Nokia N97 mini review
The Nokia N97 was a long time coming to the mobile market. Announced way back in December 2008, it was a further six months till it saw the light of day in the UK. Skip another six months and it’s surprising then that we already have a new version of the handset – the smaller and aptly named Nokia N97 mini.
- Read our Nokia N97 mini hands-on review and peruse our N97 mini hands-on pics
The N97 mini is a dinky little thing indeed. Measuring just 113 x 52.5 x 14.2mm, the phone snips a full 5mm off the length of the N97 and around 3mm off the width. When it comes to thickness it seems another 4mm have been lopped off.
The new size does make a significant difference to how the phone feels in the hand, compared to the N97. Where its bigger brother was a hulking thing that felt it had the power (and did) of a small laptop, the N97 mini is a lot more desirable looking for the everyday user.
Thankfully, the handset has the same sliding screen mechanism as the N97 which is a joy to use. Solid in the hand, it does take a fair push to get the screen to ‘flip up’ but considering this is something you will be doing on a daily basis, this is no bad thing. Once it’s fully open, the screen is tilted to a decent 40-degree angle, making it great for watching video or tending to your emails.
The QWERTY keyboard maybe smaller but it is still easy to use. There’s a great clicking action with each button which means that there’s not too many mistakes made when banging out texts at great speed.
Small but smart
Flip the screen back and the Nokia N97 mini changes swiftly into a touchscreen device. Surprisingly, the screen size isn’t much smaller than its bigger brother. At 3.2 inches the screen is fine for watching movies, and it even has the same resolution as the N97, at 640 × 480 resolution.
The mini moniker isn’t just because of the size of the device, but because a few features have been cut. On-board storage has been shrunk by a third to 8GB (this can be upped to 24GB with the help of a microSD card) and battery life is seemingly shorter too but not enough that you notice. Instead of nattering for 9.5 hours without a charge you are now looking at clocking in around 7 hours. Also missing is the FM radio and compass but this doesn’t mean the phone has completely lost its way.
The biggest difference in both models is the lack of a D-pad. This is something that the N97 had but as we didn’t use it that much anyway, it feels like there’s no big loss.
A touch difficult
What is still in place is the decent 5-megapixel camera and web browsing that’s super-speedy – even if it is a bit of a pain when it comes to zooming into pages.
The phones biggest let-down, though, is unfortunately its screen. Like the N97, Nokia has chosen to go resistive and as we’ve pointed out time and time again, resistive screens are dull, slow to respond and a bit of a pain to use. The N97’s mini is no different. You really have to push down to make the thing work, worryingly so. Flipping through the phone’s myriad options is a bit like wading through toffee.
And here’s the other problem. Even though Nokia has tweaked things with the OS, giving the handset the 2.0 N97 software (which is now also available for the N97) as it uses Symbian it’s not the most exciting thing to look at. Yes there are apps for Facebook and setting up an email account is a cinch but if you are a fan of Android-inspired loveliness then clicking through the N97 mini may feel like the interface has come from the Dark Ages.
But the N97 mini doesn’t set out to dazzle, it’s a practical handset for a practical person, it’s left the wow factor to the Nokia N900. If you’re a business user then it will delight with its ease of use. But if you’re a social-networking fiend looking for an app fix then stay well clear.
Link: Nokia
Full published article at: http://www.t3.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/nokia-n97-mini-review?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=T3-Reviews-RSS
