The Nokia N97 is the flagship Nseries product for 2009 and includes many of the expected multimedia features like 5 MP camera, integrated GPS, and WiFi and includes some new ones like a digital compass and FM transmitter. But what sets the N97 apart from its predecessors is how well these multimedia functionality are integrated together in the software.
Read my N97 hardware and N97 software reviews
More after the jump!
Bug: While typing this review, my Note application kept crashing without saving when the note got too long. Turning off predictive typing stopped the crashing.
Camera
The Nokia N97 includes a 5 megapixel camera sporting Carl Zeiss Tessar lens with dual LED flash, autofocus, and macro mode. 
Photos
The N97 camera application looks different than other Nseries devices with an emphasis on simplicity. But that's not to say there's a lost in control as the advanced functionality is hidden in the menus. The camera retains white balance, color tone, light sensitivity, high-level ISO, exposure, and contrast controls.
A simplified camera app makes capturing great photos a click away.
The new camera application features a simple one press camera taking button that handles autofocusing and photo capture - just like on the blackberry and iPhone. The one click photo taking button is useful for quickly taking a focussed photo and for people not accustomed with a camera phone having focussing. The physical shutter release is still very useful for manually setting the focus before taking the photo and for taking self photos. In any mode, the camera will automatically use macro-mode if you're focussing on something near.
Advanced camera settings are hidden in the 3 horizontal bar bar button on the right
The camera software still doesn't save your settings, like contrast, after each use.
Just to see how the N97's camera compares, I pitted it against Nokia's premier camera phone, the N82:
Indoors (N97 to N82):
The N97 handled the incoming sunlight a lot better than the N82 in auto mode. However the N82 photo is sharper showing better detail in the bolts of the plane.
Outside (N97 to N82):
I think the N97 produced a sharper image but both cameras produced very similar results.
Macro Mode (N97, N82 without macro, N82 with macro):
The N97 produced a more colorful photo than the duller N82. Although the focussing area was slightly different (the N97 was higher than the N82), the focus area on the N97 is 25% narrower than the N82.
Dimly lit interior with flash:
The camera software and dual LED flash on the N97 did not work well together as a number of photos were washed out with a flood of white in dimly lit. The dual LED is overly bright and can't be turned off when focussing so it's not ideal for taking photos in light sensitive places like the art gallery.
Dimly lit macro (N97 to N82):
The N97 produced a warmer photo with more accurate colors than the N82. However the N97 had more noise compared to the N82.
Photos in the dark (N97 to N82):
The N82 produced a much brighter photo and had more accurate colors. The N97 photo was grainly and dim.
The photo processing time after taking a photo was slow, taking about 4 seconds to finish saving the photo. This went down to around 3 seconds with the v12 firmware.
Although I keep referring to the Nokia N97 as having dual LED flash, it actually has 3 LEDs. There is 2 white LEDs right above the camera and a small red LED between the two white LEDs. The red LED is flashed when taking a photo under sunlight.
Bugs - if you require a passcode on your phone, you'll run into frequent problems with unlocking the phone where the screen wouldn't light up. For exanple, the flipping down the camera cover won't unlock or prompt for passcode and the camera application doesn't start in both cases.
Defect - The lens cover on my N97 does scratch the lens. I have 2 deep scratches close to the LED flash. I have 2 more medium scratchs running through the camera area. However, I didn't notice a big impact to camera quality.
Video
Although the N97 camera sounds very 2007 (i.e. the Nokia N95) on paper, it really is. It adds widescreen support but accomplishes it by reducing the video height. 
The video recording software saves some settings like flash but not all, such as scene, after each use.
Video quality settings:
4:2 aspect ratio high: MPEG4, 640 x 480, 29 FPS, ACC Mono @ 48 KHz, 2.93Mb/s
Widescr. high quality: MPEG4, 640 x 352, 29 FPS, ACC Mono @ 48 KHz, 1.95Mb/s (default)
Sharing quality: H.263, 176 x 144, 15.5 FPS, AMR Narrowband Mono @ 8KHz, 107Kb/s
Other settings: Show GPS Info, Audio Recording, Scene modes (auto, low light, night), White balance, Color tone.
The N97's large screen makes watching captured videos on the N97 look especially nice.
Sample Widescr. high quality video:
Connectivity
The data connection software, called Destinations, is a vast improvement over previous S60 software. It works like Birdstep's SmartConnect by grouping a mix of multiple access points like home wifi, office wifi, and carrier network into a single point for use by all your applications. As with SmartConnect, you can define priorities to the access points so it will use your home wifi network before trying to use your carrier's network. Unlike SmartConnect, if you set your software to prompt, Destinations will search through your access points and suggest the best access point based on your priority. And any access point you successfully connect will be automatically added to the bottom of your group of access points. It's so intuitive that I rarely need to manage access points for my mail synchronizing.
WiFi
The N97 support 802.11 b/g which most wireless routers support.
The N97's WiFi antenna is weaker than my E71 even when its keyboard is opened. As you may remember from my E71 review, the E71 is weaker than the N82 in pulling WiFi signals.
