Nokia N97/N97 mini: part 1 - The Hardware
Trying to cram a review of the Nokia N97 into a single, brief series, would be hard enough - there's a lot to say, both positive and negative. But Steve Litchfield is going to double the stakes and attempt something harder - to combine reviews of both the N97 and its newer little sister, the N97 mini, into one review series. You see, so much of the functionality of the two N97 variants is common that it makes eminent sense to cover them both at the same time.
At the time of writing, the N97 and N97 mini are Nokia's Symbian flagships. Do they live up to this tag, where do they succeed and where do they fall down?
N97 mini and N97 side by side: the size difference isn't that noticeable at first glance. Note that this shot was in quite bright (overcast) light, with the two different screen techs (see below) struggling to cope in different ways...
Form Factor and the Future
As I discussed in detail here, the form factor of a larger (than is possible with traditional keypadded phones) screened touch-driven smartphone is here to stay, whatever your feelings on the matter. Yes, there are questions over overall device size, over fragility and over the unsuitability of touch input in some circumstances, but the advantages in terms of display real estate, UI possibilities and media consumption generally outweigh the disadvantages.
Classic touchscreen-driven PDAs and phones rely on virtual keyboards for entering text, which is fine for occasional use (search strings, entering new appointments, etc.) but which is often a pain when typing longer emails, tweets or SMS. Which is why there's a major sub-class of touchscreen phones centred around having a slide out qwerty keyboard as well as the touchscreen.
And the N97 and N97 mini are Nokia's two entries in this increasingly crowded field. Their unique selling point, other than that they run Symbian rather than Android or Windows Mobile, is that the screen hinges outwards, coming to rest at a handy viewing angle and giving more of a laptop look and feel than 'flat' sliders like (for example) the Motorola Dext. At 3.5", the N97's screen is in the higher end of the spec scale, while the N97 mini sits somewhere in the middle.
For proof on how well Nokia's hinged solution works, see my recommendation for these two smartphones as my no. 1 choice in Phones Show 93. As we'll see below, the original N97 had more than its fair share of quirks at launch, but current production hardware and (v20) shipping firmware make it a very strong competitor in the touch/qwerty phone world.
Design and build quality
The patented screen hinge, made of alloy, is stunning in its feel and robustness. The N97 mini's folds up at a flatter angle than the N97's, though which angle you prefer will of course be a personal thing. In each case there's a metal frame with plastic body, though the N97 mini also adds a stainless steel battery cover - this reduces bulk and feels wonderful to the touch compared to the creaky plastic back cover of the N97, which I've never liked. Both have a raised ridge on the bottom of the back so that the device sits flat for typing/viewing when placed on a desk.
The whole raison d'être of touchscreen phones is the display real estate and both the devices do well here, with 3.5" and 3.2" screens for the N97 and N97 mini respectively. Interestingly, they use different display technologies, with the N97 using a transflective screen that does fairly well in sunlight but looks a little more washed out indoors, and the N97 mini using a standard TFT (the same one as in the 5800) that looks more vivid indoors but blacks out more outdoors. It's a tough compromise for any designer to make, given that the screen is resistive. The gold standard here is still the Apple iPhone, to be honest, with a transflective colour screen and capacitive touch system that doesn't interfere with the natural colours of the display. Of the two N97s, I prefer the 3.5" N97 transflective version, but the tech trade-off does make it a close one to call.
In sunlight, the N97 mini screen is distinctly harder to read than the N97's, which has a transflective layer that is able to use some ambient light to reflect back through the LCD elements...
...while indoors the N97 mini's TFT has slightly higher brightness/vividness. A trade-off?
I've already shown that resistive screens are more accurate, have a wider temperature range, can be used with gloves or stylii, and are cheaper, but capacitive displays are undoubtedly (potentially) brighter, more responsive and downright sexier. Nokia's X6 is capacitive and I daresay that some future Nseries models in 2010 will also have this technology. In the meantime, though, I've had few complaints with the two N97s... yes, a light pressure is needed to swipe or tap, but this tiny effort isn't really an issue.
