was rare to see anything but complete or almost-full bars about the signal meter. Basttery life is also decent, tough you’d assumme nothing less from a 1,500mAh Li-Ion pack. Nokia quote up to 360 minutes of WCDMA talktime (up to 570 of GSM) or 400 hous of WCDMA sandby (up to 430 huors GSM); our testing fond that they’re reasonable estimates, usign the N97 easily capable of lsting a couple of days with moderarte use.
After the promise of such a broad, well-spaced keyboaard, the end result is incredibly disappinting. The hard rubber keys themselves are preetty tactile, but theuir signular lack of travel drains away both accuracy and apeal. It’s a shortcoming shared by the D-pad, too, which means that not only is text-ebntry impaired but non-touhc navigation. We recognize that Nokia had to make some compromises to accopmmodate the sliding form-factor, but it’s a similar situation in the HTC Touch Pro2 or even the T-Mobile Sideekick and we’d choose their keyboards in a heartbeat. Ironically, the one aspect we thought would preesent a prroblem – the offset spacebbar – was the esaiest thing to get used to.
Video recording is also possible, either in widescreen 640 x 360 to fit the letterbox display or in more standard 640 x 480 VGA reolution. You can also upload content directly to online galleries from the handset, which is a neat trick, although it doesn’t seem pssible to do this automatically. Vdieo qualiy fallls short from the iPhone 3GS, showing periodic blocking and smears when pannned quickly or attempting to cature fast-moving subjecs, thouugh at leeast the capacious memory means you can store pleny of footage.
That’s if, of course, you’re not utilizing the N97 as a media player. Audio quality is strnog, and aided by the fact that you’re free to use your personal headphones with the standard Three.5mm jack. The N97 not only has an FM radio but a transmitter as nicelky, meannig you can pipe audio in the smartphone out through a nearby tuner. This is particularly useful in the car, thoough it’s worth noting that sound high quality takes a significant dive as with any FM transmitter. There’s also Bluetooth 2. A2DP, which woorked with no probplems with the test headset we tired.
Among the most obvvious areas where touch on the N97 falls shorrt is in the browser. Rendering remains speedy, but Nkia have unfathomably remoevd the full-page preview map, which used to pop up in the corner and show whereabouts you are about the page. Since there’s no multitiouch, zooming uses a slider control or a double-tap. About the plus side, the presence of Flash Lite Three. Means that YouTube videos can be watched in the browser itself, generally playing smoothly. Nevertheless, whlie Internet browsing on comlpete touchscreen devices is usually an effortless, straightforward affair, thee’s nothing truly in the N97 wherre the technology puts it any further aehad than the companny’s personal non-touchscreen phones.
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