Nokia N97 mini User Reviews

nghtwng68 posted on 20 Apr 2012, 18:06

Good 7

Straight to the N97 Mini Point

nghtwng68 has owned it for more then one year before publishing this review

The Nokia N97 Mini has a solid build, many good features and a very good camera.
It's the everday usage like the internet, UI speed and freezing that poses an annoyance to this phone.
The N97 Mini is nice smartphone, but too many shortcomings to really recommend this device. After 15 months as my primary phone, I've moved on to a Nokia N8 and what a HUGE difference in performance.

Build quality 10/10
Solid as a rock. The hinge is built superbly and the keys work flawlessly. The metal backing adds a more polished touch to a very unique looking phone. Plus, love the angled slide. Makes the phone look like a minature laptop.

Reception 9/10
Excellent! In the Chicago area, majority of the time a full bar of signal strength was there in and out of the house.

Call quality 9/10
Almost every Nokia phone the call quality just gets better and better. A nice trait to their devices.

Internet 3/10
Default browser is crap. Would crash after a few minutes. Sometimes would crash right after I waited five minutes for the browser to load the page. FRUSTRATING BIG TIME! Opera Mini was the saving grace to this device as the main web browser.

Multimedia 9/10
Playing music, videos, radio play, viewing photos and etc is flawless once the phone is running well.

Camera 8/10
Takes quality photos indoor and outdoor. A solid performer in this area. Very sharp photos in moderate to bright daylight. Impressive overall. Video camera solid as well.

UI speed 4/10
SLUGGISH compared to modern cell phones. The sporadic flow of the interface gets annoying with intense use after awhile. Ever the screen accelerator is herky-jerky, making the phone experience more annoying with the slight pauses in interface interaction.

Everyday usage 6/10
When working well, it's a solid performer. I would say once or twice a week of normal usage it would freeze or crash for unknown reasons right before your eyes. Sometimes the battery would have to be removed to jump start the phone again due to phone completely freezing. The Memory Full prompt would also appear almost everytime I load the browser. ANNOYING!

Text input 8/10
If you are a heavy text user, your hand can cramp up. Overall, the keyboard is very nice and responsive. Swpye loaded to the phone was a welcomed addition. Slowly started to stray away from the physical keyboard with Swype loaded.

Display 7/10
As long as you stay out of direct sunlight the display is a worthy performer. I now use a N8 and it's such a tremendous difference in visibility.

Battery 7/10
Held up pretty well. Would last a day and a half with moderate usage. Couple of hours of talk-time or GPS usage would drain the battery like a sponge. I'm talking one or two bars afterwards.

Pros

• Phone Build
• Physical qwerty keyboard
• Customizable interface
• 5mp Camera
• Kinetic scrolling
• Reception
• Features

Cons

• UI Interface
• Battery
• Sometimes Buggy
• Freezes often
• Crashes often

ZA_User posted on 05 May 2011, 08:23

Average 5

The Truth

ZA_User has owned it for less than year before publishing this review

Freezes, crashes, doesn't receive calls! Yes! it sometimes diverts calls to voicemail even when on.

This cell may look beautiful, slick and sexy but is completely useless for a power user the hardware cant handle the software demands even the kinetic scrolling is jumpy when the cell has been idle for a few minutes. The battery is appauling and navigation causes the device to overheat excessively (Really! To above 50deg C on the cover!)

Nokia continue to disappoint because they insist on using crappy hardware on phone which otherwise would be the holy grail of smartphones.

As of now my mini is at the shop for its monthly repair appointment :-(

Build quality 10/10

Reception 7/10

Call quality 6/10

Internet 1/10
Default browser is garbage, chows resources and is quite buggy

Multimedia 8/10
Like the video player and music player could have more appeal but is quite good as well

Camera 8/10

UI speed 1/10
Only put a 1 because they don't have a 0 rating. This is the feature I hate most about this phone, probably because I had high expectations in this area when getting it.

Everyday usage 2/10
Well I guess it can be a cellphone when it feels like it, so...its better than a Nokia 5210

Text input 8/10
Terrible on screen keypad, but saved by the very nice qwerty keypad

Display 6/10
Not S-AMOLED, but can live with it

Battery 1/10
Short battery life, especially when using navigation or running background apps like whatsapp or facebook

Pros

• Lots of apps

Cons

• Extremely buggy
• Freezes often
• Crashes often

Naomi Nakamoto posted on 05 Jan 2011, 10:23

Excellent 9

Ms

Naomi Nakamoto has owned it for less then 3 months before publishing this review

This is good phone actually, if Nokia didnt do any blunder in making this phone. The idea is making smaller one than the original n97. And, to realize that, Nokia make some "cut" from the original n97. Unluckyly Nokia did cut the battery capacity. Yes, the battery capacity is the biggest blunder in this phone. The battery only can stand for more or less 36 hours. 24 hours if u constantly using it in a day, and it's mean you need to recharge it everyday, a big pain if you forgot to recharge it. The camera also has flash leak, it means if you take picture using flash light, the picture taken was too bright on the left side. The phone also sometime shows error and you need to turn off the phone and take oof the battery for several minutes, to make it work again.

Beside that, this phone is great product. The build quality feel like premium phone. At first time, I just feel this pone is like my old Nokia 8800 arte. The size is more compact tah the original n97 and it's feel great in my hand. Qwery keyboard is responsive, music player is ease to use and support many types of audio type, also support radio and support auto search for radio station. The last GPS is surprisingly good.