The main 'S60'/'Home'/'Menu' key is styled diagonally so that it's equally as applicable whether in portrait or landscape mode. It's a mechanical key and requires a firm push, something which rather rankles after the delicate touch needed on the main display. The N97 version is shiny, while the N97 mini's has a rougher texture that's rather attractive.
The ingenious hinge mechanism has proved to be very robust - I've yet to hear of a single breakage - and sets the N97 and N97 mini up beautifully for 'laptop-like' use or for watching videos without the need for a kick-stand. The angles are slightly different for the N97 mini, with the display sitting back at a more relaxed angle, the umpteenth example I can think of where the N97 mini's designers looked at the prototype N97 and thought they could make it better.
The downside of the hinge system is that the area available for a qwerty keyboard is slightly smaller than for a traditional (E75-like) flat slider. As a result, only three rows of keys are possible, meaning that Nokia has had to get creative. Every key has a number or punctuation assigned to it and a long press on the key enters that character, a system which works well. There's no 'Ctrl' key, but handling of Copy and Paste is done through pressing and holding the 'Shift' key.
Aside from the obvious difference of the N97 having a full d-pad while the N97 mini has directional (arrow) keys, the keyboards are dramatically different in other ways. The N97 had a staggered QWERTY, with QA, then WSZ in a line, while the N97 mini returns to Nokia's traditional QAZ WSX linkings. The N97 mini has an extra punctuation key, meaning that comma no longer needs to be a shifted character, which is good. And the physical keys are more prominent, with greater resistance and mechanical movement. The result is that typing is more positive - and ultimately faster and less error-prone - on the N97 mini's keyboard. Taking all the differences into consideration, the N97's, by comparison, feels more fiddly and can be frustrating to use.
In truth, neither keyboard is in the same league as that on the E71 and E75, but they still provide for fast input of text which would be awkward to enter using T9 on a virtual keypad or smaller resistive on-screen virtual keyboard. I've said many times that I can't live without QWERTY, and the two N97s give the user a way to have full touch and also full QWERTY without too many compromises.
Around the N97's sides (the same for both devices) we have key/screen lock toggle, microUSB port (mysteriously inverted for the N97 mini), twin (tinny) speakers, power button, 3.5mm audio/AV jack, metal volume/zoom buttons and a high quality camera shutter key.
The rear of the two devices shows one of the biggest differences between the N97 and the N97 mini. The former has a full mechanical camera glass protector* and a somewhat bulbous plastic casing, while the N97 mini eschews the protector, opts for a stainless steel battery cover and manages a much slimmer form factor as a result. The use of metal not only saves a millimetre or two, it also gives the N97 mini a feeling of real quality - something which can't be measured but which has to be experienced first-hand.
* Famously, this protector has been the cause of much damage, with the initial design not leaving enough room between slide and camera glass and thus grinding dust and dirt across its surface. At some point in the production cycle a new design was substituted, with greater clearance, but this still leaves up to a million people with a potentially scratchable camera glass. The symptom of scratches is that flash photos at night show a white bar on the left of the image, as light from the flash is refracted back into the lens. If anyone reading this is affected by the issue, contact your nearest Nokia Care Point.
Removing the cover shows that the battery itself is smaller, the N97 uses the tried and trusted 1500mAh BP-4L, while the N97 mini uses the 1200mAh BL-4D. In terms of battery life, there's not that much in it in real world use, since the N97's display is bigger and uses more power - and since the use case for a bigger screened device may well lend itself to more intensive media use (a big battery drainer).
Also revealed is the microSD slot - with card swapping now infrequent on modern devices, hiding this potential dust trap away inside the back cover is fine by me. It could even be argued that the card itself is now not quite so vital, with most Symbian-powered phones now coming with substantial amounts of internal flash memory (of which more later). Also of note is that the N97 mini hides its antennae (GPS, 3G etc) underneath plastic, while the N97 leaves them exposed on the surface - yet more evidence that the N97 mini hardware is very much a second iteration on the basic design. (There will be more on GPS performance in a future review part.)
