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Nokia N97 Review

Author Sandra Vogel
Published 3rd Jul 2009
Manufacturer Nokia
Price £433.91 (Exc VAT)
as reviewed £499.00 (Inc VAT)
Latest Price
Design Score 9 for Design
Features Score 9 for Features
Usability Score 8 for Usability
Value Score 8 for Value
Overall Score 8 for Overall
Nokia N97
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The keyboard looks as though it should be a nightmare to use. Its keys are relatively small and fairly flush to their surround. A chunk of the area it could occupy is given over to a navigation pad, leaving it open to accusations of being cramped.

In fact, for tapping out text it was pretty comfy. But the space bar is way over on the right hand side and there is only one shift key on the left. This took some getting used to and the keyboard is definitely going to turn some people off for good.


There is a softkeyboard for data entry. It is only accessible when the N97 is in portrait format, and it's alphanumeric. There's handwriting recognition too. It can be used with a fingernail or a short stylus that you can hang from a lanyard but, either way, the writing window is small and the hard keyboard is streets better.

There's a lock button on one side of the casing, as well as a camera button, volume rocker and micro-USB connector for mains power. There's a converter to both standard round pin Nokia mains power chargers in the box. And, joy of joys, there's a 3.5mm headset connector on the top edge of the casing. As well as good quality music playback there is an FM radio and FM transmitter.


The touchscreen is resistive and quite responsive to finger presses but not as good as a capacitive one would have been. The screen is large measuring 3.5in diagonally, but its 640 x 360 pixels don't match the highest resolutions that are currently on offer. The already mentioned Touch Pro2, for example, hits 480 x 800 pixels.

The operating system is S60 5th edition, and this is the second time I've tried it. When I saw it first, in the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, it felt as though it had been built to sit on top of S60, rather than designed with touch at its heart. I feel the same here and it doesn't seem as though Nokia has made any significant changes since its first outing.

 

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Latest 4 of 10 Comments

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comment lifethroughalens said on 3rd July 2009

@ etuoyo

I was as firmly in the Nokia camp as you were, for years...but I took a chance on a second hand 16GB iphone recently and it's been a nothing short of a... more

comment muthah said on 3rd July 2009

Dont try to do the age old change your product code to get your firmware updates on this baby, i bricked mine last night and a few others have done the same from what ive read on t... more

comment Geek in Training said on 3rd July 2009

I was going to add details of the availability of a firmware upgrade for the N97 according to one website but most of you appear to be aware of it anyway.

http://www... more

comment jacko said on 9th July 2009

@ etuoyo;

Everything you mentioned about the iPhone can now be done with V3.0 of the OS; certainly you can on my iPhone 3GS anyway.

Some features have... more

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