Sadly WiFi doesn't work without a SIM card.
Bug: In the Wifi wizard, the right Exit button can stop working but Option > Exit still works
Bug: Wifi wizard, connected then it wouldn't respond. Switching to the application showed a dimmed screen. Couldn't kill app and it started to slow down the whole phone. Had to shut off the phone. Got stuck connected to an access point and not possible to connect back to it and the connection manager doesn't show the active connection
Integrated GPS
I turned off assisted GPS to test the integrated GPS. Lock on time from cold boot (no prior lock ons) and stationary was twice as long as my N82 but beat my E71 which never managed to lock on within 10 minutes. However, in motion, the N97 had a lot of difficulty locking on compared to both the N82 and E71 - sometimes taking up to 20 minutes to lock on.
The N97 has a weak GPS with v12 firmware.
While locked, the GPS was jumping all over the place and frequently didn't report me moving even in an open area with direct access to the clear skies. With both my E71 and N97 running the same version of Garmin XT driving in downtown of a major Canadian city, the N97 frequently showed me driving between streets and easily got disoriented when I was stopped at traffic lights.
The N97 is very jumpy so you'll frequently see yourselve between streets while driving
Some users report the internal GPS was better before installing Nokia Maps 3 but I couldn't report that. I'm hoping firmware v20 will resolve issues with the GPS. I wouldn't rely on the N97 as my dedicated GPS.
FM Transmitter
Just like other recent Nseries devices, you can broadcast the audio from your N97 over FM frequencies - great for cars without an auxillery input. The frequency is configurable so you just have to find a frequency not used by your local radio stations. The audio produced was had a noticable amount of static and more muffled than listening through headphones. I would say it's worst that a real FM radio station but it's great for road trips into areas with no radio stations.
Speakers
The two small speakers at the top and bottom left side of the phone are tiny and weak.
Audio through the headset was also weak
Memory
The Nokia N97 includes 32GB of internal memory and supports removable microSDHC support.
The removable memory card lies under the back cover but you don't need to turn off the phone to access it.
I tested the N97 with a 8GB microSDHC and it had no problems with it. The internal memory and the removeable media both act the same in the phone - as a separate drives. One major advantage of the internal memory is that it's formatted in FAT32 file system which is better space usage over the FAT format of SD cards.
Battery
The BP-4L 1500mAh battery is the largest used in Nokia's line of phones. It's the same battery found on Nokia's E71, which is known for having a long standby time. Unfortunately, the N97 doesn't fare so well with the same battery, lasting only 2.5 days long with my typical usage of some camera, light GPS usage, light WiFi Internet browsing. My E71 would last 4 days under similar usage but my N82 wouldn't make 2 days. The longer battery life made using the N97 as my MP3/video player compared to my N82.
Conclusion
Being Nokia's biggest product launch this year against the mounting pressure from competitors such Apple and Google, there's bound to be criticism when expectations are so high. The N97 retains the legacy S60 platform which can be both a good thing (easy for previous S60 users to get around) or a bad thing (not as intuitive as it could be). Nokia made a significant effort to revamping the S60 software with a widget home screen, more intuitive reorganization of menu items, and improving the ease of use for beginners.
The new form factor is a welcome addition to the Nseries line of phones. With the qwerty keyboard and powerful 5MP camera, the N97 can easily replace my N82/E71 combination. But for those looking for a combination business tool while taking quality photos, you should also consider the E75 and upcoming E72.
To be honest, this isn't a groundbreaking product like the N95 was when it was launched but it's a natural evolution of the S60 platform. But it is worthy of the title of Nokia's flagship device, a big improvement over Nokia's previous flagship, the N96, and I think it'll do very well in markets where Nokia is strong.
Ratings:
Performance...........8
Build quality...........7
Keypad...................5
Connectivity...............7 (a weak GPS hurt this score)
Features for $.........8
Software................7 (still buggy)
Camera..................8
Battery life.............7
Overall.....................8
PROS:
*amazing screen
*WiFi
*very impressive camera under sunlight
*Great incoming sound
*landscape screen
*longer lasting battery
*touchscreen or QWERTY keyboard when needed
*better data connection handling
*built-in FM transmitter
CONS:
*thick phone
*no HTML in e-mails in built-in Mail client
*grainy camera in dark
*Paying for navigation in Nokia Maps
*creaking phone case
*smudges easily
*screen scratches
*software bugs throughout the phone
*lack of quality 3rd party software
*really bad GPS lock on and stability
Nokia N97 Review - Multimedia & Conclusion
Nokia N97 Review - Software
The Nokia N97 is the first Nseries to run Nokia's touch screen optimized S60 5th operating system and only the second Nokia phone to use it. I've had the N97 over a month now and made it my primary phone so I hope to give you a good idea what it feels to use the phone. In my first N97 review I covered the hardware aspect which is only a part of the phone. Here I will be reviewing the software that powers the N97.
Thanks to WOM World for supplying me the N97-1 in this review.
More after the jump!
S60 hasn't gone through much of a change - great for people already familiar with S60.