Under the hood
The N97 (with v20 firmware) and N97 mini use essentially the same hardware and software platform, with S60 5th Edition and Nokia's PR 2.0 software (the merging of some Symbian^2 features with existing S60 5th - which is where the kinetic scrolling comes in, among other useful nuggets). The processor's slow at 434MHz, by modern standards, which is something of a tribute to the amount of performance that Symbian can wring out of a humble ARM11 chip. Battery life, as a result, is excellent for general use, though the usual caveats over push email and intensive data connections apply.
Memory, however, is an issue. RAM is limited on both devices, with only around 50MB free after the OS and interface have booted (the exact figure depends on what you've set up in your homescreen). With Web quite capable of swallowing up 15 of RAM when working on graphics rich sites, with Photos/Camera doing the same, and with some heavy duty third party applications capable of exceeding this, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that the Symbian OS is going to be having to close background applications down as a matter of course once a power user gets going.
Yes, the man in the street is less likely to hit RAM limits, but then the man in the street is less likely to have bought an N97 in the first place. You buy this device because you want one of the most powerful smartphones around and its galling to keep seeing functions hampered by RAM when it would only have cost Nokia another few dollars per device to stick in an extra 128MB and solve the problem in one fell swoop. This isn't the first time a major Nokia platform has been somewhat crippled by lack of RAM and it seems the lesson still hasn't been learnt.
Similarly restricting, if you go for the N97, is lack of internal flash memory (a.k.a. disk C:), with (again) only 50MB free for user use. Disk C: is used by the OS for temporary files, for the web cache, for messaging, and so on. And so it's not a good idea to let the free space drop below 10MB. An informed user can simply opt to install all third party applications to the 'mass memory' (disk E:), which helps enormously, but even here you're fighting Nokia's decisions, since many OS extensions (e.g. Nokia Messaging, Ovi Contacts, N-Gage, Mail for Exchange) all insist on being installed to C: and using up more vital flash memory.
The N97 mini, coming along six months later than its bigger sister, solves the problem by adding another 256MB of flash memory to disk C:, meaning that you can effectively install everything to C:, leave the mass memory for media and even then never have to worry about the OS running out of workspace. I just wish they'd done the same with RAM, though perhaps this would have cannibalised sales of the N97 since power users would have switched in an instant.
On my N97 mini... (note huge C disk:)
However, while we're on the subject of memory and to demonstrate that superiority isn't all one way, it's important to note one of the N97's biggest selling points: the giant 32GB flash 'mass memory'. With modern high speed USB, it's not impractical to stick on your entire music collection (say 15GB), without worrying about format or bitrates and even then have plenty of room for apps, maps and movies. The N97 mini has a 'mere' 8GB mass memory, by comparison.
And my N97's.... (note 32GB mass memory)
With a 16GB microSD card, you've then got 48GB onboard the N97 and 24GB on the N97 mini, which should be enough for anyone.
And so to part 2...
In summary, looking at design, build quality and internals, the Nokia N97 mini has the edge over its larger sister device. Provided you can live without the N97's larger screen, 32GB mass memory, larger battery and FM transmitter, then the N97 mini makes for a more pocketable, more streamlined, higher quality piece of hardware that works a lot better as an overall product. I've been struggling to recommend the N97 to all and sundry since its launch, with all its hardware and software issues. Now that the v20 firmware is established, the N97 is undoubtedly better, but most people will be far happier at the end of the day with the N97 mini - I know I am.
In part 2 of this combined N97/N97 mini review, I'll be taking an objective look at S60 5th Edition in the context of PR 2.0 and QWERTY keyboards and I'll be exploring the built-in functionality. In part 3, I'll be looking specifically at the camera and multimedia, as well as summing up my thoughts on both the N97 and the N97 mini.
Published by Steve Litchfield at 19:56 UTC, November 4th 2009
Categories: Hardware
Platforms: S60 5th Edition
News Discussion
This statement alone makes me glad I have the original N97 :)
Why would anybody give up all of those features for a smaller footprint? Especially a techie user who wants function, not form.
