Dvir Reznik | The (old) Blog

Following my participation at Nokia Israel’s N97Unboxing campaign earlier this week, I was starting to pile some feedback and comments from people I knew, getting their opinion towards writing a post later this week. Frankly, after Lior Levin and Amit Cohen won the N97 I kind of lost the interest in the game, ’cause once the package reached me, and was sent to the next blogger, my incentive for following the campaign and contributing to it was gone.

Yesterday Nokia Israel called me up to set up a time to deliver me a package, ‘a surprise’ they said, for participating in the campaign. I thought it’s gonna be some promotional material, t-shirts, accessories maybe – but today at 14:30 I got my very own Nokia N97 Black!! Before you think of ambushing me at a dark corner, the phone is on a lease, for a month, without any strings attached – meaning Nokia Israel don’t expect me to write anything, good or bad. The only term in the contract is that I have to return the phone in 1 month, un-harmed.

So, first impressions, 4 hours into the action:

• First off – it’s a beautiful device. In dark black it attracts attention, and the screen is HUGE (3.5″), especially when compared to other Nokia devices, N95 or E71.
• Touchscreen takes some getting used to. Unlike the iPhone’s capacitive touch screen, the N97 screen is resistive (what’s the difference?), to ensure proper recognition via a stylus pen as well. There’s a feedback on your click, as if the screen is pushing back at you. Also, when there’s a list of items (like in your Inbox or Music Library), you’ll need to ‘double-click’ to select – one click only highlights your choice.
• Homepage has widgets, which can be customized according to your need. The list is quite long and includes: weather, Amazon, Facebook, Calendar, Contacts, Bloomberg, FM Radio, Media Player, Shortcuts and you can always download more from OVi. You can drag&drop the widgets and set them up as you want.
• Data plans – a MUST! Since Facebook for S60 Touch is a widget, you’ll need to have an open connection (wi-fi, UMTS, GSM) if you want to see updates as they happen. Syncing your business email is easy, as well as connecting to Gmail/Yahoo/Live via a friendly wizard.
• Sound quality is solid and the stereo speakers do an excellent work when listening to music or using the speakerphone.
• Keyboard takes some getting used to, and the N97 is the first N-Series phone to get a full QWERTY keyboard. The 3-line layout is different, and I still haven’t formed my opinion about it. Because there are only 3 lines, the ‘space’ button is at the right, and there’s a multi-touch button at the left side – to go right/left/top/bottom/select, in any application/screen you are. The keys are well spaced, much better than the E71. Oh, and to change input language (Hebrew/English) you need to press & hold ‘Up arrow’ with ‘Sym’.
• Twibble has some issue, which my guess is the result of the N97 being both Symbian and Touchscreen based. The ‘menu’ and ‘hide’ keys are non-functional, and instead you see on the screen 2 buttons (when the keyboard is open) or a full navigation-pane, like a multi-touch button, with A/B/C/D quick link button, that takes up half the screen (when the keyboard is closed).
• Storage is almost infinite in today’s landscape: 32GB of internal memory, with up to 16GB in Micro-SD card. You can throw pretty much anything to it, and you’ll still have couple of GBs free.

So far I’m quite pleased – it’s a great phone, huge screen and the keyboard is a needed addition to the N-Series line. I have the Nokia N97 for a month, so stay tuned for future reviews. I’ll also take some photos and actual screenshots and post them later.