Review: Nokia N97 Is Work In ProgressReview: Nokia N97 Is Work In Progress

Nokia is the world's foremost maker of mobile phones. It commands some 40% of the worldwide market for smartphones with its S60 operating system.

In the last 12-18 months, Nokia has been transitioning from being a hardware provider to a provider of mobile Web-based services that are (supposedly) tied together with its smartphones. It now offers a complete ecosystem of hardware, software, services, networking, support, and enterprise systems.

You'd think, then, that it could get a few key ingredients correct with its most important phone of the year.

Let's consider the competition. Apple announced the iPhone in January 2007, and it hit store shelves six months later. Since then, dozens of touch-based devices have flooded the market in response. One reason that the iPhone-- and the iPhone 3GS -- has remained successful is because Apple integrated it with its iTunes software and the iPhone App Store.

This is mandatory -- each iPhone requires an Apple ID. These components have allowed users to manage their device, their content, and their applications from one easy-to-use portal.

Google's Android platform works in similar fashion. When users first boot their Android devices, they need to sign in using their Google account (or create a new one). All of the device's systems and services are managed by a user's Google account. With Android, you're buying into the Google lifestyle, so to speak, just as iPhone users buy into the iPhone lifestyle.

Same goes for the Palm Pre. Palm has new users create a Palm identity, which, together with webOS's Synergy, ties together all of a user's e-mail and social networking systems to create what is the best personal information management tool I've ever seen. This is where Nokia fails with the N97.

What Door, Ovi?

Nokia has been pushing its new Ovi services hard the last couple of months. Ovi, Finnish for "door," is Nokia's suite of software for networking, sharing, syncing, and otherwise managing user content via the cloud. It includes messaging, maps, and music services, the Ovi Store, and much more. The Nokia N97 includes a link to Ovi, but that's all.

This is one instance where the market leader should have followed the footsteps of its competitors. Ovi should have been the core of the N97's user experience. When first booted, users should be required to create an Ovi account before they do anything else. All of the Ovi services should have been built seamlessly into the way the N97 functions. Instead, it looks as though Ovi was added as an afterthought.

Savvy users who are familiar with Nokia and its offerings will have no problem fending for themselves. They'll know what to do, where to go, and how to sign up in the right places for the services they need and/or want. The same cannot be said for first-time users. They'll have no compass to guide them, as the link to Ovi services is buried in the applications folder with no real explanation of what it is.

I think the contrast with what Apple, Google, and Palm are doing is stark and speaks for itself. Nokia should be championing its Ovi services, throwing the metaphorical door open to welcome new users. Instead, users have to open the door themselves -- if they can find it.

Beyond Tying It All Together

Looking past the big picture and on to the finer details, the Nokia N97 does have some things going for it. The hardware is moderately attractive. It comes in a white or black finish and is rimmed with chrome edges and accents. It is a little on the large size, but phones that offer as much as the N97 aren't going to be tiny, and I think most users can come to terms with that.

The plastic of the battery cover is a bit flimsy for a $700 device, but the hinge that supports the pop-up screen is amazingly solid. The buttons for controlling the volume, camera, menu access, and power are all placed comfortably and work well.

There is a sliding, spring-loaded switch to lock and unlock the screen. It takes about a day to get used to it. I thought the buttons for sending and ending calls on the face of the N97 were a bit too close together, and sometimes this resulted in accidentally pressing the wrong one. The camera lens is covered by a sliding door that serves two purposes: protecting the lens and starting the camera.

About that keyboard. Most reviews of the N97 have derided the keyboard, and I am inclined to agree. It has three rows, which means if you want to type anything beyond actual letters, you need to press a function key to get at them. The buttons themselves have very little shape, but there's just enough contour that your thumb can tell when it has moved from one key to the next. The keyboard's real failing is in how it feels to type. The keys offer very little travel and even less feedback. It is hard to tell when you've actually pressed each button far enough to get that letter to appear on the screen. This makes typing difficult.

There is a set of navigational controls positioned to the left of the keyboard. Since the N97's screen is touch-enabled, I found the navigational controls to be a bit moot. Speaking of touch...

The N97 uses resistive touch-screen technology. Rather than respond to the electric signals in your fingers, the screen needs to be physically pressed to get a response. It works well enough to interact with the Symbian-based S60 5th Edition operating system.

In my experience, capacitive touch screens, such as the ones found on the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Storm, and HTC G1, are more responsive overall. Considering that the N97 costs a whopping $700, it would have been nice to see Nokia pony up the extra cash that capacitive screens cost and use that technology instead of the lesser resistive technology. Media Manipulation

For those interested in capturing images or video of friends and loved ones doing stuff, the N97 is a powerful tool. It has a 5-megapixel camera complete with Carl Zeiss optics, dual-LED flash, and autofocus. The camera is similar to that found on the Nokia N85, N95, and N96. It's a shame that Nokia didn't see fit to include the 8-megapixel monster on the N86.