But, I think nokia will be very smart too. if N97mini sales were high, and current generation of N97 were sold out, they will sudently release N97i, which is a N97 with more RAM, more processor speed, and more C drive.
PS:... I really hope nokia use a 2 TranFlash/microSDHC card in the future, so I can manage my files better (e.g. photo and document on card 1 and music & movies on card 2. therefore, if I swap card 2, the card 1 for document etc will still there...)
To dream is a good thing but what you hope for is another phone. There is very little chance that Nokia will put these type of features and components into an old phone. There has been much discussion as to whether Nokia shipped millions of phones verses whether or not they sold millions of phones. These are two very different things. Not to mention the returns. If we can say that Nokia shipped 2 million phones, while selling 1 million and then getting 500 thousand in returns, it would be safe to say that the N97 was not a huge success on a global level anyway. While I do not have the actual numbers, I would say that my supposition is closer to the truth. Nokia will not release the return figures which in itself can be an indicator of the true success of the N97.
While the N97 Mini has less, in the end it might be more. At least you know you are not (hopefully) getting a defective (yes, the N97 was defective out of the box) device that you pay a premium price for.
could you be nice and make another article (after the part 3) to compare the speed of N97/N97mini to the E52/E55/E72... compare the 434MHz CPU to the 600MHz CPU?
thanks.
I guess i will go with the mini edition. Not for the pocket size (Communicator user) and not for the price but for the 320MB in the C drive and the metal battery cover.
Good to hear that the N97 mini Keyboard is better than the N97 but how can you compare to E90? Cant compare it to 6 rows keys,i know,but what about the buttons physically? Feedback? and Size?
And can i suggest? since you will cover the multimedia side in the next parts of the review can you have an illustrated look at the Photos,Video & Music organizing features? Especially the use of albums & Tags and the synchronization with Photos client in the PC...i noticed that the most frustrating thing for people use these phones is the images organizing options,i noticed in the forums everywhere (allaboutsymbian included).
May I suggest, as an N97 owner myself, that you buy neither of the two handsets? Unless you plan on being constantly annoyed.
- In the US, it's hard to convince ANYONE, especially my average friend or even my tech geek friends, to pick this over the iPhone 3GS, any Android phones, or even one of the HTC WinMo phones. All these phones provide enough working space (RAM, Flash ROM) with a really poweful CPU, and often with GPU. I would never tell my less-technical friends to go thru the pain of one of HelloOx, remember to install apps on mass memory, or search in more obscure places for useful apps since Ovi is still in horrible shape. And most of my friends also carry a dedicated GPS or have GPS built-in their car, which makes the GPS argument even less compelling. Few ppl really value the GPS once out of their car, and most ppl are not really spend alot of time in their car to justify GPS. And I rarely see ppl use the GPS features for walking/social networking/etc. Most ppl would rather pay the few extra dollars, to have peace of mind that their purchases will just work. Most readers at this point might point me to the N900 as well, but let's keep in mind that it only works at it's fullest on T-mobile, the WORST provider in the US. Even worse than an overloaded AT&T 3G network because of rabbid iPhone users.
- In any non-US region, why would any power user pick this over the Omnia HD, or for the more casual user, maybe they should probably pick the Satio. The Omnia HD is especially an example of Symbian done well. And to make things even more obscure for Nokia, it seems like their E-series is doing much better, and the N95-8GB seems to be the king of the hill still after all these years. The E-series and N95-2 all use legacy technology, but the lesson learned there is that a better overall user experience trumps functionality any day. And there are so many better phones worldwide, that makes the N97 truly out of touch with reality. So many better phones that ppl could choose from, that it sometimes makes me wish I wasn't living in the US ;) And on top of that, I feel that iPhone wins on many accounts overseas as well, even if it has limited distribution.
