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Contributor Renegade Fanboy is in a love and hate relationship with Nokia devices and software: Dr. Renegade and Mr. Fanboy blogging in one. He currently lives in Milano, Italy and writes his blog in his spare time. You can follow him in various social networks under the name of renegadefanboy.

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5 Reasons Not to Buy The Nokia N97

January 12th, 2009 • Renegade Fanboy • Filed Under •

There is a jar next to my Mac, so far with 62 euros, waiting for Nokia to grab it from me somewhere around April. I’m confident that I’ll raise the money for the Nokia N97 – but is Nokia confident that it will be able to separate me from my 550 EUR?

Nokia n97 5 Reasons

Contrary to Mark’s post on the iPhone Pro killing the N97, I believe that it is only Nokia, who could kill the N97. I mean, if the N97 is not working for you, you can always skip it for the N86 or N900 or the real touchscreen phones from Nokia end of 2009 – start of 2010. With over a dozen S60 phones in one year, there is plenty of choice besides the N97.

5 flagships in one

Yet, the Nokia N97 is not a simple flagship, it is the combination of five:

  1. It is an N-Series flagship, with all the hardware goodness of an N9x
  2. It is the touchscreen flagship, seriously trumping the 5800 XpressMusic in all departments
  3. It will be The Flagship Ovi Device, the first, where the Ovi experience will work out-of-the-box
  4. It is timed for the revival of the S60 development community with Qt for S60
  5. It is the next N-Gage flagship device

Pretty impressive, huh?

Who could resist the N97

It will contain everything Nokia has and will cover the gaps S60 phones had in the last two years. So, if you get 5 flagships for the price of one, could you still resist buying the N97? There is plenty of time until the 2Q, but here is my 5 point checklist on when not to buy the N97:

  1. If it will not have an App Store, where you can buy 3rd party apps and download Nokia software for free (with a minimum of 100 apps)
  2. If it will not have Ovi (Nokia) account integrated across all parts of the firmware with single sign on
  3. If the battery will not make it through the day with a sample usage of all features (music, video, web, GPS, calls, messaging, N-Gage)
  4. If the Ovi Suite will not been ported to Qt and running on Windows, X11 and Mac
  5. If all parts of the Ovi web service will not become platform-independent (e.g. Music Store available on Macs, Maps 3 available without plugin)

Piece of cake, right? It is exactly my point – the N97 is an amazing device and a definite buy, but only if Nokia delivers the promise. Check out one of our sponsors, Omio, for availability and mobile phone deals.

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  • Chris James John
    what the fuck is this? are these the reasons for not buying the N97
  • Hi Chris,

    That;s correct.. :) This is not an exception to stop buying ppl frm N97.

    Let me tell you the quick advantage:

    Nokia Far better than IPHONE 3GS/3G .. I am not telling this . You see in this popular website ::)

    http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=2...

    The Biggest Happy news is on ALL nokia Models They are going to release multitouch screen :) This has been just not confimed offically. But you can obviously GOOGLE for more Information.

    Google: Touchpark on Nokia.

    This software is made for Nokia and some other mobiles which can be added as an software :) All we have to do is wait for the this software to be out for all Nokia touch screen.. ITS REALLY AWESOME :)
  • Mohammed Falah Khalid
    Ah NOKIA the so called awsome mobile phone maker. atleast thats what i thought after owning around 5 nokia phones. I always had my cell phone dropping from the height of a man to the floor especially tiles. My phones never broke becuz of that. But then when i was considering touch screen, its latest in fashion and blah blah, then its nokia i thought it can still keep falling and i can laugh at iphone owners. but this time nokia cheated, making a chinese phone with no shock research and development and pricing it for 550 pounds is just shit man. I spent my entire one month salary on it, used it 5 months. once it dropped vibration stopped function for about a week. then again it fell on CARPET, this time neither the vibration nor does my touch screen function. Its with the guarrantee guys and they return it untouched. Now i have to pay for it. The camera is the worst in the history of cell phones, who thinks u can actually see a captured pic when theres 2 bright leds next the cam? and how will be the image clear after turning them off? Serious waste of money, if nokia wants people stop using nokia, then NOKIA plz go ahead. 1 more thing, my bro bought n900. the phone doesnt catch the sim at all, we replaced 2 phones at the best nokia store both of them had the same problem.