Nokia E71 with S60 3rd edition, Nokia N97 with S60 5th edition, and N82 with S60 3rd edition
Firmware Updates
It's not common to see firmware updates being reviewed so early in a product review but I want to emphasize to both current N97 users and prospective N97 owners on the importance of updates and Nokia's dedication to their products.
During my review process Nokia had updated the firmware for the N97 from V 11.0.021 (15-06-2009) to V 12.0.024 (04-08-09). This gave the N97 much better response and screen redraw speed throughout the phone. I also ran into less system errors and reboots. To put it simply, the N97 is still a work in progress, much like the N95, and Nokia is two or three firmwares away from a great phone.
Thankfully Nokia has included a very convenient easy to use over-the-air firmware upgrade software powered by Red Bend. Just start SW update under Applications and it'll automatically check online for software updates and one click downloads and installs it just like Microsoft's Windows Update.
Nokia's software update is a fabulous tool to help keep your phone working at its best.
Operating System
Home screen
The much hyped widget based home screen is a big customization improvement to S60. There are still limits as you can only add each widget once. So you can't display an Accuweather widget for both your home city and the city you're visiting on the home screen. But Nokia has given the user much more flexibility by including 2 shortcut widgets so you can add up to 8 application shortcuts and 2 contacts widgets to put 8 of your favorite contacts. Too bad Nokia didn't include 2 e-mail widgets so users can follow both their work e-mail and their personal e-mail. To configure any of the widgets, click Options > Edit Content and click on the widget you want to edit or tap and hold the widget to change the positioning. One annoyance with the home screen is that a slight flick of the finger on the widgets will hide them all instead making it more useful like revealing another home screen. To re-enable the widgets you can flick your finger again on the empty space or click Options > Show content.
The e-mail widget is improved over previous incarnations allowing the display of up to 2 of the latest e-mails and number of new e-mails or just displays the number of new e-mails.
Navigation
Double clicking and single clicking isn't annoying as I thought it'd be but it gives the impression the phone is too slow and not capturing all touch input. You just have to realize that it's not an iPhone but S60 done up with touch so you still get scroll bars.
Screen rotation is fast enough. There is a noticeable delay where the screen goes blank with just the background color but it is very livable. The v12 improved the screen redraw speed considerably.
Nokia has gone through S60 and reorganized many of the menu items - more so compared to previous attempts. If I wasn't so accustomed to S60 I would think they made some good decisions to grouping similar functions together.
For example:
App manager is now in settings. Use Organize > Delete to remove applications.
Connectivity in Settings
Music Player, Radio, Music Store all merged into the Music application
Landmarks, GPS data, and Positioning all merged into the Location application
There's no smart dial on the homescreen. It would've made the dialpad much more useful.
Nokia, please add the letters to the numbers for the next firmware.
It would have been nice if Nokia included the letters associated with the numbers in the dialing user interface. Otherwise making a call to something like 1-800-CALL-ATT would be difficult. They fixed this on the N900.
When you finish an incoming call while the phone was locked and "Show call duration" is enabled, the N97 immediately locks after finishing a call so the call duration popup is quickly lost. This doesn't happen on S60 3rd edition so I believe it's a usability bug. I still hate how S60 doesn't keep call duration for each call; even my 3 year old SE W810i did this.
Scrolling with the narrow and small scroll bar is very frustrating. In a long note like this reviewing I'm writing, the scroll bar is narrow and small making it difficult to select and stopping it at the right spot in the file is hard as slight movements scroll a lot. This is where kinetic scrolling is sorely needed.
Input methods
One of the draws to the N97 is its full QWERTY keyboard but for those times when you just can't be bothered to open up the phone or need one-handed operation, the N97 offers numerous input methods:
T9 for the older schoolers
It even works in landscape
Handwriting recognition
The handwriting recognition is fairly good. I just had problems with having the N97 recognize my 'i' which turns into 'j'.
Handwriting recognizes both lowercase and uppercase input but it makes fewer mistakes with uppercase.
Typing software - it doesn't have some of the little usability enhancements found in Blackberries for typing like capitalizing 'I' when it stands alone or placing a period after hitting space twice.
Predictive typing is disabled by default but it's something every user should consider turning on to address some of the poor keyboard layout. For example, if you need an apostrophe you can just hit the period and the software will suggest apostrophe above which you just hit up on the d pad to accept. I never used predictive typing on the E71 but it makes a difference on the N97
With predictive typing turned on, the N97 is sluggish and can't keep up with my typing - and I don't even type fast!
Unfortunately the N97 does not offer an on screen QWERTY keyboard, as found on the 5800, for the few people that want it.
Bug - with keyboard locking turned on, if you leave the phone open, let it dim and autolock, the N97 won't unlock even if you open it or hit unlock key. I had to take out the battery to reset the N97.
Included or Nokia Software
For a smartphone to be successful it has to include some useful software and Nokia spent a lot of money in the last few years differentiating its products with a wealth of included applications like Ovi Mail and Nokia Maps.
