Nokia N97
The Nokia N97 is clearly the most anticipated smartphone for quite some time now due to the sheer number of top facilities that have been incorporated into the phone and the success of previous N-series phones would surely tempt people to get this one. The Nokia N97 is a first for Nokia in a number of ways as it is the first phone to make use of a touchscreen as well as a full-QWERTY keyboard, and it is the first Nokia phone to feature sideways sliding.
The Nokia N97 has a number of new services and applications such as the Nokia Maps 3.0 which currently has a wide variety of features such as satellite imagery and topographical maps which is good at synchronizing with the A-GPS unit present inside the phone. Further, the Nokia N97 is capable of sharing with your best friends your ‘social location’ information and also helps out with the digital compass which is built into the phone and really helps you at whenever you are in need of pedestrian navigational help.
The Nokia N97 has a 3.5 inch resistive touchscreen which enables you to view all your videos, images and applications present on the phone. The internal memory of the phone is a massive 32 GB, which can be expanded further via a microSD memory card slot upto 16 GB. The 5 megapixel snapper makes use of a Carl Zeiss optics lens and autofocus and is capable of taking high class pictures with a maximum resolution of 2592x1944 pixels. VGA video recording is possible at 30 fps. There is a secondary camera present on the front of the phone, which can be used for video calls. It is capable of recording videos at 15 fps.
The phone was released last month and is available in all stores as well as on the internet.
Nokia N97 Rivals Apple iPhone 3GS
The Nokia N97 is the latest next generation touchscreen smartphone. Boasting an impressive 3.5” widescreen display the N97 could pose a serious threat to the iPhone’s market domination. The N97’s specifications look impressive next to those of the iPhone 3GS, with a higher quality 5MP camera, DVD-quality video camera, and double the storage capacity.
While the N97’s higher resolution gives a sharper image, its use of resistive touchscreen technology is not as smooth or easy to use as the iPhones capacitive technology. This is compensated for by a slide-out physical keyboard allowing for extra functionality, which may be beneficial for people who find on screen keyboards difficult to use.
The N97’s RM 11 CPU clocks at 434 MHz with 128 MB RAM compared to the iPhone 3GS’ ARM Cortex A8 processor clocking at 600 MHz with 256 MB RAM, making the iPhone speedier and more powerful than the N97.
Both phones are aimed at heavy internet users, and the N97 proves to be tenacious with a 3G signal and offers speedy browsing speeds. However, the iPhone’s browser is superior to that of the N97 which makes for an awkward browsing experience. Despite this, the iPhone 3GS lacks the support of Java and Flash found in its Nokia rival.
Following the lead of Apple’s successful App Store, Nokia have introduced on the N97 their own version known as Ovi, with the intention of making this a feature on all future Nokia phones. Like the App Store, Ovi allows the download of third party applets, including specially designed apps for popular social networking sites, in addition to a wealth of games, music and other online content. The area where the N97 in improves in this respect is that it allows the downloading of apps from anywhere online, so you are not restricted to using content found in Nokia’s store.
All in all, the N97 makes some major improvements in flexibility and functionality compared to its Apple rival, while still lacking behind in some areas such as speed and touchscreen technology.