Nokia N97 Mini – Review

Bigger is better but when it comes to Nokia N97 Mini smaller looks even better. Yes agreed that the mobile screens are getting bigger and bigger but mini manages to catch your eyeballs amidst a crowd of fat screens thanks to neat packaging.

Let’s fiddle further and check the good, bad and ugly of the mobile phone.

Many good things in life come in small size. This is what Nokia planned in mind to counter its rivals like Sony who are making the eyeballs wide with large screens like we see in Xperia model. When Nokia launched the communicator series years back it was love at first sight for me. I simply adored the look and feel of the phone and the keyboard that gave me a feel of a laptop in my packet. Nokia mini brought back the memories when I first glanced it.

When compared to the original N97, the mini is marginally smaller shedding a little bit of flab but not drastically. At 3.2 inch the screen is just .3 inch less than the elder brother. So don’t mistake it to be a real dwarf.

The slide-out full QWERTY keyboard with a tilting screen sits pretty and the key pad spacing gives you confidence at first look and proves its mettle when you key in. One disadvantage of the earlier communicator series was the slide-out keyboard which hanged on a thin strip with the screen. It caused serious problems more than often but the N97 mini like its sibling is attached more strongly with a thick molded attaching piece.

The vital stats:

• 8 GB internal flash memory
• Symbian S60 5th Edition platform
• It supports High speed HSDPA mobile data. So it handles 3G and also GPRS/EDGE.
• Bluetooth & Wi-Fi connectivity as well as a TV out.
• Armed with a 5 mega pixel camera with a Carl-Zeiss optics
• 3.2 inch wide resistive touch screen with 640 * 360 pixels , 16.7 million colors
• Weighs 138 gm
• Slide-out full QWERTY with 38 keys
• Free GPS navigation.

Nokia brands N97 mini as an all-in-one phone for your social networking needs as well as business purpose combined with rich multimedia features. Well but it does has a tough competition but still manages well in many fronts.

Don’t expect the feather touch response that you have felt in Iphone. The mini like most other normal touchscreens uses receptive technology which is decent enough and way better than the ones Nokia packed in Xpress music series. But the average touchscreen is compensated by a superb key pad. The key pad is very user friendly and feels nice on the fingers. If you are a heavy metal texting guy you will love the handy keypad, even otherwise a touchscreen freak will enjoy the big touch text screen it comes with.

Mini comes with an 8GB built-in memory which is expandable upto 16 GB which is half of some of the competitor’s 32 GB but still more than enough for most users. Nokia has stripped down the lens cover from the 5 mega pixel camera. Clicking a picture is quiet easy thanks to the side camera button and a simple neat interface. The images are good enough for the camera phone of its kind and uploading the pictures to internet is quiet an easy task.

Due to the tilted screen when the keyboard is out, watching a movie or video is great when the mobile is kept on a desktop or on your lap.  Rest of the video and audio capabilities follows the familiar Nokia standards. The audio quality is good and the mini handles FM radios too.

Like most other recent phones, you can personalize the home page with widgets that are easy to navigate and comes bundled with preset widgets like Facebook and Youtube.

When it comes to business usage, if you don’t want pay monthly blackberry bill, Nokia will make your happy with its messaging service and e-mail client that comes free of cost.  Not just that, Nokia also offers free GPS navigation along with the handset. You can view all kind of attachments – doc, .xls, .ppt, .pdf and handles PC applications like Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Lotus Organizer, Lotus Notes. With OVI services, you have access to a wide range of applications, games, wallpapers and themes and other features of OVI stores.

With the advent of Android and Iphone OS, the Symbian S60 even at its 5th edition seems aged to handle the demands of a touch screen smart phone. So web browsing is a little disappointment if you have hit upon Android or Iphone OS already. Still the browser delivers full web pages pretty quick and efficiently.

Nokia claims a battery back up of 7 hours talk time and a standby of 320 hours. 28 hours of music playback time and 3.5 hours video playback this is not very impressive but decently good enough for its kind.

GingerChai Verdict: So will I buy this phone? I loved the design, the look and feel of the phone. More importantly, I liked the key pad and the slide-out functionality. The multimedia features of the phone are quiet impressive. Since am not a corporate honcho, I will sacrifice the easiness of Blackberry and would prefer the free email client and messaging service that Nokia offers. At a price of around 19.5 K as on date, I might be tempted to forgive the S60 5th edition OS and pocket the mini.