Contacts
The S60 contacts holds information the same way it did in previous versions of S60 with each contact having first name, last name, various phone numbers, and various details. The number of contacts limit is the memory of the phone.
For S60 5th edition, they've added an additional page as above that makes calling, texting, and video calling easier to click but it's 1 more click to look up phone numbers. You can no longer switch to the details of the previous/next contact by hitting left or right on the Dpad.
Mail & Mail for Exchange
If you've used Mail or Mail for Exchange (MfE) on other S60 devices such as the E71 or N95 then you won't notice any new features. Mail handles e-mail, text messages, Bluetooth transfers, and MMS. MfE provides Microsoft Exchange synchronization support to your Nokia S60 device through the Mail client (more details can be found in my MfE article). If you're planning to use the N97 for personal e-mail I highly suggest installing Nokia's new Nokia Messaging to replace the built-in client which features simple wizards to help set up your email account and boasts HTML support. Unfortunately MfE users are stuck with the built-in client.
Some changes to the Mail client are:
The top tab for Inbox, Sent, Draft, etc. is not scrollable.
Scrolling through a large list of e-mail is difficult as the scroll bar gets smaller as number of e-mail increases. When the scroll bar is small, the slight movements put you somewhere else on the list, likely not where you wanted to be.
Mail still doesn't support HTML or rich text email so all email appear as pure text
Also the much used Search, found in the latest S60 devices, does not support mail for exchange.
Oddly, turning off date grouping was found under messaging > other.
Bug: The mail indicator at the top of the standby screen won't disappear even after having read all my messages and email.
Calendar
This is a big improvement over existing S60 devices. The event details now open instantly in contrast to the E71 where you needed to wait a second. Each of the listed details is also a link to the full description of the event. The Change view, add meeting, and add to-do note buttons at the bottom are very useful. With the N97s much larger screen, the week view is much easier to read than on the E71.
With the phone locked, the N97 will blink with the meeting alert
Nokia Browser
Powered by Apple WebKit, the same technology found in the iPhone and Android browsers, the Nokia Browser was one of the first firmware embedded full browsers. Unfortunately, the Nokia Browser hasn't undergone much of a change since then and still runs an old version 412 of WebKit while the iPhone and Android run version 528. The Nokia Browser is considered slow to render pages when compared to more contemporary browsers. Many power users have switched to the faster and lighter Java-based Opera Mini, which now supports touch.
The browser is one of the few included applications that support kinetic scrolling. While scrolling it will display a thin scroll bar on the right that gives you a visual indication of where you are on the page but you cannot click on the scroll bar. I found it slower to get to the bottom of a page with kinetic scrolling comapred to the Dpad.
Like previous Nokia browsers, it does not include the built-in function to open new windows. Navigating the multiple windows opened by Javascript is clumsy at best requiring about 5 clicks.
With the added CPU speed over the last generation of S60 devices like the E71, page rendering was faster and the in-browser flash played smoothly.
My computer ran into problems so my n97 became my computer. Too bad the browser doesn't support activeX which is required for my work.
Photos
Gone is the flashy but useless carousel photo viewer in the N95. Replacing it is a very plain but functional photo viewer:
Pulling up the full image takes a long time - much longer than my N82. You're treated to a zoomed in version of the thumbnail while you wait. Zooming it done through a scroll bar.
Bug - photos crashed a number of time when zooming in on specific photos.
Photo Browser
This is a little beta project of Nokia's but I thought it'd be nice to include here to show my readers that Nokia is trying to improve the user experience but hasn't gotten it stable enough to include it with the firmware.
All those white outlines boxes should have photos in them but the software is slow pulling the thumbnails
The photo browser is much more geared to the touch screen of the 5th edition with support for kinetic scrolling and nice eye candy while scrolling. Too bad that pulling up the full photo is slow like the included Photo application. Moreover, zooming on this app is fairly useless as it magnifies the area directly below your finger so your finger blocks what you're trying to see.
Music
The music player remains the same as previous S60 devices.
To have your newly loaded music appear in the Music application, you may need to click Options > refresh library.
Ovi Store
Many users have complained about Ovi search not working well. AllAboutSymbian even made their own. You'll need Ovi account to download anything, including the free things. You'll find a few useful applications like Bloomberg, AccuWeather, and Drawing in Ovi but absent are useful staple software like YouTube.
Nokia Maps
When I got my N97 I immediately upgraded Nokia Maps to 3.01 v09wk26 b02. Unfortunately, a number of users have reported that Nokia Maps 3.0 causes the GPS to become unstable having difficulties holding a satellite lock and giving jumpy data.
Realplayer
Realplayer has been the default video player with S60 for as long as I can remember. As expected, it will play mp4 and 3gpp formats but doesn't support the popular DiVX format.
Realplayer has been touch enhanced and made to look less cheesy and cumbersome than in S60 3rd edition
Flashplayer
The flashplayer powers flash within the Nokia browser but you can also open flash FLV files within the included File Manager in Office.
Great to play those saved FLV videos from YouTube but lack of play controls limit its usefulness.
Bug: For FLV videos, audio shutters near the beginning and audio shutters after a few minutes of play it will shutter again and continue.