The N97 camera operates much faster than its N-series predecessors, but that's not saying a whole lot. Booting the camera takes several seconds, which is average for most camera phones. The autofocus feature works great in brightly lit areas, but if you're going to shoot something in the dark, it needs a few seconds to figure everything out before it focuses and allows the camera to fire off the shot.

The camera software is as robust as any other N-series device from Nokia, and allows for a wide range of manipulation. The exposure levels, brightness, contrast, resolution, white balance, and flash can all be set however the user wants. Changing these settings is nothing more than few finger-presses away.

The video software works in almost identical fashion to the still camera software.

How does it all perform? Pretty darned good. For vacationers, I'd say you can get away with leaving your point-and-shoot behind. Five megapixels captures enough information so that you can print 8x10s if you really want to. The N97's camera gets most things right when outdoors. Pictures looked good, were free of grain, and exposure was spot-on most of the time. Whether you're going to photograph Yosemite's peaks and valleys, or the Vatican's frescoes and cathedrals, the N97 is fit for the job.

It doesn't perform as well in low-light situations, though this is the case with most any camera or camera phone. You have to be careful with how the flash operates to get the best results. If you're going to take pictures at this summer's night-time rock festival, be sure to turn the flash off if you really want to see who's on stage. If you're taking pictures of the friends you're tailgating with, leave the flash on.

One place where Nokia managed to remember to include integration with its Ovi services is in the camera and photo gallery software. You'll see "Share on Ovi" built into a lot of the menus. Using that feature lets you upload content directly to your Ovi photo page, which acts similar to Flickr, PhotoBucket, or Picasa.

Video is equally impressive. The N97 captures VGA video at 30 frames per second. If you want to catch your boss hitting a home-run at the company summer picnic or your kids playing at the beach, the N97 is up to the task. S60 5th Edition

S60 has been around for a long time. Though it remains the world's dominant smartphone platform, it is aging rapidly. S60 5th Edition, which is strictly for touch-based phones, does no favors for the operating system.

The most innovative and user-friendly feature of S60 5th Edition is the use of home screen widgets to aggregate certain content. Out of the box, it was easy to place widgets for Facebook, Gmail, the weather, my favorite contacts, and so on directly on the home screen. These widgets can be customized however the user wishes.

Beyond that, it appears and feels as though Nokia has done the bare minimum to make S60 finger-friendly. The menus and architecture of the operating system are barely changed. Despite the brand-new hardware, the operating system looks and feels old.

Veteran S60 users won't have a hard time finding their way around, but new users will find the menus archaic and lacking in sense.

Odds and Ends

Perhaps the N97's best feature -- and I'm not exaggerating here -- is that it is a good phone. The N97 was a signal hound and never lost track of AT&T's network while I tested it. Furthermore, the quality of phone calls is outstanding. If superior phone performance is a must-have, the N97 hits the mark. The speakerphone was nice and loud, too.

Battery life was about on-par for a device such as this. Heavy users should expect to charge the phone every day. More moderate users might be able to squeak through two days of use before needing to plug it in.

Sadly, Nokia didn't do anything new, fun, or interesting with the music player. It uses the same basic S60 software that's been on Nokia's phones for years. Nokia could have done better.

The N97's GPS radio worked very well. Using Google Maps and Nokia Maps, the N97 was consistently able to pinpoint my location to within about 10 feet. That's pretty darned good.

The S60 Web browser has been altered a bit to be more finger friendly, but its overall functionality doesn't appear to be changed. The N97 can access the speediest 3G network available from AT&T, and Web sites load in the blink of an eye.

If you are interested in applications, the N97 can take advantage of the newly launched Ovi Store. The store is Nokia's response to the application storefronts that are being offered by nearly all the makers of smartphones these days. The Ovi Store works pretty well. It is easy to search for applications, and the store offers shortcuts to the newest or most-downloaded applications. Each application has a description, user reviews, and links to similar apps or apps created by the same publisher. Downloading and installing the applications is straightforward.

In Sum

The Nokia N97 is an important phone for Nokia, which is why I am so surprised that it fails in many respects. Seamless integration with end-user data should be a no-brainer out of the box. Instead, if you want to take advantage of the powerful software that Nokia offers, you have to dig to find it. Nokia really missed a fantastic opportunity to build awareness -- and a user base! -- of its Ovi services by leaving out an Ovi client that guides you through all that it offers.

The hardware is mostly good, though many will find that the keyboard isn't as usable as those offered on other phones (including Nokia's own E72, E72, and E75). The image and video capturing capabilities are right up there with the best, the browser is decent, and the phone itself works very well.

For die-hard Nokia fans who value content creation more than anything else, the N97 is a solid pick -- if they can stomach the $700 price tag. But those who are more interested in social media integration may be better served by some of the competing models available in the market that cost half as much.

As for enterprise users, I'd strongly recommend sticking with phones running Windows Mobile or BlackBerry OS.

For Further Reading

Video: Hands On With The Nokia N97

Review: Palm Pre Smartphone Mostly Pleases

Review: Apple's Speedy iPhone 3GS

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