    I challenge nokia to build the best phones again!!! with shock deterrent compatibility and user friendliness, otherwise sell the software to someone worthy of a try.
  • Bhuwan Shrestha
    i m Bhuwan Shrestha from Nepal. I am thinking of buying this n 97 set soon but reading these comments i will not buy this set. i m thinking of buying ifone/ samsung jet/ n900. can anyonesay me how is n900? plz mail me on music_pari2000@yahoo.com.
  • N97 Sucks
    N97 SUCKS! I made the greatest mistake in my life for buying this hopeless phone in Jun2009. After 4 months, I sold it away before I smash it against the wall. The features look apparently promising and existing but they are not working properly! Silly phone kept hanging, double images appear on the text, restore programme could not restore backup data which were working fine prior to backup. White model has a serious design problem - the backlight camouflages with white light in the room or moving vehicle and the alphabet on the keypad were hardly visible at all. Sensor not working sensibly. The Sims game bundled with the phone is the silliest touchscreen game we'd ever seen - imagine having 4 arrows on the screen and we have to tap on the arrow to move the character left right up or down. It really makes us wonder if the designers know what's a touchscreen for and how it should work.

    Well, I hope iPhone (or any other phone out there) will KILL the N97 before it kills our sanity.

    Shame on you Nokia - your products and support have gotten from bad to beyond hope!!
  • Grigoris
    the iphone is crap.. apple limit what goes in there and simple functions like the,mes selecting a mp3 and setting as ringtone or sms tone you cant on the iphone you cant send/recieve files or use the phone as external drive you cant do so much on the icrap phone.. the nokia is so much better
  • Prabhu
    rightly said
    I own this piece of shit N97
    Really troubled with it
    I think once u know how to work on an Iphone then all other mobiles just sucks.
    My iphone is dead (Hmmmmm......)
  • Nexus
    If you updated the firmware, used selective apps to manage memory, battery life, etc, it is a good robust phone. It has worked well for me and I travel around the world with it.
  • SHIT BAG
    PIECE OF SHIT INFORMATION!!!!!!!!!
  • chiflatiron
    I have been your runescape gold post a few days, and I like, I will often concern.
  • shinn
    hi, just readin thru this quickly, then gonna check if there is a new update for my n97..i like it, but i kinda regret buyin it coz of the n900 (i dont keep up with tech stuff much so i only found out bout it after i bought the n97 >.<)
    the phone's pretty good overall, some problems i have had with it:
    1.) phone backlight not coming on after unlocking (patched)
    2.) sensors to switch the phone between vertical & horizontal screens seem to get confused sometimes, its not as fast as i would like
    3.) my phone seems to switch itself off randomly, sometimes it stays on the whole day, sometimes it can turn itself off a few times in a day - i've had it shut off just as i was about to answer a call, in the middle of typing a sms, etc
  • lipka
    Hi shinn,

    1) -
    2) tilt the phone just a little bit more so that the sensor will straight away recognise that you have changed orientation.
    3) I haven't had the phone switching off randomly. I ask you then contact your retailer or Nokia about this as this appears to be a fault.
  • dr_chaudhry
    Hi, I've been a satisfied N97 user for the past few months. Especially like the widgets and the keyboard. Really cool stuff. The problems I've recently started encountering are:

    The biggest and most annoying problem with N97 is:
    A lot of time my phone will stop receiving incoming calls and text messages. However, once I send a text message or make an outgoing call, I'll receive a few text messages together and incoming calls are active again. The problem started off slowly but over the past week its become more frequent, and my phone is literally unable to receive incoming calls for hours end. Worst thing is, there is no way of knowing that Im going through this problem. It makes me unavailable to people who are trying to reach me. Has anyone else had this problem? Can I fix it somehow?

    Second problem I dont like, and I see a lot of people complianing about it, is that the battery time is totally unknown. Sometimes the phone will recharge in less than an hour, and at other times it will take over 2-3 hours. What is going on with that?