Capacitive touch screens MIGHT be less accurate, according to AAS, but the responsiveness more than makes up for it, and resistive screen accuracy is only marginally better, not significantly better. At least when I played with my friends iPhones. I bought the N97 to see if not paying the iPhone tax was worth some of the deficiencies in the phone while gaining something possibly useful as an upgrade (keyboard, bigger screen, built-in massive storage). But at the end, it seems like Nokia's competitors quickly overcomes it's own deficiencies in more meaningful ways (be it a better app channel, better touch screen drivers, hw upgrade, etc., better CPU and Ram). I'm near ready to either jump ship to Verizon, or go get an E71. It seems like even the N86 is more popular and has better reviews, which makes me start wondering which device is really the flagship at the moment. Lousy product management on the N-series, obviously.
I've had the N97 phone for about a month now, and although I manage to overcome any difficulty with the phone and make it reasonably useful, the fact that I had to actually make conscious decisions and do extensive research is too much for even some wiser power users who understands that their time is often more valuable than the time spent tinkering with a semi-broken product. That, on top of the HW limits imposed, makes the bigger screen, built-in keyboard, FM transmitter, and more flash storage even more useless. Kinda a sad, considering I spent most of the year researching on a phone to replace my N95-3, only to end up with this conclusion.
And please, for all the obnoxious power users who's going to start tearing this post apart, keep this in mind - we are actually the minority here. A really TINY minority, compared to the customers that most of the manufacturers are trying to capture. And for all your criticisms about the iPhone, there's one thing that's absolutely undeniable about it now - the iPhone managed to capture the casual customer's attention and actually convince them to pay for hi-end hardware and more expensive services. and now with the iPhone 3GS with an A8-Cortext processor with more RAM, it's only a matter of time before the rather ridiculous argument about no multi-tasking (which is very untrue as well) will disappear, while other UI deficiencies can clearly be mitigated. There are some real reasons that the N97 is a failure, and not because of the slow CPU and crappy RAM. Once again, execution on product management here was squarely an F.
Why would anybody give up all of those features for a smaller footprint? Especially a techie user who wants function, not form.[/quote]
In 10 months I've managed to use less than 2GB of the 8GB memory card in my 5800. The 5800 screen is perfectly good and the battery life of over 2 day is also more than plenty. The only thing I miss is a physical keyboard.
Why would I want to carry a lump of N97 bloat phone around for features I don't need?
As the mini is squarely at social networking users, it's not likely to be a techie users phone. The techies would go for N900 type devices.
And Arthur above is a another that believes everybody has the same requirements as him.
Quote: "Despite the improvements in the N97 firmware and N97 mini HW, I just can't recommend either at the end.".....
Best post of this thread. Summed up perfectly. I had an N97 and was lucky enough to be able to return it. In all seriousness, Nokia has to know that this phone is a dog. Hopefully the N900 will be better but it will appeal mainly to the geek market and not mainstream. Nokia is like a husband in an abusive marriage who promises that they will be better next time, but goes back to the same old behavior. Eventually the abused partner leaves.
I would love to see the comparison between Nokia users that leave to go to SE, or the iPhone verses iPhone users or others that actually come to Nokia.
The multi-tasking argument is not untrue, but it is rather ridiculous. It is true that Symbian multi-task better (Android shuts down stuff without warning if memory gets low, Apple only lets you do what Jobs says you can do). The reason the argument is ridiculous is because in real life the limited multi-tasking on the iPhone doesn't really affect the practical use of 99% of users.
The reason that I prefer Nokia over all those superficially better user interfaces is because it does everything I want in the form factor I want. But with better signal in fringe reception, better call quality audio and for less money. The fundamentals that are essential to me.
And for my needs, the difference in sensistivity between capacitive and resistive is infinite when I am gloved (as I am most of the time).
The iPhone doesn't even get to the races for me. The same goes for many. If you take the UI away from the iPhone, you are left with an ordinary device. The Omnia and Satio are completely useless to me. The Nokias are the best one handed phones on the market for me.
I'm talking about my requirements, not yours.
The reason that I prefer Nokia over all those superficially better user interfaces is because it does everything I want in the form factor I want. But with better signal in fringe reception, better call quality audio and for less money. The fundamentals that are essential to me.