Build quality 10/10

Reception 9/10

Call quality 9/10

Internet 9/10

Multimedia 10/10

Camera 8/10

UI speed 8/10

Everyday usage 9/10

Text input 9/10

Display 8/10

Battery 5/10

Pros

• Great Music Player
• Radio Support
• Good GPS
• Micro SD Support up to 16GB
• Great Build Quality

Cons

• Battery
• Battery is the main problem on this phone
• Did I already say battery?
• Doesn't have camera lens protection
• Price (Don't you think, it can be cheaper?)

sam posted on 02 Dec 2010, 13:58

Good 7

Just OK phone

sam has owned it for less than year before publishing this review

its just a OK OK phone.... worst User Interface. and very bad battery life.
better buy any android phone in the same price. it wont have n97 mini's multimedia capabilities but overall it would give a good experience. It would have been better if it had retained the FM transmitter from its big brother.
But I must say it has the best speakers ever.

Build quality 10/10

Reception 8/10

Call quality 7/10

Internet 4/10

Multimedia 9/10

Camera 8/10

UI speed 4/10

Everyday usage 6/10

Text input 10/10

Display 7/10

Battery 7/10

nas22ser posted on 15 Mar 2010, 10:47

Excellent 10

great phone

Nokia N97mini, what a great phone..

It has a Great kinetic scrolling touch screen, Great Speakers, Physical QWERTY keyboard, It can be recharged through PC via USB cable, Amazing applications, Very customizable.



I really love this phone, it is adorable..



Overall it's a Great phone with awesome features and UI..I'm glad i waited with buying the N97.
I like the slim design of the N97 mini more then the N97.

PS:
This is still a PHONE and not a pda/internettablet/iphone.
OK big screens are nice, but then you also need a huge battery.
Where are you gouing to put it all. It just doesn't fit comfortable in you pocket.
And you always need 2 hand to use the device.
it`s very good

Someo posted on 04 Mar 2010, 17:12

Excellent 9.7

Gr8 Phone

Nokia N97mini, what a great phone..
It has a Great kinetic scrolling touch screen, Great Speakers, Physical QWERTY keyboard, It can be recharged through PC via USB cable, Amazing applications, Very customizable.

I really love this phone, it is adorable..

Overall it's a Great phone with awesome features and UI..

Pros

• It's a great phone as it has great:
• - Great kinetic scrolling touch screen
• - Great Speakers
• - Physical QWERTY keyboard
• - It can be recharged through PC via USB cable
• - Amazing applications
• - Very customizable
• Overall it's a Great phone with awesome features and UI..

Cons

• Battery is so so so BAD..!!

Alana posted on 03 Jan 2010, 12:04

Good 8

Very good

Sleek and well built. Very easy to use. A lot better than original N97 doesn't crash at all compared to it's bigger brother.

Pros

• Camera, touch sensitivity, ease of use

Cons

• Battery life is quite poor

tyson posted on 13 Dec 2009, 20:46

Excellent 9

It is a better phone than n97.The N97 mini build quality and materials are on a exacting high level. I have to say I really like the keyboard! It’s at a good angle and I don’t find I have to tilt it while typing.Also, although auto-rotate of the display (from portrait to landscape) is turned off by default, you can turn it on. It’s not exactly snappy though, so I prefer to leave it as is.GPS works better on the mini. The other big improvement over the N97 is the space on the C drive. I have email, web browser and music all running simultaneously no problem. Overall, I’m pleased with it. It’s not perfect, but it does the job and having a keyboard makes a big difference to me. Also the price was pretty good!

Pros

• camera
• display
• sound quality
• kinetic scrolling
• QWERTY keyboard

Cons

• battery
• No smart dialing
• No DivX or XviD video support
• No camera lens protection

kamran posted on 12 Dec 2009, 15:31

Good 8.3

good phone

i ve got my n97 mini 3 days before.the design of the phone is great.no doubt it got good feature like sound and screen results are impressive.but the rest of features are just ok.the battery of the phone is not satisfying.except all this still the phone is good.

Pros

• display is very good
• sound quality is great

Cons

• battary is not good

Anonymous posted on 08 Dec 2009, 07:36

Excellent 9

I'm glad i waited with buying the N97.I like the slim design of the N97 mini more then the N97.PS:This is still a PHONE and not a pda/internettablet/iphone.OK big screens are nice, but then you also need a huge battery.Where are you gouing to put it all. It just doesn't fit comfortable in you pocket.And you always need 2 hand to use the device.

Pros

• everything
• - physical keyboard
• - 3,5" touchscreen
• -5MP carmera
• - not a apple iphone copy , like everyone 'tries' to have
• Nokia still gives unique phones (ok not for the N97 - GPS/lens cover problems)

Cons

• Battery can always be bigger (even if you have a 3000mah.... :D )

b posted on 25 Nov 2009, 10:16

Terrible 1.7

not good like its big brother
smaller screen
3.2 inch
8gb only
no fm transmitter
and more expensive than big n97 why?
really sad of it after using it no new thing like n900 which is also not good enough to beat n97

Pros

• non

Cons

• all

Anonymous posted on 23 Nov 2009, 10:42

Excellent 8.7

Great phone.  Can be set up as a social networking device or a powerful business tool.  Flip out keyboard is amazing, plus you can still write text in the old standard number keypad form.  Lots of memory, lots of options.  Build quality is superb.

Pros

• Pysical qwerty keyboard. Extremely customizable.

Cons

• Under heavy use the battery could last longer.