Drawing
It's a fun simple application. No OCR support to convert notes to text. There are only a limited colors and editing tools. It's also not vector based.
You can even open photos captured with the N97 and make some interesting drawings:
Third Party Applications
No smartphone is complete without even more software! The main draw to a smartphone is the wealth of compatible 3rd party software to make the phone more useful to the user.
Similar to the transition between Nokia's older S60 2nd edition like the N70 to S60 3rd edition like the N73, the transition to 5th edition breaks compatibility with a lot of applications. Although some of your older S60 3rd edition application may install, not all will run (i.e. Garmin XT version 4) and not all will work well (i.e. Mobitubia doesn't have back button). So before you make the jump to a S60 5th edition, make sure your favorite applications or a viable alternative are available. Unfortunately there aren't a large number of applications designed specifically for S60 5th edition just yet.
PhoneTorch
Big bug - open PhoneTorch and leave in default settings, turn on light, open camera lense cover, and close camera lense cover. The N97 will now display lines and then reboot.
Garmin
Garmin now works on 5th edition and, of course, works with the internal GPS.
Bug - Gamin is still buggy with frequent crashes, performance problems, and map drawing bug in landscape mode.
YouTube
Changing Connection doesn't let you choose the specific connection so you're left guessing if it's using WiFi or your carrier's network
It would've been nice if Nokia displayed the left and right soft keys on the screen for non-compatible S60 3rd edition software since 5th edition doesn't include left/right keys. I tried Mobitubia on the N97 but couldn't navigation back as it's done with a soft key which isn't displayed.
Overall
The Nokia N97 software makes some great improvements to much used functionality like the calendar and Nokia Maps. However the N97 felt like a work in progress even after the firmware update to v12. I encountered more than a handful of times I've had to either restart the phone or pull out the battery to fix the phone. There are a number of navigation inconsistencies throughout the operating system such as scroll bars or kinetic scrolling, single clicking or double clicking, and using soft keys or holding your finger on the screen. And a final big sting to S60 5th as a smartphone platform is the lack of quality 3rd party software compared to its competitors. I'm hoping the rumoured v20 firmware update in October will fix much of my N97 software complaints.
Continue to N97 Review - Multimedia & Conclusion > >
Nokia Nseries and Eseries vs. iPhone: CPU and Battery Life
* Updated 09/09/2009 - Added iPhone 3GS, Nokia E72, N86, Nokia N900. Merged the many tables into one table.
* Updated 10/22/2008, 10/1/2008
After almost a year since the iPhone was announced and more than half a year since it was launched, the iPhone to some other phone comparisons have started to die down. So just to add some wood to the dying fire, I'm here to state:
Current Nokia smartphones can't match the general computing performance of the iPhone
CPU
| Nokia N82/N95 | Texas Instruments OMAP2420 | 330 MHz ARM1136 + 220 MHz TI TMS320C55xDSP + PowerVR MBX 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator + IVA |
| Nokia E71, E66, N79, N85 | 32bit Freescale MXC300 | 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP |
| Nokia N96 | 32bit STMicroelectronics Nomadik STn8815A12 | 264 MHz ARM926EJ-S |
| Apple iPhone | Samsung S5L8900 | 620MHz ARM1176JZF (downclocked to 412MHz) |
| Apple iPhone 3G | Samsung S5L8900 | 835MHz (downclocked to 412MHz) |
| Nokia N86, N97 | 32bit Freescale MXC300 | 434 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP |
| Nokia E72 | 32bit Freescale MXC300 | 600 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP |
| Nokia N900 | Texas Instruments OMAP3430 | 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR SGX graphics core + IVA 2+ |
| Apple iPhone 3GS | Samsung S5L8900 | 835MHz (downclocked to 600MHz) ARM1176JZF + 100MHz PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core + VPU |
Source: Semiconductor insights, Engadget, PDAdb.net
BoingBoing, iPhone 3G FCC filing
More after the jump.
From the configuration we can see that Nokia has placed a higher importance in call performance (probably from the inclusion of 3G video calling) with the use of a dedicated Digital Signal Processing (DSP) unit, namely the Texas Instruments 220 MHz TMS320C55xDSP).
Does the iPhone lag behind because it lacks a DSP?
No, not really.
In the following chart you will see the ARM1176 perform almost as good as the C55x:
Moreover you can see the ARM1136, found in the Nokia phones, perform almost as good as the ARM1176 with a similar clock speed. Too bad the iPhone packs a ARM1176 with almost double the clock speed.
Two is always better than one right? It could be if you're using both CPUs at the same time. With the flexibility of the Symbian S60 operating system on Nokia phones, you can initiate a video call while editing Microsoft Word/Excel documents in QuickOffice and seamlessly switch between them. The Apple iPhone hides the multitasking from the user and you don't have video calling so you will likely have the iPhone to your ear where you can't really do anything else simultanously. And that's when you realize 1 CPU on the iPhone is good enough if it could handle both DSP operations and general CPU usage as you rarely get to do both at the same time.
