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Nokia N97 US Reviews
1. What's up with the bad reviews??
9 Nov 2009 by Brainless
90%9out of 10
It'd be quite interesting what version of the OS all you reviewers had when you made the reviews.
I've owned the N95-NAM for 2 years and got the N97 about a month ago. When I got it, it was on V10.x firmware, and granted it was a little slow. Upgraded to V20. about 2 weeks ago and speed is almost no issue. This phone makes the N95 look like a fat dog, and I loved the N95. The only thing I miss is the media buttons and the shortcut screen from the N95. But those can be easily replaced with widgets on the N97's main screen.
The Accelerometer could use a little boost as I think it's not sensitive enough and isn't triggering portrait/landscape mode fast enough.
The A-GPS is a good 3 times faster getting to a GPS than the N95. I can also get GPS connection in my house when I couldn't with the N95. Coulds are also no longer an issue.
Not sure what the gripe is about the camera. I used to be an amateur photographer and tend to think I know something about photos. Camera has, in my opinion more features than any other phone and takes very good quality photos for a phone and there is only a handful of phone that has a 5m camera as of now (And, no: I don't think the Iphone's camera is anywhere close to this one). Of course can't compare it with any DSLR cameras out there, but can definitely beat quite a few "point'n shoot" digital cameras out there. The only issue I found with that camera is the beveled piece of plastic right next to the flash. That piece reflects the flash back into the frame and over exposes the whole right side of the picture. Careful cutting with a Dremel tool will fix that. Another issue with the camera is its cover: if you don't have it absolutely clean everytime you open/close it, it WILL scratch the protective screen of the objective.
And how can someone compare the true widescreen with the puny little N95 screen???
As far as getting the "face detection" (review #6). That's the Accelerometer's job. I've never had an issue with it (again: been using it for at least a month).
No one's mentioned in any reviews the FM transmitter included in the phone. I don't know of any phone that has that. Tested it in 3 very different cars and had no issues.
This is my 2nd full qwerty keyboard phone I've owned. Someone was griping about the small buttons: I'd hate to see you own a Blackberry. Very sensitive and responsive. Using the keyboard in conjunction with the touch screen makes it extremely easy to send text/MMS's. Texting without the keyboard is comparable to using the N95's number pad. The phone is smart enough to know you need T9.
Granted there are a few little quirks Nokia could be working on. What phone doesn't? All in all, Worthy of it being called the flagship AND the hype (being all true). Expremely happy customer so far.
I my humble opinion, Nokia's shipped too many faulty handsets that would result to those of your who griped about it and I'm hoping thei QA team is fixing that. They don't do that: they will no longer be one of the largest cell phone manufacturers.
- Feature packed phone.
- Good variety of software available
- Ease of use
- Similar features from previous NSeries gives previous owners an extremely low learning curve
- Faster connection to GPS
- Capable of charging via USB
- Camera flash over-exposes the right side of the night photo.
- Phone design seems to be a little more fragile than the N95
- Video and photo features use up lots of battery
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2. I very proud to own one!
31 Oct 2009 by Jonathan Martin
96.7%9.7out of 10
This phone is one of the best phones out today in my opinion. The version 20.2.019 update has really improved my experience with this phone. I'm an Art student and I have take great photos with this phone that I have used for Design/Photograph class. The camera works terrifically and with the version 20.2.019 the kinetic scrolling photo gallery greatly improves navigating through my photos. The memory on my hard disk alone is massive and I never have to worry about not having enough memory for my images, music or videos. I can run multiple Apps and manage my open apps with one push of a button from anywhere on the phone. Performance is good now. It used to lag at times but that seems to have been improved by the 20.2.019 update. N-Gage Gaming is a great smartphone, especially with the offset keyboard. I am a very satisfied customer and I love my Nokia N97 I would recommend it to anyone looking for a great all around smartphone.
>Great 5 Megapixal Camera
>Run Multible Apps
>Video Calling w/ seconday camrea
>Easy Navigation
>Very easy to Update
>Fully Customizable Home Screen
>DVD Quality Video
>Very Durable
> Slow out the box without update
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3. Best phone
22 Sep 2009 by Ba
93.3%9.3out of 10
Best phone I ever have. Good design, I love the keyboad and tilted screen. handle 32G of music and video with out and problem. Minor software problem at the initial launch with version 10. No problem after upgrade to firmware 11 and 12.
Good design, I love the keyboad and tilted screen. handle 32G of music and video with out and problem.....................Minor software problem at the initial launch with version 10. No problem after upgrade to firmware 11 and 12...........................
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4.
8 Sep 2009 by Anonymous
100%10out of 10
Great phone. I love the keyboard and the screen is also very good. Not a big fan of resistive, but in this case, it's no big deal since there is a keyboard. The d-pad is a bit redundant, but good for games. Overall this is a great little phone. I can't wait for what follows in it's footsteps.
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5.
7 Sep 2009 by Anonymous
96.7%9.7out of 10
Beautiful phone with 32GB of media memory. Querty keyboard is excellent. Software is a little stale, but does it's job fairly well.