And for my needs, the difference in sensistivity between capacitive and resistive is infinite when I am gloved (as I am most of the time).
The iPhone doesn't even get to the races for me. The same goes for many. If you take the UI away from the iPhone, you are left with an ordinary device. The Omnia and Satio are completely useless to me. The Nokias are the best one handed phones on the market for me.
I'm talking about my requirements, not yours.[/quote]
I believe you confuse CAN vs ALLOWED TO:
[url]http://www.mexlinux.com/how-to-turn-you-iphone-into-a-multitasking-device/[/url]
The link above teaches you how to enable it, but the feature is most certainly there. W/o getting into some philosiphical debate as to why Apple turned it off, let's not forget there's a UNIX kernel inside iPhone OS, so please don't misinform the forum here with your claim it can't. iPhone also leaves iTunes and Safari in the background. They just don't allow THIRD PARTY APPS to multitask. Probably because they saw the same problems that we are seeing now with the N97. Which makes sense since the N97 HW design seemed to be designed to match the original iPhone and the iPhone 2G. But at least Apple had the decency to move forward and predict the needs of the next generation of iPhone customers. Also, having multitasking is almost worthless on the N97 as much of the RAM is eaten just by the OS. What good is it if I start surfing on the web, only to have my music player shutdown because I went to Flickr??!!
Also, your sale, and the sale of the few that looked at the N97 (including myself), don't drive the market all that significantly, especially if your sale does not cover the R&D and manufacturing cost for the N97 product line. So whether or not it met your needs, not to be offensive, means VERY LITTLE in the overall scheme of things. BUT, what I do need from Nokia after I bought my N97 is better confidence that Nokia will cover any deficiencies with the phone going forward, but I can't quite see that happening since most of the deficiencies are HW related, and it's unlikely that Nokia will make a recall just to put more RAM into my phone, as it's not what the warranty will cover. So probably your sense of fundamentals differ from mine, or quite frankly the rest of the cellphone industry. But your fundamentals does seem to match Nokia, which I fear, is the reason their Nokia has lost 20% of their sales YoY. Which is why Nokia will continue to produce subpar "hi-end" products and continue to treat the customers that purchase them like a research testbed instead of hi class customers. And please don't tell me that producing a "V2.0" firmware is proof that they're treating us like hi-class customers....
1. 100% of my friends didnt hear about Android.
2. The usual response for my Apple questions when i ask my friends are: Overpriced limited products...My 5 years old Nokia had a better camera...What? I cant send a ringtone?.....What is iTunes?..........................etc....
3. People think HTC Windows mobile are great phones but its too complicated...and why should i use 2 hands to do the simplest things?
4. The best 2 things out of NA are: We can buy unlocked phones...we dont have media hype for specific phone.
5. Am not talking am careless people...am talking about techie....
am talking from ME....
Should we write this in each S60 article?...like iPhone fan write the same sentence each day in 1000 forum to tell me his iPhone have an application for everything?...even he cant use 2 applications in the same time.
1. 100% of my friends didnt hear about Android.
2. The usual response for my Apple questions when i ask my friends are: Overpriced limited products...My 5 years old Nokia had a better camera...What? I cant send a ringtone?.....What is iTunes?..........................etc....
3. People think HTC Windows mobile are great phones but its too complicated...and why should i use 2 hands to do the simplest things?
4. The best 2 things out of NA are: We can buy unlocked phones...we dont have media hype for specific phone.
5. Am not talking am careless people...am talking about techie....
am talking from ME....