So when you're only using the general computing CPU, say for watching a video, the iPhone can process more frames and provide a snappier interface than the Nokia phones.
Battery
So here comes a drawback to the two processor set up on Nokia phones. They're power hungry compared to the iPhone since it has to power two CPUs. Even though each of them uses less power than the high clocked iPhone CPU, putting them together in a package creates a higher power usage situation since one is powering the UI while the other is handling cellular operations.
Now to add the nail to the coffin, Nokia has equipped their phones will less powerful batteries:
N95 - 950mAh
N82 - 1100mAh
N95 8GB - 1200mAh
iPhone/iPhone 3G - 1400mAh
Conclusion
The Nokia phones are equipped with a dedicated DSP CPU and a general ARM CPU while the iPhone makes due with a higher clocked general ARM CPU. The iPhone user interface doesn't emphasize the multitasking capability by hiding it from the user so a single processor design works well enough for it. Nokia equips their phones with two CPUs with one focussed on heavy DSP tasks like 3G calling while the other handles all other CPU tasks. The preferred design is based on how you use your phone. But with a more powerful battery and a single chip design, the iPhone will win in the battery life competition.
Reference:
Use a Microprocessor, a DSP, or Both?, BDti, 2007/04/04
DSP Design Line
Update 10/1/2008
Nokia's latest S60 phones (E-series and N-series) have switched from the Texas Instrument dual core N82/N95 to a Freescale single core in the E66/E71/N79/N85. Oddly enough, a single chip design was used in the N96 like the iPhone. However, the Nokia N96 phone use an older ARMv5 instruction set architecture as opposed to the ARMv6 of the iPhone and other Nokia phones. The iPhone continues to overshadow the Nokias with a higher frequency.
| Nokia E71, E66, N79, N85 | 32bit Freescale MXC300 | 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP |
| Nokia N96 | 32bit STMicroelectronics Nomadik STn8815A12 | 264 MHz ARM926EJ-S |
| Apple iPhone | Samsung S5L8900 | 620MHz ARM1176JZF (downclocked to 412MHz) |
| Apple iPhone 3G | Samsung S5L8900 | 835MHz (downclocked to 412MHz) |
Source: iPhone 3G FCC filing
My original article wrote about the benefits of having a CPU with DSP combination and Nokia continues this with most of their latest phones except the N96. The latest Nokia phones do not have the 3D graphics accelerator as the N82/N95. It's too bad Nokia didn't outfit all their N-series devices with 3D graphics accelerators so N-gage games can stand out from standard Java games. Nokia's switch from a dual core to a single core design and leaving out graphics acceleration will improve battery life.
Nokia continues to outfit their phones with smaller batteries:
E66 - 1000mAh
E71 - 1500mAh
N79 - 1200mAh
N85 - 1200mAh
N96 - 950mAh
It is surprising that Nokia's next flagship phone, the N96, has such a low frequency and uses a single chip design compared to other Nokia devices. Out of all the Nokia phones, only the E71 has a larger battery (1500mAh) compared to the iPhone. I think it was a bad decision for Nokia to include low powered phones (like the N73) as being N-gage compatible when they could've differentiated their N-gage games from other games if 3D hardware acceleration was part of the N-gage platform.
Source:
MXC300-30: 3G Single Core Modem Platform
ARM1136JF-S - ARM Processor
ARM926EJ-S - ARM Processor
ARM1176JZ(F)-S - ARM Processor
Update 10/22/2008 notes: Revised clock speed for iPhone 3G, mentioned downclocking for iPhone, revised to refer to 3D hardware acceleration
Additional note: The Nokia N96 does support DSP and hardware video acceleration for 2D/3D with its STn8815A12 chipset. Read more at STMicroelectronics. Oddly enough, the JBenchmark scores for the N96 in the 3D category do not come close to the N82/N95 which feature a separate chip for 3D acceleration. The benchmarks more closely resemble the N85 that does not have 3D hardware acceleration.
Source: Mobile88, Mobile Arsenal
Update 09/09/2009
It's been almost a year since I updated this posting and things have only slightly changed with Nokia putting out Nseries and Eseries devices with a higher clock speed. Apple, not to let any competitor catch up, gave the iPhone 3GS an updated Samsung solution with graphics hardware acceration and higher clock speed but keeps the same CPU.
| Nokia N86, N97 | 32bit Freescale MXC300 | 434 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP |
| Nokia E72 | 32bit Freescale MXC300 | 600 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP |
| Nokia N900 | Texas Instruments OMAP3430 | 600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR SGX graphics core + IVA 2+ |
| Apple iPhone 3GS | Samsung S5L8900 | 835MHz (downclocked to 600MHz) ARM1176JZF + 100MHz PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core + VPU |
Source: PDADB.net, Nokia N900
As I had suspected, the 32bit Freescale MXC300 used by Nokia in their Nseries and Eseries phones for the last year and a half had more capability than Nokia was using which explains the jump from 369MHz to 600MHz.
