***The Official Nokia N97 Thread (Keep all N97 stuff in here)***

ManCuBuS said:
Out of those 3 I'd be taking the HD2 (its what I own curently), the E72 is a very decent phone as well but I could not live with the 320x240 res screen.

The HD2 is a great phone and the screen is fantastic though I'm sure someone will be along shortly to suggest some Android variant to you.

You will only get the best out of the HD2 though if you are prepared to stick a custom rom on it, which some people find intimidating.
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I don't mind fiddleing with ROMs so that doesn't bother me, have fancied a winmo phone for awhile and at the price they are offering it for it is really tempting, just a case of wether I can do without a hardware keyboard.

From reviews I've read the call quality and loudspeaker are supposed to be fantastic on it which appeals to me as well as after using the E71 I've found others to be a bit lacking in that area.

Lum said:
If all you've used previously is a Symbian phone then the N97 wont be a huge disappointment, just a small one.

It's only once you compare it to a phone running Android, Maemo or iPhone OS that it becomes a huge disappointment.

The removal of keyboard shortcuts for cut+paste on the N97 was my biggest annoyance with it other than the general slowness and clunkyness of the OS. They're now buried in a menu, assuming whoever wrote the app you're using bothered to implement it.
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I've owned a few with symbian:

6630
N95
5800
E71

Apart from being dated and boring visually I don't have any real complaints tbh.

Does everything I want in an OS and has been fairly reliable for me.

I liked the 5800 but missed the hardware keys, N97 mini therefore is a logical choice.

A few android handsets do appeal to me like the Desire, X10 and Milestone however they are more than I am willing to spend, unless O2 are willing to offer me a decent renewal deal which is unlikely from what I've heard others have been offered recently.

As for the iphone, too expensive, too restrictive and I actually prefered the 5800 to it :p
 
IamMed said:
Apart from being dated and boring visually I don't have any real complaints tbh.

Does everything I want in an OS and has been fairly reliable for me.

I liked the 5800 but missed the hardware keys, N97 mini therefore is a logical choice.

A few android handsets do appeal to me like the Desire, X10 and Milestone however they are more than I am willing to spend, unless O2 are willing to offer me a decent renewal deal which is unlikely from what I've heard others have been offered recently.

As for the iphone, too expensive, too restrictive and I actually prefered the 5800 to it :p
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I'll concede the iPhone point. I dislike it for the same reasons, however I'm not so biassed that I will say it's a bad phone. Lots of things about it are very nice.

You're not going to get an N900 on the terms you want though. The best my GF could manage when upgrading recently (2 days before they changed the data terms, thankfully) was 24 months at £30/month on O2. Not sure what's available on the android phones.

I just wouldn't want to be stuck with an N97 for 18 months. The keyboard is pretty crap compared to the previous Symbian phones I've used or played with (E90, 9300i, 9500, 9210i, 9110i) and the touch interface seems very bodged onto the Symbian OS.
 
Ooh forgot the 9210, had one of them for awhile too lol

Is the touch any worse than the 5800?

As I found that ok, oddly enough when I was hunting for phones at the time it was only touchscreen I got on with.
 
It's basically the 5800 with a flip/slidey thing and a crap keyboard.

Note: I haven't used a 5800, but they're the same OS, released at the same time, similar spec and technology, though I think the N97 has a faster CPU or something.
 
Lum said:
It's basically the 5800 with a flip/slidey thing and a crap keyboard.

Note: I haven't used a 5800, but they're the same OS, released at the same time, similar spec and technology, though I think the N97 has a faster CPU or something.
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Think you need to try both...

It's not a crap keyboard, touch screen is awful on the 5800, different processor, different size, camera, speaker etc.

5800 is the base model.

Like comparing a Ford Ka to a Mondeo, yea made by the same people but different leagues made for different things.
 
IIRC the N97 mini keyboard is just the N97 keyboard without a D pad. The N97 keyboard is crap (in my experience from using the damn thing) so by extension the N97 mini keyboard will be crap too.

In any case the biggest disappointment is the OS which on the N97 feels slow and clunky with poorly implemented touch support bodged in. I think I can be pretty safe in saying that it doesn't get any better on the 5800.
 
Lum said:
IIRC the N97 mini keyboard is just the N97 keyboard without a D pad. The N97 keyboard is crap (in my experience from using the damn thing) so by extension the N97 mini keyboard will be crap too.

In any case the biggest disappointment is the OS which on the N97 feels slow and clunky with poorly implemented touch support bodged in. I think I can be pretty safe in saying that it doesn't get any better on the 5800.
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Went into town today and had a play with a N97 mini, keyboard was fine.

OS is near on a carbon copy of the 5800 but with some additional options for homescreen.

Overall I liked the size and feel of the phone, and as stated above found keyboard quite nice to use (although keys require a harder press than I was expecting compared to the 9210i I had years ago).

User interface is as dull as dishwater as with any symbian phone but it will still do what I want.

I do fancy an android (Desire/X10) or a winmo (HD2) phone but the battery life and lack of keyboard would annoy me and although I do like the widgets and stuff I know I'll hardly ever use them.

