Nokia N97 Review

On paper, Nokia’s new flagship N97 ticks every box on our smartphone wishlist. There’s a whopping great touchscreen, a proper keyboard, top notch camera and whizzy smartphone software just itching to be fed 3rd party apps and games. So why so few stars? Because the N97 has a few dirty secrets.

Sure, the N97’s design is cutting edge. The flip-out keyboard is a triumph, being both comfy on a tabletop and while cradled in the hand, as well as sliding out of sight without adding too much bulk to the phone. But get under the skin of the N97 and you’ll find a few quirks.

For a start, the N97’s 3.5-inch touchscreen display is a resistive one, which means it takes more than a light brush with a finger to see results. Nokia bundles a stylus with the N97 to help avoid the problem, but it’s a fudge. In a world of iPhones, which use a capacitive touchscreen for fast response, we don’t want to be fishing around for a plastic screen-poker.

It might seem a small point, but we were left jabbing the N97 for a while, not sure if it had recognised our presses or not.

And then there’s the homescreen itself. Packed with widgets for the likes of Facebook, they’re mostly useful, but it’s not always clear what prodding them will actually do. We expect this to improve as more widgets become available, but at first it was a journey of discovery, poking each one in turn to find out what it did.

It’s not all bad news though. Nokia has bundled a ton of new apps with the N97, and it’s the first to support the manufacturer’s Ovi Store straight from the box, meaning adding new games, widgets, apps and even themes is a doddle.

There’s also a beefed up processor inside, so apps and games run faster than on any Nokia we’ve used before. And then there’s the camera.

Even in the face of the 3.2 megapixel camera onboard the N97’s main rival, the iPhone 3G S, Nokia has the upper hand with a 5 megapixel snapper using Carl Zeiss optics. The results are fantastic, and video can be recorded in widescreen 16:9 or standard 4:3 aspect ratio. A small point, but one that’s very welcome.

As you’d expect, there’s GPS and Wi-Fi on board too, with the former automatically geotagging images and video. But it’s the design of the N97 that really sets it apart from the rabble. We can’t emphasise how satisfying it is to use a decent mobile keyboard, even if the space bar is in a slightly odd position.

Nokia has done a fantastic job of squeezing new skills out of the N97’s Symbian operating system, and clad it in a design that’s supremely functional. Is it an iPhone beater? Not quite. It lacks the style and grace of Apple’s offering, not to mention its speedy responsiveness. But for die hard Nokia fans, this is the best handset the Finns have ever produced.