How I fell in-love… with the Nokia N97 mini

I suppose the title says it all. Yes, I’m in-love with the Nokia N97 mini.

It’s been a few days since I sent back my Nokia N97 mini trial device back to Nokia, and I’ve been missing it since. T___T During the past few weeks I have been with the unit, it’s had its fair share of pros and cons, but overall… it was something that I fell in-love with. Some people think I’m crazy to be choosing the N97 mini over the N900 since the latter was much more powerful and versatile than the N97 mini; but for some reason the N97 mini hit the sweet spot for me in being both versatile and utilitarian at the same time. It may not be as powerful, but it does the job, something I have known Nokia phones for. And most important of all, this unit single-handedly removed my initial fears about slider-phones. Nokia certainly took this to heart and built one of the most sturdy slider-phones I’ve handled so far. Genius.

Here’s my Pros and Cons with the unit.

PROS

• The unit doesn’t wobble or creak at all. I’ve never had an issue of the phone creaking out or having any loose parts during my use and that’s saying alot considering this is a slider-phone.
• The unit is both lightweight and study. The aluminum body gives the phone a durable build quality without being heavy (unlike the N900 which weighs like a brick) while giving the phone a look of sophistication and oozes with sexiness. XD
• The OviStore is definitely a good pack-in. It may not be as mature as the iApp store or Android marketplace, but for what its worth, its definitely a good start. I love the free apps!! XD
• Ovi Maps is definitely a must have feature for me. It was certainly awesome to know that the Ovi Map app works both offline and online. It was a very handy feature, specially when I was trying to go to a place I’m not familiar with.
• Out of the many apps I got from the Ovi store, the 2 best apps I got were; Emoze (email client) and Socially (twitter/facebook feed client). A definite must-have for most people who wanted to be connected most of the time.
• For one thing, I tried out this app from the Nokia BetaLabs called Nokia Notifications. It’s my favorite widget as it gives me instant notifications of all updates that happened so far (like who called, how many people sent me an SMS, emails I recieved, etc.) all under one window screen. I can’t wait for Nokia to apply this to all other Nokia phones.
• The setup used in Nokia N97 mini, is definitely something I found a sweetspot to. I like having both touchscreen input AND a full QWERTY keyboard. Something that I would want to have in my future phone if ever.
• The 5MP Carl Zeiss camera is a joy to work with. It’s definitely gonna save me money instead of me buying a separate digital camera, my phone can do the job.

CONS

• I honestly didn’t like the fact that the battery life didn’t even last for more than 2 days atleast. I noticed that at the end of the day, I always end up charging the phone, something that I didn’t like. I kinda wished they did something about the battery life and made it last longer, since this isn’t the N900.
• Having a touch resistive screen can certainly be a bother, as it doesn’t have the same level of accuracy as an iPod/iPhone. And add the fact I have big hands in using the devices.
• While the Symbian OS is definitely much more easier to use than the Maemo, it still has quirks. Most notable of these quirks is the double-tap/single-tap issue, where there’s parts of the OS you’re required to double-tap, while others just a single-tap on the icon would do. It’s confusing to say the least, but not something that’s a deal-breaker.
• Apps hangs/crashes from time to time, probably dude to poor memory management. There are times I get “Not enough memory” warnings even if there’s no app open at the time.
• As a music lover, I’m quite disappointed with the performance of the music player here. The sound system wasn’t as loud as my old Nokia 5130 XpressMusic, and the headphones that came with the unit are a pain to use.

Overall, that’s my experience with the N97 mini. Yes it may not be perfect, but I can’t help but root for the phone as it simply fits most of my needs to a T. Simple, and elegant; just what I’ve come to expect from a Nokia phone. Even my dad love it!! XD As much as I love the phone, the unit cost is wayyyy too expensive here in the Philippines. For the same price, I could buy myself a new netbook. So as much as I want one, I’d rather wait for prices to come down or check out its spiritual successor; the Nokia C6.

Till then, I’ll be dreaming of my Nokia 97 mini…. XD