Product Name: Nokia N97
Price: £469.20
Supplied by: Clove
Reviewer: Shaun McGill

The term flagship is often mistakenly pointed to some smartphones, but in the case of the N97 it is without doubt Nokia’s current flagship model. It is most definitely more business orientated than most other Nokia handsets yet comes with a 5 Megapixel camera, 32GB of internal memory, an FM radio and TV-out. Without doubt it is built to cover all of the bases in the business and consumer markets.

In the box

Nokia N97 Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-104 Nokia CP-323 Case Nokia Battery (BP-4L) Nokia Stylus Nokia UK Mains Charger (AC-10) Nokia Connectivity Cable (CA-101) Nokia Wired Headset (AD-54, HS-45) Nokia Charger adapter (CA-146) Cleaning cloth Printed Manual Getting Started DVD.

Where is the TV-out cable? TV-out is supported, but it seems a bit mean to not include the cable in a smartphone at this price point. Where is the decent set of headphones? Sorry, I forgot this is a Nokia smartphone. There is also no case, but Clove does bundle an official Nokia one plus a Nokia Bluetooth headset for free. Bravo!

The rest of the bundled accessories are standard, but a connectivity cable is included and a cleaning cloth- calm your excitement please. The stylus is bizarre and does not fit in the N97- best to not bother taking it out of the box unless you really have to use one. The box is luxurious and gives an indication of the phone before you even open it. Some care has been taken in the entire package.

Design

The N97 will win few glances of appreciation from people nearby, but it is one of the best built phones I have ever seen. It feels like a single unit in the hand and the keyboard popping mechanism of simply perfect. No phone from the likes of HTC comes close to the overall solid feel of this unit and I have been extremely impressed at how solid it feels in the hand. The keyboard mechanism is neatly hidden when open and there is a consistency to the design that is easy to appreciate, and it is one that you will grow to like more and more over time. This keyboard mechanism could have done with a serious tweak though to create more space for a properly dimensioned keyboard, but more on that later.

The side buttons are fairly flush to the housing and this takes some getting used to. Strangely the microUSB connector is locater top left which is an unusual place for it- I guess this will allow for landscape cradles, but the device would have to be shut to charge and thus I cannot quite understand why it is located here, but the location of things on the N97 is far from consistent anyway. The 3.5mm headphone jack is at the top (good move) and the manual camera lens cover on the back is also nice to see for protection and to save greasy fingerprints ruining the picture taking experience.

The screen is a full 3.5” and 360 x 640 pixels which will suit most need well. It appears to perform well outdoors and I could manage quite well in even the brightest of sunshine.

I will discuss the keyboard in part two, but every other part of the N97 is designed incredibly well if you ignore a couple of strangely placed features.

First Impressions

This is a difficult one to judge, but I am going to take it from the point of view of a user who is trying to get to grips with it for the first time. Despite my relatively good understanding of all things Symbian, I would not like to be trying to work it out as a new Symbian user. I managed to get incredibly frustrated within the first 30 minutes as the Wi-Fi connection worked in one app and then not in another, as I desperately tried to find settings and apps that seemed to be buried in a myriad of icons and pages which lost all logic somewhere in the design process.

Upgrading to the hastily made available new firmware made a big difference though and I can only hope that all new users upgrade straight away to begin enjoying this smartphone. It is a poor show when a company as big as Nokia cannot ship a flagship device with software pre-loaded that works properly.

Once I got over the initial glitches things ran quite smoothly. The touch screen is quite responsive, but does take some time to get used to. It does not feel as friendly as that other phones which keeps popping into my reviews beginning with ‘i’. Despite millions of pounds and countless software revisions neither HTC or Nokia have come close to the iPhone experience, but maybe the HTC Hero will change all of that.

There is a lot to take in with the N97 and so I will end the first part of my review here. The next part will look at specifics and in particular the camera and keyboard.

Highlights

3.5″ Slide and Tilt display
Slide out QWERTY Keyboard
32GB Internal Memory
MicroSDHC Expansion Slot
Symbian Operating System
TV Out
FM Radio
3.5mm Audio Jack
Built in GPS with Nokia Maps
5 Megapixel Carl Zeiss Camera

Available from Clove for £469.20 with a free Bluetooth headset and case.