What to replace my N97 with?

Man of Honour
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17 Oct 2002
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Hi guys,

Ever since I got my N97 I've had problems with its complete inability to hold a decent signal in anything other than a perfect signal area. It seems to be a documented design flaw with the phone - I'm not sure it will ever be fixed. I spent an hour on a train yesterday from Central Birmingham to Malvern and not once was I able to browse the web on 3g for a meaningful period of time, for example, something I used to do all the time on my excellent N95 8Gb.

I've had quite a long history with Vodafone failing to sort this out and as a result I am now being dealt with by what seems to be the excellent Customer Retentions department, who are it seems doing their best to sort things out.

Today I was offered an N97 Mini - I wasn't keen on this given that:

a) The web reports it as having the same design flaw
b) I was a launch customer for the N97 so at the time it was the most expensive handset Vodafone did. The Mini seems like a downgrade

However I agreed in principle to give it a go, but this was scuppered by the fact it turned out they didnt have any to offer me anyway. Next up was the Nokia X6 which I rejected because it didnt seem to be the same sort of device at all and lacked a hardware keyboard anyway.

They are going to call me back tommorrow with another offer. I'm trying to do some homework so I know what I should be aiming for but to be honest nothing really lights my fire phone wise. All I really want is an N97 - that works. Sigh.

So whats out there? Doubt the iphone will work as the lack of multi tasking would annoy me plus it has no hardware keyboard which a) puts me off and b) was the reason I already rejected the X6.

Any ideas?

Also they seemed to mention that had I accepted the X6 they would have to 'extend' my contract 6 months as it would be a brand new handset. I didnt ask further as the X6 wasn't suitable but it strikes me that this is a pretty unfair way of doing things - do you consider it reasonable? My N97 has been faulty since day 1 - I have never at any point in my current contract had the full features and benefits of the product so I don't think any sort of contract extension as part of its replacement is reasonable.

The sad thing is I love the N97. I love the way it works, I love the way its built, I like the keyboard but.. whats the point in a phone that doesnt work as a phone half the time? :(
 
i find the X6 quite difficult to use, its a bitch to use s60 v5 without a stylus so i would discount that 100% if you have not already.

E72 is a great phone but i doubt that is something you are looking at.
 
The E72 is a very good business class phone, it surpasses the Blackberry Bold 9700, I've had the E71 for 13months now and I will probably get the E72 when my contact ends. Phones with hard keyboards are not the flavour of the month at the moment, everyone seems to want touchscreen.
If you want hard keyboard then E72 or Blackberry Bold 9700 are the obvious choices. If you want to go touchscreen with Android then Experia X10 or HTC Legend would be very good high end choices.
The Android devices will give you the best browsing experience, Opera on Android is very nice, I have it on my T-mobile Pulse and it works very well. Skyfire browser will be available shortly giving built-in flash support as well.

Hope this helps.
 
Does it have to be Nokia?

I know you like built quality > most other things.

But what about the HTC Desire, or even the SE X10?

Both very capable phones and should be out within the week.
 
What do you want from the phone then? Do you use it for sat nav? How much web browsing do you actually do - would screen size be important?

If you're after a great quality phone that just works, the Nokia E series are a great choice. I've been using an E71 (like the chap above) for a while, and my only real upgrade path I can see is the faster and slightly redesigned E72. Sure, the symbian operating system supplied is a bit long in the tooth, but it works. There are also plenty of applications that enhance the experience - opera is compatible for example. I'm also not a fan of touch keyboards, and the keyboard on my E71 is just lovely once you're used to it. If anything, the E72 is an improvement on that judging by the design.

Multitasking is without question, exchange support, lots of syncing options, and most models come bundled with plenty of memory via micro sd. As a professional phone they're nigh on perfect.

If you're more after something to play games on and show off to your mates, look elsewhere.
 
