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SINGAPORE : The N97 has been touted by many as Nokia's answer to the iPhone.
Blessed with a slim figure and clean lines, the smartphone has a 3.5-inch resistive display and a short stylus bundled for those who fancy more precise input. It looks like any other touchscreen-based smartphone ... until you slide out its keyboard.
The onscreen display switches to a landscape view and the screen gets tilted at an angle. We're impressed with the build quality of the phone, especially with its complex slide mechanism. Along with the Qwerty keyboard and a five-button keypad, the N97 actually feels like a micro-laptop when the keyboard is revealed.
The keyboard doesn't feel cramped, but we wish the keys were elevated higher to provide a more tactile feel. The Space key is also a little too far to the right for our liking.
The minimal number of ports is a relief - a micro USB port allows you to charge and sync, and a 3.5mm audio jack lets you use your own earphones.
The main 5.0-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and built-in flash is competent, taking quality pictures at a pretty responsive speed.
The quad-band phone sports WiFi speeds of up to 54Mbps and 3.5G speeds of up to 3.6Mbps - very handy when you want to download music from the Nokia Music Store. Storage is a roomy 32GB and you can expand it to 48GB, thanks to a microSD slot.
As you can gather so far, the hardware aspect of the phone makes it a winner. But we're not so sure about the software it runs.
The N97 is preloaded with the 5th edition of the Symbian Series 60 mobile operating system, which has been updated to make it more intuitive for touch-based input. But not quite enough, it seems. We find ourselves tapping at the screen repeatedly because the phone doesn't always register an input if you've tapped it only once. The software feels slightly clunky and doesn't sport the same sheen that we've come to expect from the latest smartphones.
The phone's standby screen lets you load widgets so you can view the latest weather forecast, news, Facebook updates and email. It's useful, aggregating all your online and social networking tools in one centralised location.
You can download more applications and widgets from Nokia's Ovi store, which features free and paid applications from the likes of Twitter and live video streaming service Qik.
The N97 retails at S$1,028, without Nokia's Comes with Music service. You'll have to shell out S$1,228 for the version bundled with the music service, which lets you download an unlimited number of tunes for a year.
- TODAY/il
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