Good screen
Large built in media storage
Great QWERTY keyboard
Just the right sizeSoftware could be better
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6. Best one
25 Aug 2009 by E.D
100%10out of 10
The best cellular ever. nice features great GPS. nice keyboard. great size in hand. great material.
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7.
20 Jul 2009 by Anonymous
10%1out of 10
touchscreen is not all that efficient on this phone especially when typing on the touch screen i must always resort to the qwerty keyboard. also it doesn't seem to have the great face detection, i mean when your face is close to the phone it sometimes leaves the touch screen running. Nokia needs to improve and that's something they just aren't doing. the spearkerphone is too quiet even at max volume i can barely hear it. and the headphone jackphone doens't deliver great. sound
i called nokia about the sound issue and they told me to get hearing-aids and they called me old. i'm offended. Nokia U.S is insolent and shameful.
speakerphone is quiet
headphone jackphone doesn't deliver great quality or loud sounds.
touch screen is rather annoying sometimes
camera freezes a lot
one of the LED's already died on my phone
Nokia's employee's are very insulting towards their customers.
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8. The flagship of the Nseries, but not quite the ultimate.
18 Jul 2009 by DontHateOnS60
80%8out of 10
It looks to me as if there are a bunch of people here who simply want to drag the rating down on a phone that is nowhere near as bad as they claim it is. This is from someone who actually has the phone and has been using it for two weeks now. This has been the phone I've been waiting for from Nokia, although it's certainly not everything I want. I've always been a fan of S60 since my N75, and the only thing that I was waiting for was Nokia to turn it into a touch interface and put it on an Nseries. Now I finally have it, and while it's certainly not perfect, it's close.
The keyboard which has been a huge topic of conversation is perfectly fine in terms of layout. I have no issues going from this to my E71. My problem however is the fact that for some odd reason the top and bottom row have a completely different feeling than the middle row, which feels perfect. It's going in under warranty, and hopefully they'll fix it. I had no software issues with mine when I first booted it up, like a number of people had. I am now running v11 firmware and things everything works well 95% of the time. I really like S60 5th. The slider design I think is absolutely brilliant and is very well built. I really have to hand it to Nokia for the size of this device. Someone else in a so called "review" wrote that this has a bulky design. I completely disagree. Considering the fact it has a full keyboard and a camera that sticks out, it's perfect, and I like how it sits perfectly flat on a surface. I doubt anybody could design it thinner. I do wish it were slightly wider, but that in no way takes points away from this. The battery was much needed in this device as I can't see how anything less would've kept this thing going for more than a day. It will last as long as 3 days if you really push it and are light on what you do with it, but expect between 36 hours and just over 2 days of battery life on a normal to hard use. You should have no problem making it through the day unless you spend 4 hours browsing the web or something like that.
Nokia had the right idea with this device. Combine a full QWERTY, which it badly needed in an Nseries, with a big touch screen, again which it badly needed, and you’ll have the ultimate device right? Well, sort of. Unfortunately for Nokia the actual execution of the idea still leaves something to be desired. And while some will argue this isn’t a worthy enough flagship, I say, that all depends upon what your definition of a flagship is. If you think a flagship should be the icon of the company that outdoes everything else in the business, then you might be able to make a case. But if you think the flagship is the poster child of the company, then it really is hard to argue against that. This is the best all in one Nseries device ever made, even if it has its downfalls. I really like it a lot, but it still leaves me begging for more, which my N95-3 didn't, and that’s what I’m really looking for. I definitely recommend it to anyone who's looking for a great device.
-The sound quality over headphones is by far the best I’ve ever heard from an Nseries, on par with the 5800.
- The screen looks beautiful.
- Widget homescreen is fantastic.
- Touch screen is responsive for a resistive screen.
- Call quality is very good as is signal reception.
- Camera quality is very good.
- Love the UI despite a few quirky things.
- The web browser is fantastic even though multi-touch is missing.
- This is the best built Nseries I've layed hands on.- Can be sluggish at times if you really multitask a lot.
- Not happy about the mic placement.
- Stereo speakers have been tuned for voices and not music playback and aren't as loud as the N95's.
- The double tap isn't necessary everywhere, but is useful in certain menus.
- Could have used more processing power, more RAM, and more phone memory (not to be confused with the 32GB of mass memory).
- Needs kinetic scrolling everywhere, not just in certain things.
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9.
5 Jul 2009 by Anonymous
10%1out of 10
i can't believe they launched this phone. what rubbish it is. who even gave them the green light on it's launch? was it a blind and deaf man. this is just cow dung for a phone. sorry nokia but other brands are making better camera phones with better GPS. and on top of that their batteries are better.
battery
camera
GPS told me to drive into a wall O.o
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10. N97=N95
28 Jun 2009 by Anonymous
10%1out of 10
N97=N95 not much more to. they took an N95 and slapped a touchscreen on it. that's such an apple thing to do. disappointed in this phone. it's not worth buying. might as well get an N95 and save a load of cash. the phone locks up a lot and the receiver is super quiet. it's like it can only whisper. what gives. the screen is sensitive and so are the answer and decline keys. also the slide is made very brittle
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Based on 12 opinions