The E72 is a very good business class phone, it surpasses the Blackberry Bold 9700, I've had the E71 for 13months now and I will probably get the E72 when my contact ends. Phones with hard keyboards are not the flavour of the month at the moment, everyone seems to want touchscreen.
If you want hard keyboard then E72 or Blackberry Bold 9700 are the obvious choices. If you want to go touchscreen with Android then Experia X10 or HTC Legend would be very good high end choices.
The Android devices will give you the best browsing experience, Opera on Android is very nice, I have it on my T-mobile Pulse and it works very well. Skyfire browser will be available shortly giving built-in flash support as well.

Hope this helps.

I've gone from a E61i to some rubbish HTC touch screen thing back to the E72. The E72 is just awesome, the perfect phone.
 
just a point on the onscreen keyboard: i thought i would struggle with the iphone (with my fat digits) but it seems to be more than fine.
was one of my major worries!

in terms of multitasking, what sort of things are you expecting to be doing? chances are it will do it.


i moved from n95 to n96 to iphone. was tempted by n900 but decided on iphone instead.
 
I use my phone for texts, calls, data with my laptop and quite a bit of web browsing mostly. N900 would be perfect but it doesnt allow things as basic as portrait mode for texting etc :(
 
Im currently looking at replacing my n96 soon. unfortunately nokia dont seem to be offering any decent nseries phones. Coupled with the fact that all latest releases seem to be touchscreen, i think i might end up with the nexus 1.
 
[TW]Fox;16261696 said:
I use my phone for texts, calls, data with my laptop and quite a bit of web browsing mostly. N900 would be perfect but it doesnt allow things as basic as portrait mode for texting etc :(

Don't quote me on it but I'm 99% sure that a upcoming firmware update will fix that.
 
Actually, the E72 is not that great. It's clunky, freezes randomly and seems very buggy even with the latest firmware. It looks smart and does have some nice features but I wouldn't buy it again if I had the choice. In fact, I'm about to ditch it and get a HTC Desire or similar.
 
How do you want to connect your laptop to your phone?

If Bluetooth is the answer then immediately rule out anything Android or Apple because they won't do it.

I also struggled with a simialr situation to you in that I stupidly bought an N97 sim free and had exactly the same issues as you.

Subsequently it got lobbed on ebay and some unlucky fella had it off me.

I've since had both Iphone (sold on) and Android (sold on) and eventually got my old 5800 back out of the draw.

I just missed the functionality Nokia PC Suite gave me when phone connected to my laptop via Bluetooth. I'm now on a 2nd hand Samsung I8910 which works with PC Suite and its fantastic.

As a recommendation I'd say E72 personally.
 
The E72 is a very good business class phone, it surpasses the Blackberry Bold 9700.

Other than build quality the E72 doesnt offer anything better than the 9700...ive used the E72 for a week...did a swap with a friend of mine who was raving about how good it was....its a nicely built handset that it surpasses the 9700 but in other areas the 9700 is a better handset plus im sorry but the keyboard on the E72 truly sucks compared to the 9700.

Also this friend of mine who i swapped with now has ditched the E72 in favour of the BB 9700.
 
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Don't quote me on it but I'm 99% sure that a upcoming firmware update will fix that.

That firmware update is upcoming for so long I already had two phones since I considered N900 and maemo for the first time. In the end I figure - if it takes Nokia over half a year (N900 was lauched what - start of September, right?) to fix simple keyboard issue and meanwhile Android phones move two or three major OS revisions up, all bets on Nokia getting grip on "that Linux thing" are off.
 
That firmware update is upcoming for so long I already had two phones since I considered N900 and maemo for the first time. In the end I figure - if it takes Nokia over half a year (N900 was lauched what - start of September, right?) to fix simple keyboard issue and meanwhile Android phones move two or three major OS revisions up, all bets on Nokia getting grip on "that Linux thing" are off.

its called MeeGo now, all the roadmaps point to future n-series devices going to MeeGo so somewhere there must be a large development team. Although slightly worrying an email went around saying to talk to your manager if you have any prior Linux programming experience a few weeks ago.
 
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