Nokia N97 mini is the successor of the popular N97. Why the Finns pulled a successor out of the hat so quickly? There is little official explanation, but the main reason is the size of the phone. N97 mini is smaller, making it more attractive for those who have a soft spot for midgets. The second reason seems to be the software. N97 mini has an improved software version, fixing many bugs existing in N97.
Whatever the reasons, N97 mini has already become popular and is one of the logical choices when someone wants a powerful smartphone that fits into any pocket, and I mean the price tag too.
Key features
• Slide-n-tilt 3.2" 16M-color resistive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and VGA@30fps video recording
• Symbian OS 9.4 with S60 5th edition UI with kinetic scrolling
• Slide-out three-row full QWERTY keyboard
• ARM 11 434MHz CPU and 128 MB of RAM
• Quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G with 3.6Mbps HSDPA support
• Wi-Fi and GPS with A-GPS
• Digital compass
• 8GB onboard storage
• micro SD card slot with microSDHC support
• Built-in accelerometer
• 3.5 mm audio jack and TV-out
• Stereo FM Radio with RDS
• microUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.0
• Web browser has full Flash and Java support
• Nice audio reproduction quality
• Office document viewer
The retail package is as standard as it gets, you will find a charger, a data cable and the hands free headset.
In terms of size, yes, it does matter; the midget version now has only 113 mm in length, 52.5 mm wide and 14.2 mm thickness. The weight of 138g is another improvement over the original N97, which weigh the hefty 150g. The phone is available in Cherry Black, Garnet and White.
The phone has a full plastic casing except for the metallic battery cover, on the sides it features a micro USB port and stereo speakers, also a 3.5 mm audio jack.
On the back panel, N97 mini has a 5 megapixels camera and a flash with two LEDs. The camera lens has no protection from scratches. Under the back cover is a Li-Ion battery of 1200 mAh. According to the manufacturer, the battery should provide a range of up to 320 hours on standby and 7 hours talk time in 2G and 310 hours of standby and 6 hours talk time on 3G. Under the battery there is also a micro SD memory card slot.
In terms of design, the phone looks almost the same as its big brother. The build quality of the Nokia N97 mini is really satisfactory. With the addition of some metallic elements it is now even nicer to touch than the original N97.
Like its big brother, the Nokia N97 mini runs Symbian S60 5th Edition. Navigating the menu is faster and slightly more fluid than N97 because of a newer software version. The ARM 11 434 MHz processor does its job well, everything runs smooth and fast.
The task manager is launched when you hold down the menu button. The interface is similar to the Symbian S60 3rd Edition phones.
When you slide the Nokia N97 mini open, the three-row QWERTY keyboard pops up in front of your face. The keys are a bit smaller than on the original N97 but they are still large enough and will enough spacing to be comfortable even for larger-handed users.
The touch screen is 3.2 inch, 0.3 inch less than the N97. It is capable of displaying a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels and 16 million colors. Image quality is the same as N97’s, the same contrast and excellent brightness level. The resistive touch screen gives you a firm response to the slightest touch . Readability in direct sunlight is excellent.
Telephony is great, there are no problems with the signal reception or sound clarity.
The phonebook is the same as in any other Symbian smartphone. The storage capacity is unlimited. On each contact you can add an unlimited number of additional information, such as a secondary phone number, email address, date of birth, fax number and more. Nokia N97 mini supports all common message types - SMS, MMS and email.
The music player is similar to the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. It has only a few changes in appearance and is slightly better optimized for touch. Songs can be sorted by artist, album, genre and composer. The player can also be minimized to play in the background. In this case a tab appears on the stand-by screen indicating the currently running track. With the huge number of supported formats you will hardly ever come across an audio file that the phone won't handle. Audio quality is exceptional. There is no distortion at high volume. Music sounds good even on the standard headphones, but an upgrade will rock your world.
The video player does not support DivX / Xvid. Watching a video on the Nokia N97 mini is generally a pleasure due to its big screen. The Nokia PC suite has a built-in application that automatically converts all kinds of video files to the format and resolution your phone supports.
If you get bored of your own music you can open the FM radio app. It has RDS and knows how to automatically save stations in your area. It can also run in the background, just like the music player.
The camera has 5 megapixels and takes pictures at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. It has autofocus and Carl Zeiss optics. Dual flash LED technology helps to capture photos in low light. The interface is similar to that found on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. It offers a wide range of contrast settings, white balance, ISO sensitivity and other common settings. The picture quality is decent, and the colors are vivid. It can successfully replace a compact camera if you are not very picky. Video recording is good, at VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixels) at 30 fps.
Nokia N97 mini is still a smartphone with complete connectivity. You can stay connected to the Internet, whether you are in an area Wi-Fi or HSDPA (up to 3.6Mbps). Both USB and Bluetooth are version 2.0 and the latter naturally also sports A2DP. Wi-Fi with UPnP support is also at hand. Finally, the Nokia N97 mini has a memory card slot, which can usually give you the fastest data transfer rates and can take up to 16GB cards.
The web browser is excellent. Pages load quickly, are displayed correctly, and the information can be read easily, even without zooming the page. If the writing is very small, you can quickly zoom by double clicking with your finger in the area you want to magnify. Flash and Javascript run smoothly.
N97 mini has QuickOffice preinstalled, you can read Word, Excel, PowerPoint or PDF files.
The GPS receiver is present and the default navigation application is Ovi Maps 3.0. The large screen is suitable for GPS navigation. Unfortunately, you have only ten days free of charge for voice guided navi.
Nokia N97 mini is a powerful smartphone, a versatile tool for every imaginable task, the build quality and materials are on an exacting high level, it’s suitable either for a multimedia enthusiast or as a business tool with high end connectivity and excellent internet features.
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