Should we write this in each S60 article?...like iPhone fan write the same sentence each day in 1000 forum to tell me his iPhone have an application for everything?...even he cant use 2 applications in the same time.[/quote]
I guess you don't live in the US? I see iPhones EVERYWHERE. In NYC, in subways, in airports. And see ppl who carry G1 in the subways. I guess you don't watch AAPL quarterly reports or NPD stats. Can you honestly tell me that Nokia sells better than HTC in the US? We're not talking about a smartphone vs a non-smartphone. We're talking about a Nokia smartphone vs a non-Nokia smartphone. And I'm a software dev as well with lot's of developer friends, who agrees on one thing - Nokia doesn't provide a good market for devs, at least in the US. I'm not the Apple fanboy, as I DON'T own an iPhone, but I AM giving my N97 NAM a chance, but I just make note of what I actually see, and the reactions my friends get between my phone and others. As much as I WANT Symbian succeed, you really can't just give a blind eye to the current market trends. And as I said, I think N95-2/4 still seems to be king of the hill in many ppl's mind, but you'll have to admit that Nokia basically blew it by not capitalizing on their position. So give me a break about bringing fanboyism in here. It makes YOU look more like the fanboy right now.
That is exactly what is wrong with Nokia. They churn out phone after phone but none with a complete feature set. Even though some features costs nothing extra to implement and had been present in previous models. My current peeve is why the f**k did they reduce the functionality of the E71 keyboard in comparison to the E61. What did Nokia achieve in doing that? Saved the costs of the ink required to print the extra characters onto the keys? WTF were they thinking?
You might want to start with the author of this article. He mentioned the iPhone first. So place the blame there. Second, how many times do you see Apple throwing darts at Nokia or Symbian? Sure there are the typical Appleistas that are no different than the Nokia zealots but at the corporate level the only one Apple targets is Microsoft. As far as Apple is concerned neither Nokia, LG, Samsung, SE, Motorola, etc... exist. Apple will continue to sell their phones, gain a bit of market share here and there, and drive on. You might want to do the same. Just a thought.
[url]http://www.mexlinux.com/how-to-turn-you-iphone-into-a-multitasking-device/[/url]
The link above teaches you how to enable it, but the feature is most certainly there. W/o getting into some philosiphical debate as to why Apple turned it off, let's not forget there's a UNIX kernel inside iPhone OS, so please don't misinform the forum here with your claim it can't.....[/quote]
That is just so pedantic. I wasn't talking about Unix, I was talking about the iPhone implentation, and there is no misleading at all. The reason Apple don't allow the multi-tasking is well known because they have come out and explained it. Put very simply, the fundamental OS and fundamental apps that do run in the background need a ceratin amount of resource, and what is left is a constant known quantity so an App developer doesn't have to deal with a variable in something so essential as the available resource. I can see the logic, but I am not sure it is necessary.
On a forums discussing smartphones? Who'd have thought it.
FFS.
My personal "must haves":
[LIST]
[*]Browser with Flash and Silverlight support (eventually a choice of browsers as currently there is not one mobile browser doing every single site well.)
[*]Large high resolution screen
[*]Good camera (at least in the 5 MP range) as the phone is my main camera
[*]Good call quality and reception
[*]integrated VoIP telephony (with 3G support)
[*]Querty keyboard not covering precious screen real estate while chatting
[*]Instant messaging running in the background
[*]Push email with HTML and viewing ability for all major file formats
[*]Full status information on home screen (weather, mail, calendar etc.)
[*]One handed operation in portrait mode
[*]Emulators as I love retro gaming
[*]Bluetooth joystick for retro gaming
[*]PC synchronisation that works well with MS Outlook
[*]FM Radio with good reception quality (and ideally with RDS)
[*]Must work without Google apps as I am avoiding them (just my personal paranoia ;))
[/LIST]
What other phone should I choose?
No i dont live in the US. I am talking from Middle East. And you know why people use iPhones everywhere,Vendor to subsidize the cost+Market hype to apologize any fault+Flashy UI and i cant say simple UI because for some people its limitation.
Android is still very young. the large proportion of people didnt hear about it yet.
I cant say anything about the developers because am not one of them.
Am not a fanboy like you said but i hate people think that since they pay the money the manufacture should ask them about there dream phone and make it. If you talk only about Nokia then they sell very well in China so the TS is resistive,they are finnish too..forget the capacitive screen only in selected devices. You cant blame them,they can even remove the english language support. did i mention they remove the arabic language support from N900?.
