Nokia N93i Review

Design:

As was already mentioned, the phone has kept its predecessor’s unique form factor. It is basically a clamshell, but is display, rotating at 120 degrees, makes it a laterally-handled device with a landscape display and a front-panel camera.

Therefore, the two software buttons are dubbed over the main display. When it is turned around, e.g. in order to be used for taking pictures, the buttons remain in its upper and lower part. The landscape mode of the operating system has been optimized in the same way. The 5-directional navigation button is functionally dubbed by the joystick on the right-hand side. It is considerably smaller, but because it is jutting out, it is even more convenient to use. The camera mode and the flash buttons are also located there.

The miniSD hot-swappable memory slot is further down. Still on the right-hand side, but fixed on the rotating hinge, is the zoom ring, equipped with a big central shooter key. The ring rotates anti-clockwise or clockwise for zoom in and zoom out respectively. This was rather confusing for us, because almost all devices with a similar ring work the other way round: clockwise for zoom in.

The central button has two press positions, because the phone’s camera is auto-focusing. By semi-pressing this button, the camera focuses and when the button is fully pressed, the picture is taken, just like a regular camera.
If we disregard the fact that the phone has two navigation faces (one for the phone and one for the camera), we can say that N93i is simply a big clamshell. Although it is downright SMALL, compared to N93, N93i is still in the big phones category.

Model	Dimension (Inches)	Dimension (MM)	Weight (OZ)	Weight (Gramms)
Nokia N93i	4.3" x 2.3" x 1.0"	108 x 58 x 25	5,7	163
Nokia N93	4.7" x 2.2" x 1.1"	118 x 55.5 x 28	6,3	180
Nokia N95	3.9" x 2.1" x 0.8"	99 x 53 x 21	4,2	120
LG KG920	4.3" x 2.0" x 0.7"	108 x 50 x 18	4,6	130
Sony Ericsson K810	4.2" x 1.9" x 0.7"	106 x 48 x 17	4,0	115

It weighs 5.7 oz (163 g), which makes it one of the heavy phones on the market. Holding it is not a problem, unlike keeping it in your pocket. Forget about carrying it in your shirt pocket, for example; you should rather choose a pocket that is big enough to hold it and to bear its weight.


Opening it with one hand is almost impossible and it is no use trying to do it, all the more because there is no spring mechanism to help you in any way. When we tried this operation the upper part would often stop halfway, where, in case the camera was used, the display turned around and we had to turn it further. Even if you manage to open it with one movement, you would definitely feel the middle step, which is not a good experience. Closing it with one hand ends up with the display turned round, which makes the attempt useless and shows you that this operation should be done with two hands.

Overall, the quality of the make is very high, which is only logical for a phone from the upper-market class of a leading and well-known manufacturer like Nokia. In this respect there is nothing we can complain about, we can only enjoy the good combination of used materials: the opaque plastic, the glassy surface and the metal alloys.

In order to stabilize the top shell, Nokia have taken the clever decision of making part of the rubber buffer (whose main function is to prevent the lids from slamming) enter into a slit, so as to avoid a horizontal gap. Just like with N95, the battery lid is perfect with no movement at all, but easy to remove. Under it you will find the BL-5F battery and the SIM card slot.

When it is closed, the front part of the phone proudly displays information on the hinge about the Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 3x Optical Zoom 3.2 Megapixel camera lenses. The rest of the phone is a glassy surface, which leaves place only for the manufacturer’s logo. There is a small horizontal OLED display in the lower part, which, however, is totally invisible when it is not active. From the phone’s Settings menu you can select a few colors for the display’s backlit: White, Red, Green, Blue, and Pink, which looks more like lilac. They are all colors which are contrasting and clearly visible in darker places. Unfortunately, in bright light the glassy surface turns into glass and this display is not seen at all. Just as invisible is also the small LED, which you can adjust to be lit in red, green or blue, used to signal Missed calls and emails, Unread messages, and Battery charging.



To the right of the camera inscription is the shutter button and the zoom ring; the camera lenses are to the left. They are covered by a Zeiss black protective lid. You have to remove it and slide it back every time, which did not appeal to us at all. It would have been much better if Nokia had used for some of its top models the standard lenses protection, which is automatically opening lens-cover. This type of protection is used in most of the compact digital cameras on the market.

Two flash LEDs are located on the phone’s left side, as well as an infrared-eye, Pop-up Nokia port with a lid and the small Nokia port for charging and loudspeaker. Almost always when taking pictures we put our hands over the flash and blocked it. We were also disappointed because a pop-up port was used, instead of a combination of a miniUSB and a 3.5/2.5 mm stereo jack, providing for the convenience to use a cable from another device for the synchronization, without entangling oneself with another one. On the other hand, the stereo jack would allow one to use standard headphones without interconnects.


The two alternative software buttons, the alternative CIF camera, which is used for video conversations, the loudspeaker, used for conversations, and the light sensor are located on the inside of the upper shell. The light sensor monitors the ambient light and corrects the brightness of the display and the lighting of the keyboard accordingly.

The main display is 2.44 inches, a bit smaller than that of the N95. It features the same QVGA 240x320 pixel resolution and 16 million colors, which is the only upgrade in the specifications, compared to the N93. It is difficult to have any complaints here, provided that the images are colorful and contrasting and the high resolution, which is a standard for this size, ensures a detailed picture.



On the lower shell is the keyboard, which has totally disappointed us. In spite of the phone’s large size, it is not even bearable. The twelve digit buttons are big enough, but they are difficult to press and give almost no tactical response. The rest of the keys are pressed similarly, but they are also considerably smaller. The software button and the menu button are among the most frequently used buttons, due to their role in the navigation, but in the case of N93i they are much too small for our liking. The D-pad works a bit better thanks to its comparatively big size and due to the different material of which it is made, it is visually distinguishable. On the whole, the keyboard is almost totally flat and the buttons are hardly distinguishable one from the other, which makes typing even more difficult.