Since this post is about CPU to battery life I decided to look up the battery life of the Nokia E71 and E72 because they both use the same Freescale solution and same battery but the E72 uses a higher clock frequency.
| Phone | E71 | E72 |
| Battery | BP-4L 1500 mAh | BP-4L 1500 mAh |
| Talk (GSM/WCDMA) | 10h 30min/4h 30min | 12h 30min/5h 42min |
| Standby (GSM/WCDMA) | 17 days/20 days | 20 days/24 days |
Source: Nokia E71 Specifications, Nokia E72 Specifications
Very oddly, even though the E72 has a higher clock speed and same battery as the E71, the E72 has a much better life so there is much more to battery life than just CPU and battery capacity. Influences could be better firmware and hardware design.
Unfortunately, 600Mhz is the upper limit to the Freescale solution so Nokia had better find a better solution to keep up with their high-end competitors. I suspect Nokia will continue to use the Freescale solutions in their mid-tier devices, for its good balance of speed and battery life, well into 2011.
This is where Nokia's latest smartphone, the N900, comes in. The N900 discards the pathetic Freescale solutions and returns to the more powerful Texas Instrument solutions to provide the necessary speed to run today's applications and rich multimedia. This extra power puts it inline to compete with Apple's iPhone 3GS. If you don't believe me about how pathetic the Freescale solution is, try comparing the playability of Vampent vBagX on a E71 to the older N95.
The Nokia N900 will be a very exciting product for Nokia. I'm hoping to see a performance comparison between the N900 and the iPhone 3GS to see which will take the crown as the most powerful consumer smart phone.
Nokia N97 Review - Hardware
Anticipated by millions of people for over a year, the Nokia N97 is Nokia's flagship product for 2009. It features the new S60 5th edition touch focused user interface with a slide out QWERTY keyboard and all the multimedia goodies that distinguish an Nseries like 5MP camera, wifi, and integrated GPS. The box contains the phone, AC-10U charger, CA-101 USB data cable, Nokia Wired Headset (AD-54, HS-45), Nseries pointer, screen wiper, and Nokia CD with utilities and programs.
I've had the N97 over a month now and I want to share with you my experiences with it. I wanted to make this one big review but there was just too much to talk about the N97 that I'm breaking it out over 3 posts: Hardware, Software, and Multimedia.
Thanks to WOM World for supplying me the N97-1 in this review.
More after the jump!
I originally received the N97 with the V 11.0.021 (15-06-2009) firmware but midway through my review Nokia shipped the much improved V 12.0.024 (04-08-09) firmware. As with all Nokia S60 devices, Nokia has been very diligent improving the user experience based on user feedback. Nokia also makes it very easy to update with their fantastic over the air (OTA) software update. The next firmware, V20, is rumored to arrive in October and will carry significant user experience improvements like OS wide kinetic scrolling.
Quick facts:
Name: Nokia N97-1 (RM-505)
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 900/1900/2100
Weight: 150 g
Dimensions: 117 x 55 x 15.9 mm
Battery life (stand by): 700 hours (WCDMA), 280 hours (GSM)
Battery life (talk): 320 minutes (WCDMA), 320 minutes (GSM)
CPU: 32bit Freescale MXC300, 434 MHz ARM1136JF-S
RAM: 128 MB
My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) Finland.
The N97 closed:
The display half of the phone is very flat and undecorated.
The top has a thin slit for the speaker rather than the usual Nokia grill. 3 circles are beside the speaker slit: the proximity sensor, forward facing camera, and light sensor. The bottom has two touch sensitive call keys and a really stiff multimedia key.
The multimedia keys is very stiff. I wasn't fond of the call keys because they don't consistently respond in every part of the OS.
The N97 opened:
Opening up the phone will slide the display out and up at a nonadjustable 35 degree angle to the QWERTY keyboard half of the keyboard. The slide mechanism is smooth and assisted so it'll snap open. Closing it requires a little more force but it'll also snaps to the closed position. The slide mechanism is very sturdy and never felt loose - very comparable to the E65 in slide quality. I've never had the phone accidentally slide open and the slide mechanism doesn't feel it got any looser over the month of usage. 
The fixed screen angle makes it easier to see the screen when the N97 is sitting on the table but doesn't do much to improve the typing experience.
Keyboard lighting
The N97 while closed:
The N97 while opened:
There was little to no light leaking or spilling. It's nice to see the D-pad finally lighted on a Nokia phone.
Aesthetics
The N97 doesn't look like the typical Nokia Nseries of its era. Its use of circles and round corners give it a softer appearance unlike the sharp square-ish designs found in the N95 or N82. The N97 is also surrounded by a chrome trim to give it a higher class appearance that is more typical of Nokia's Eseries line of phones.
From left to right: Nokia E71, Nokia N97, and Nokia N82.
The SIM card card holder is a slide out type which is a lot easier to switch SIM cards in and out than the E71.
In terms of thickness, the N97 is almost double the thickness of a E71:
Nokia N97 compared to the Nokia E71
But the N97 is inline with other high multimedia phones:
Nokia N97 compared to the Nokia N82
Display
Wow this screen is huge for a Nokia! It's a 3.5 inch TFT LCD displaying 360 by 640 pixels with 16M colors. 