N95,N82,E90 was the best.....but as a 7 years Nokia user i know they had problems before and they resolve it...i faced the same problem when i want to upgrade from 6600 and didnt find any worthy device till 3250 comes.
- the only phone I have ever owned is a Nokia in the last 5 years (6630, n70, N95, N97)
-I've managed to managed to convince 6 different people (techie, non-techie) in the past 2 years to buy n95-3/4
-I never had multitasking issues in the past 5 years until the n97
-my friends depend on me to tell them what's WRONG with a phone b4 making a final call on buying it
That last statement will probably sum up about 80% of the whole markets buying decision at the end. I would not be able to convince anyone to purchase an N97 w/o lying about the flaws/bugs on this phone. if i was not on at&t, this phone would NOT convince me nor anyone to switch.
for you self-proclaimed tech geeks not in the us, seriously, why would you ever forgo the N900 or omnia hd for this?!?! they cost the same!!!!
for the more casual techie, if you are seriously going to plunk down serious cash for this (and don't tell me about free or whatever, I used to live in the UK, I know what 'free' really costs from a 3,orange, vodafone, tmo plan), wouldn't you want a more dependable phone up front?
I never had probs with speakerphone, gps on a gps phone, or ram until n97. I've never been mislead about a nokia phone until now (remember the transition videos). I didn't have to worry about my lens until the N97. I lost my GPU. is this the price I have to pay to get a new keyboard, an underutilized screen, and a faster processor?
so let me try to sum up the defenders and naysayers here:
- you would rather buy a multimedia phone with a smaller screen with less codec support than the omnia hd
- you would rather buy a multitasking phone with less ram than the omnia, n900, jesus phone, and no virtual memory support
-you'd rather pay for the subpar browser. it can't finish the acid test, eats so much ram that it will shut apps in the bg, and has a clunky UI. and proof that flash is not very useful on a nokia phone, look no further than opera 10 beta.everyone is raving about this browser, despite lack of flash.
-you'd rather let nokia devs get away with putting out truly buggy devices and then confuse them even more when a ton of ppl complain about stupid bugs (which always happen in the best of dev) vs true incompetence
If I didn't pay over $200 less than nokia's retail, I'd be just as angry as most ppl who really hate the n97.
But I can tell everyone wants to be the apologist here. go ahead and be an island unto yourselves.
First off Steve good comparison article I really look forward to the second and third parts and yes I think we can all see the obvious conclusion that the Mini is way better and the device that the N97 should have been, and may have been if it hadn't been announced so far ahead of release. I agree with the poster who said the N97 was clearly designed to target the iPhone 2G and by the time the 3GS came looked threadbare.
Secondly I fully agree with you that it's a shame they've continued to under spec RAM on the Mini and agree that the likely reason is that it would make the N97 look totally ridiculous (this is why they will drop/ do a II vers of N97 I think) . The whole hardware platform implementation by Nokia is pretty incomprehensible to me. A lot of times you refer to power users and multi tasking but the simple fact is that the platform cannot run active homescreen widgets (THE major product benefit sold by Nokia) and another couple of apps without flaking out therefore it cannot work as billed.
Can you force it to function for you by asking less of it - yes of course but it isn't what I bought into or what was billed. The UI experiance is poor and now becasuse of the crippled platform you don't even get the benefit of bells and whistles. So you end up having to ask less of it than the iPhone for example AND have a worse user experience (it can't even game as well)
With this I also have to put my dismal experience of Nokia care - phone's been back twice without them fixing camera and GPS properly and this is after having to phone all around Nokia UK and having to visit Regent Street flagship store twice and then having to take it to Carphone Warehouse on their recommendation. I have wasted a huge ammount of time trying to fix a phone which in it's early firmware state couldn't even take a phone call without crashing. Owing to repair times I haven't had the use of it for 30% of the time I've owned it.
In light of all this I will be actively disuading all my friends from buying Nokia products (particulalry as their UI is also very unintuitive to most and they'd never cope having to load apps and music as the devices stand) as they're not fit for broad consumption don't work as advertised and are not constructed well.
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