Dec 05, 2009 08:42 PM
3673 Views
(Updated Dec 05, 2009 08:46 PM)
I write this review to all the probable Nokia N97 or N97 Mini buyers to appraise them of what Nokia has now started manufacturing. I am organising my views in a few sections and hope they are useful and point you in the right direction for your decision.
I own a Black Nokia N97 which I purchased in July 2009. Look and Feel. Initially, till around 2months the phone appears to be ok in terms of cosmetics, however slowly but withing 3rd month, the chrome plating of the INR32000 phone by Nokia just starts coming off. To my surprise, this just keeps happening and the plastic below the chrome shows now all over and the chrome is all gone.
In the 4-5 month, the sliding panel also starts becoming loose from the bottom end and makes a squeeking noise when I hold the phone. On both the above the response from Nokia Care Center is that these are cosmetic issues and we cannot do anything for them, please bear with us. Hence the INR32000 phone is actually made of sub standard part from outside to inside (read on).
OS and Stability. This is the one that has killed the phone. The phone was box delivered with S60V5 Release 10.X in July 2009. This was the most unstable OS I have seen on the Telecommunication device. The phone would crash, hang and at times would not even unlock/answer when an incoming call was coming in, hence making it unusable at a lot of time. Nokia's response....we are awaiting a firmware upgrade shortly that shall fix this, please bear with us, you are a premium Customer however we cannot provide you with a working phone that can answer calls(which I think is a basic function of a phone). Post that a Firmware release 11.X was launched that was ok and fixed some of the issues. Hence made the phone workable. Post this came release 12.X, again bring the issues of OS hanging, restarting automatically, widgets not working/updating and also this release onwards the GPS stopped working at all (which was earlier working in release 10.X and 11.X). I was slowly getting agitated within and was feeling greatly cheated. Patiently I waited as I read that in October Release 20.X was being released which was a major release.Finally in November 2009 the 20.X was released and I went to a Nokia Care Center to get the same installed. Ironically post 20.X only fancy things happened, like Kinetic Scrolling etc. however basic things like, phone restart, OS crashing, GPS not working persisted and have yet to be fixed. So overall OS is bad and patchy work by Nokia.
Features
The touted and much advertised Widgets : Most of them do not work/update automatically, hence the same typicllay need constant intervention to see the out put...so they are more like home screen shortcuts rather than real time update Widgets. I refer to all, Facebook, AccuWeather, NDTV and other Widgets.
Qwerty keyboard : Works well only after V20.X release, other wise was a bit of an ask to type something that would also have numbers in the message.
TouchScreen : OK and fine to use, ok on responsiveness. Recommend use a screen guard.
Motion Sensor : OK works fine
Messaging : Very unstable. Have lost all my inbox messages due to some internal error on the phone. Incidentally most of the times the phone restarts while in the messaging application.
GPS : Well this is something that has no accuracy and reliability. Works very poorly and also very difficult to get a GPS lock which is stable. This is mostly attributed to Hardware issues of the GPS Antenna in the phone and various attempts that Nokia has made to stabalise Nokia Maps.
Music : This is the only application that I would say I am happy with in the N97.
Camera : Works fine, however the lens cover is a disaster. Nokia needs to think through how to provide a high ens Camera and prevent it too, they have not been able to do 1 of the 2 (protect the camera) in the N97.
Battery Backup : OK, with my usage (which is very high) lasts for 1.5 days which is good too.
Connectivity : WiFi, Bluetooth and GPRS work fine. Thankfully
Support
Nokia India is not equipped to handle this Product and the people who buy it. Standard responses like goto "Nokia Care Center for GPS issues", "leave your phone for 15 days and we shall see what we can do " type of responses are standard. Shunting between Nokia Care Helpline and Nokia Care Center is also very common. Totally unprepared for this is what Nokia is, and I do not think they can recover from such a under and below standard product.
Overall Comments
I would request all of you who are reading my review to actually not experience what I have gone through and hence would NOT RECOMMEND the N97 in any form whether Orignal or MINI to be worth spending your money on.