Must be a sign of getting old, in the past I would simply choose the biggest toy and not give a damn wether it was practical :p

edit: noticed o2 now have the vivaz pro which is similar to the n97 mini, must have a play with that next.
 
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I missed my N97 for the first time this weekend. Ovi Maps was great.

In a foreign country with Google Navigation on your Android phone? Well you cant use it unless you want a massive bill, because the stupid thing wont let you cache maps.
 
[TW]Fox;16773551 said:
I missed my N97 for the first time this weekend. Ovi Maps was great.

In a foreign country with Google Navigation on your Android phone? Well you cant use it unless you want a massive bill, because the stupid thing wont let you cache maps.
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I believe you can get Sygic mobile maps for android for €50 ish. It's a 2 gig install but you get to pre-load the entirety of europe.

I'm running it on my N900 and it's a lot better than Ovi Maps was on the N97, apart from the price.
 
Hey, does anyone know if it's possible to smoothly play a 624x352 xvid film on an N97, I managed to get this:
http://symbianworld.org/5779-divx-mobile-player-for-symbian-s60v5-and-s60v3-is-finally-here/
But while the sound sounds fine, the video plays in slo-mo mode, I'm guessing the cpu can't cope... Is it possible to release some extra power ( do some apps/settings on the phone use a lot of cpu?) or even increase the performance ? Or is there no other way than recoding it in a smaller resolution ? The blog says it should be fine up to 640x360 but it lags :(.
 
snowdog said:
Hey, does anyone know if it's possible to smoothly play a 624x352 xvid film on an N97, I managed to get this:
http://symbianworld.org/5779-divx-mobile-player-for-symbian-s60v5-and-s60v3-is-finally-here/
But while the sound sounds fine, the video plays in slo-mo mode, I'm guessing the cpu can't cope... Is it possible to release some extra power ( do some apps/settings on the phone use a lot of cpu?) or even increase the performance ? Or is there no other way than recoding it in a smaller resolution ? The blog says it should be fine up to 640x360 but it lags :(.
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doubt it the n97 isn't that powerful. I remember the E52 being shedloads quicker
 
Sone said:
doubt it the n97 isn't that powerful. I remember the E52 being shedloads quicker
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Do you know of any good replacements for it ?
I want a phone with qwerty keyboard, good to play media on, at least 32gb and must be expandable, good to browse on, decent hardware wise ( I can drop it without fearing it breaking, the N97 had fallen god knows how many times and even has big dents in the silver bit around the screen but always works fine :p), spotify compatible, and finally, tomtom or garmin software available for it or something similar that does not use internet and has maps for whole europe on it. Basically, I want an N97 but with a less than useless cpu and perhaps a couple of enhancements here n there... Only 2 I can think of are the Galaxy S Pro or the Desire Z but I have doubts about the robustness of them ( don't know how samsung fare these days, but I've had 2 and both were rubbish, one had a cracked screen after a fall and one had the charge connector/plug broken) and I don't know about HTC at all. Can I drop it comfortably without fearing it'll have any but cosmetical damage ?

I really cba to be careful (plus even if I'd want to, I'm not when drunk, actually lost my battery cap/rear cap at a party once on my old phone ) with my phone so need a phone that can handle falling once per week, so far the only phones in my experience that hold up well are (old) SE and Nokia phones.
 
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snowdog said:
Hey, does anyone know if it's possible to smoothly play a 624x352 xvid film on an N97, I managed to get this:
http://symbianworld.org/5779-divx-mobile-player-for-symbian-s60v5-and-s60v3-is-finally-here/
But while the sound sounds fine, the video plays in slo-mo mode, I'm guessing the cpu can't cope... Is it possible to release some extra power ( do some apps/settings on the phone use a lot of cpu?) or even increase the performance ? Or is there no other way than recoding it in a smaller resolution ? The blog says it should be fine up to 640x360 but it lags :(.
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Whats the bit rate of the videos? I have the app on my N95 and it plays 640x480 vids smoothly if the bitrate is below 700kbps
 
Okay I've tried a lower bitrate and it still lags, 448x336 471kbps ( 565 with audio), it's a little bit better but still laggy.

What a **** cpu :(. How on earth can they release a flagship phone with such rubbish processing power :mad: ?
 
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/forum...ad.php?t=81869

Try converting with that, I used it when I had my Nokia 5800, worked rather well.
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Thanks, I'll try it, I'd really like to watch an ep of some series or a film when I'm underground in a train when going to uni, no internet there :( ( or well, there is but unstable and 2g only :()
[TW]Fox;17703073 said:
The whole phone is crap, just chuck it away and buy something good. I wasted 5 months trying to make the N97 not be crap.
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I'd love to but I still have 8 months left on my contract, not too early to start looking for a replacement of course though, but aside from the OS faults and the crappy cpu, I can't really fault it, all my other phones ( Range of Samsungs & SE's & Nokia's ) were all far worse. This is the first phone which is still fully functional after 16 months of use or can do something else than calling ( only other phone that survived is an old 3310) :p. Although it has a couple of battle scars, But I'm the type of person who can't really be careful with his phone and drops it once nearly every week, and has dropped one of his phones in the toilet in the past :p.
 
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i use "anyvideoconverter" do convert my videos for use on my n97. there is a free version and thats the one i use, its quite a complete program too
 
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