Here comes the little brother…. The Nokia N97 mini launched today with the help of Alexandra Burke, Ovi Maps good things and a Leviathan Sign post. I suspect it will do quite well. My only concern about it is that Achilles Heel of all connected phones, battery life.
The N97 has had a 10% price cut - from £499 to £449 on the official nokia store. This is consistant with previous handsets which tend to get similar cuts after around 3 months. But interestingly it makes the price difference between the standard and mini only £30 a small amount. That said - the main market for both handsets it the ‘free on a contract’ one. I think the N97 has been a moderate success, having little comparable competition (G1 maybe) and the high street kudos of the nokia n-series flagship (though that didn’t help the N96).
I tried to use this at the weekend - with no luck. Now in fairness i live in central london - and theres not much in the way of free channels. I also had no luck with a simialar stand alone fm transmitter. Part of the problem being my cars tuner only having auto scan - whcih shows station names not frequencies - so its hard to know whats free.
So i ended up randomly trying frequencys with no luck at all.
Your mileage may vary.
UPDATE - outside london it works much better. I also tried an external module - with similar results. Seems London’s wavelengths are saturated.
oh great! - My camera ‘glass’ is scratched by the very pad that is meant to keep it clean. This seems to be a known design flaw, theres lots of forum discussions about it - so I’ve been super careful when opening / closing the lens cover. But even with great care I’ve a scratch after a few days - its very minor - but in a how will it be in couple of months time?
It’s a really great piece of software and well worth the asking price(s) see below. I’m not sure how it stands with mobile contracts though - O2 charge you a premium to tether an iPhone, this allows any nokia S60 user to tether without paying any extra, is it something that will be cracked down on?
Pricing mismatch: JoikuSpot is £17 via the pre-installed demo version and £12.99 via ovi store, both via the same device.
broken:For me the one highlight of the N97 is its camera - its not the best in the world but its the best on a touch screen smartphone, and thats important to me.
But its very broken, sometimes crashing when taking photos - and otehrtimes just plain ‘lossing’ them - it seems to corrupt the photos as it saves them. This is a big issue. I’m on the latest v11 software too.
Boom Blox. This is the first n-gage game i tried - it’s a nice puzzler - cost is £4 - theres 40 levels - the graphics are nice, its a game that would be way better if developed for the 5th edition touch, rather than this 3rd edition interface and upsized graphics.
The graphics are nice and simple - so no issues with 3d performance. It’s essentially a 2D game but uses 3d graphics - the original Wii game had obviously far more detailed and depth to the graphics, but as a mobile puzzler this seems fun.
N-gage needs to embrace 5th edition or die. Theres also that confusion between, download, ovi store, software update and n-gage, 4 ways to get new software. erm one app store please!
n-gage. I’ve a bit of a love / hate with n-gage, it’s core idea of a ps network/xbox live style delivery of games is sound. But the implimentation leaves alot to be desired, also nokia phones just dont ‘play’ games well, the d-pads are unresponsive, keys in funny places etc, and resistive screens are useless for gaming. also the whole DRM implimentation is terrible, lose your phone and get a replacement and you lose the games - no downloading tied to your gaming account.
So its here on N97 / S60 5th edition. What we get is a touch version of the n-gage application - though it seems to be very unresponsive and I had to resort to navigating by the d-pad to get it to work. The when you get into the games it’s just back to the d-pad / mystery guess the keys combo - as none of the games have touch interfaces.
Some of the games are nice - but after having played on iPod touch for the last 6 months it all feels very very dated and expensive.
What was installed?
well out of my box - uk sim free retail.
ovi store was preinstalled
maps 2 - updated to 3 via software update
music - links to player, nokia music store and Radio.
games dir had rock tour in - n-gage gets added via software update app.
applications directory has:
notes, clock, camera, office directory, search, share online, recorder, help, real player, location, my nokia, welcome, SW update, Msg reader, log, settings wizard, podcasting, access setup, about, download!, MfE directory (empty need to set up a mail account for it to install) Drawing, FM transmit, jokuspot premium (30 free trial), world traveler, you tube, accuweather, amazon, ap news, bloomberg, facebook, hi5, bbc iplayer, slideshow, boingo, qik, brain challenge and spore (oddly why were the last two not in games)
the office folder has
File manager, dictonary, quick office, converter, zip, calculator, active notes and adobe PDF.
I haven’t tested all of them to see if any are trials. adobe pdf reader seems to be a fifteen day trial.