    I'd really like help on my first problem please!!! I've paid good money for this phone and to be experiencing a problem such as not being able to receive phone calls which is the most basic function, is really disappointing.
  • arian007
    Hi all,

    I am considering Nokia N97. Currently I have iPhone 3G and it works OK but now I have created a comparison list of what I have and what I need. Iphone gives me good access to my three email accounts, has a good dialing and messaging shortcuts and plenty of apps, but what i see in N97 as an advantage is integrated maps with GPS satellite access, QWERTY, better camera, not fragile as iPhone (I have to take care more of my iPhone like for a baby).

    Can anyone else please give me any personal experience if switched from iPhone to Nokia N97.

    Thank you,
    Arian
    Republic of Kosovo
  • Lipka
    Hi,

    I own a Nokia N97, iPhone 3GS and also had an iPhone 3G.

    N97 is good as a general non-multimedia phone. If you want multimedia, my advice to you is to get the N900 or iPhone 3GS.

    For the record, I prefer the N97 over the iPhone as I am not really into multimedia on the phone. And having a dedicated qwerty keyboard feels great.
  • ehm complete enough
  • Johan
    I have had the Nokia N97 for almost a 1.5months and still most of the time it does what it wants.

    For example it sends the same messages countless of times, as soon as the reception is lower than 3 bars it immediately cuts off in mid-conversation.

    Meanwhile all programs such as word, etc seem to be locked which is totally unfair after having bought such an expensive phone.

    Touch screen is not that bad but has nothing to do with the sharpness and responsiveness of an Iphone.
  • lipka
    Well not all software is free, like the PDF reader and office reader. They are 3rd party software. It is something consumers are not used to but it doesn't mean that it is unfair. But I think a sensible thing for Nokia to have done was to give a store credit (say $20) to spend at the Ovid store, as this would have increased the traffic. Unfortunately they didn't go this way.

    What I do recommend Nokia to do is to offer N900 upgrade to the N97 consumers at a special discounted price if they really want the N900 to take off.
  • M. Falah Khalid
    hey yer a well paid living nokia bot i believe. yer working for them. tell yer bosses to build better phones or else i will make my dogs shit in your head office buildings.
  • Lipka
    I am quite happy with my nokia N97. I have an iPhone 3GS as well. To me, the Nokia N97 is more a serious phone and the iPhone 3GS is more a gimmick.

    I quite like the physical keyboard and the size and shape of the phone. Some phones are too squarish to have that comfort in the hand.

    Sure, it could be better and may not be as asthetic as the iPhone, but the N97 has class. Overtime, there will be improved widgets and patch releases. And pretty much depending what you do with the phone, some widgets may hardly be used anyway.
  • ParkCity
    I am very satisfied owner of N97! I love the good camera, FM-transmitter, video phone calls etc. I have Noki N95, E75 , Samsung Ultra Touch and iPhone 3G too, but this is the ONE I carry with me. And now the new software v20 seems to make everything even better.
    I dont have to reboot or anything like that more than I have to do with my iPhone (actually Samsung is the most stable one of my devices).
    The thing Nokia should do is that any software could only be put to the E-drive because the C-drive is limited and if You put too much software on C You may easily face some troubles.
  • Uzma
    Hi Guys I just bought this Nokia N97 last month this is a crape cell phone I would never recommed this Nokia N97 to anyone. I having lot of problem with this phone. I think Apple 3GS better than this crape phone. Anyhow I don't know what I am gonna do with this Nokia N97.
  • Lipka
    Hi Uzma,

    What problems are you having?

    And you said "I think Apple 3GS better than this crape phone". Did you have an iPhone 3GS at the time of writing? Or are you just making a comment from what you have read? Look, I own an N97 and iPhone 3GS and they are different. Both are good but I prefer the N97 more, mainly because it has the physical keyboard and a shape/size that fits more comfortably in my hand.
  • rakeshmisri
    worst phone ever produced by nokia..n97 is users nightmare... i m using it for the last 1.5 months..but am utterly disappointed..wish i had not purchased it.. i feel that nokia is not good in touch screen segement ands they r experimenting with consumers money..surely nokia is going to take a hit because of n97...dnt buy it..
  • Dude why dont you try Customer Care ? and try updating your software with them or reinstalling the same.. I am sure its an good phone .. So think positive and ask the CC to reinstall the software.. I am going 2 buy that phone tomorrow .. Its is just an great phone frm nokia :) .. I already have 5800 .. It had lots and lots of bug before now its very smooth .. I am really lucky to have nokia 2 this world ..
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