The widescreen and size make watching movies on the N97 enjoyable
The screen is a resistive so it requires you to push on the screen unlike the capacitive screens found on the iPhone and many Samsung touch screen phones. However, unlike captive touch screens, the resistive touch screen does not require human touch so it is still usable with your gloves on or a stylus pen. Since the screen requires pushes, the screen has a slight flex. Although a number of reviewers bemoan the use of resistive over captive, in practice you don't notice it as much since the accuracy is still impressive right out of the box. You can also go through the calibration wizard if you're picky. A sore point to the touch screen is that the N97 doesn't currently support multi-touch. The vibration feedback for the touch screen was comfortable - being noticeable but not overwhelming.
The higher screen resolution of the N97 mark a significant improvement over the 320 x 240 pixel screens of previous S60 phones. Text and icons no longer look blocky. Screen legibility is on par with the N82 under sunlight the E71 is better however. Noticeable lines run diagonally on the screen when you reflect light off the screen. While closed you can see the top layer having a top right to bottom left by light reflecting off the screen while the lower layer runs top left to bottom right seen by looking closely at the screen in the dark
Sadly the software blanks the display while the phone is locked. It would've been nice to have a clock and phone status displayed like the E71.
During my month of normal usage, I noticed
Keyboard
As enjoyable using the kinetic finger swiping to navigating pages may be, it was easier to click small links found in a group of links, like a tag cloud, using the d-pad. Having the option of using both the touch screen and physical keys is a strong selling point of this phone. 
D-pad is shallow. Used nails to left and right side a lot. Some reviews have commented on the unusual left placement of the D-pad but this makes a lot of sense for gaming and you compare it to most video game consoles where the D-pad is always on the left.
The keys are very shallow so there isn't a lot of feedback when you push them. A number of times I didn't know whether I pushed the function key at the bottom right for number input. Part of the issue is that different keys provide a different feedback such as the 'H' making a click sound while my 'M' key is a lot more muted. Keys also vary in stiffness such as the 'O' character was stiffer than 'H'.
The placement of the function key is so far bottom right that it's hard for my right thumb to reach making apostrophes, numbers, or anything needing the function key a chore. If you're coming from the E61 or E71 then you'll immediately notice the 'Z' character no longer sits below the 'A' character. I made a number of typographical errors hitting the CAPS key instead of 'Z'. Highlighting text is difficult with the keyboard as the shift key is far to the left along with the d-pad. Someone at Nokia was listening as the newer N97 mini addresses many of the key placement issues.
Why are the decimal, comma, and apostrophe all on the same key? They are the keys I use very often. I much prefer the E71's keyboard putting comma period beside each other and don't require a function or caps lock key press.
The flatness of the keyboard and spacing made it less enjoyable to type on the N97 and directly influenced the reduction of emailing from the N97 compared to the E71. 
The N97 keyboard compared to the E71
Overall the N97 keyboard is useable but not great. It pales in comparison to other Nokia QWERTY equipped phones like the Nokia E75 or Nokia E71.
Build quality
The battery cover hinges are small and fragile so don't break them by forcing the battery cover on.
The battery cover creaked and the area around the lock/unlock key (extremely annoying as the unlock key is so frequently used) but the rest of the phone was solid. 
The key lock is frequently used but also creaked the most so it keeps reminding me of bad build quality
I remember worrying about the display ribbon being exposed behind the hinge but I haven't heard of anyone complaining about it. Under heavy usage, the bottom half of the phone gets noticeably warm.
Continue to N97 Review - Software > >
Not all Nokia battery chargers built the same
An article posted a while ago on AAS mentioned phone battery charge time varied by the charger used. If you've bought Nokia phones from their various product lines then you may have noticed Nokia including different chargers. But what exactly is the difference?
From left to right: AC-3U, AC-6E, AC-4U, AC-5E
Here is a comparison of the various current Nokia chargers:
| Type | Short Description | Connector | Output | Packaged with |
| AC-3 | Blocky low end chargers | Nokia 2mm | DC 5V, 350mA | Nokia 1110, Nokia 3555, Nokia 5310, Nokia E61 |
| AC-4 | High end chargers | Nokia 2mm | DC 5V, 890mA | Nokia 5610, Nokia E71 |
| AC-5 | Small high end chargers | Nokia 2mm | DC 5V, 800mA | Nokia N82, Nokia N95 |
| AC-6 | Midranged chargers designed for microUSB charging. They resemble the AC-4 in design but output is very different. | microUSB | DC 5V, 550mA | |
| AC-8 | High end chargers. They resemble the AC-4 in design. | Nokia 2mm | DC 5V, 890 mA | Nokia E75 |
| AC-10 | High end chargers | microUSB | DC 5V, 1200 mA | Nokia N85, Nokia N86, Nokia N97 |
| DC-4 | High end car chargers. | Nokia 2mm | DC 5V, 890 mA | N/A |
All this information can be found in small text on your charger. The output indicates the amount of power sent to the phone. You may notice a letter just after the types I listed above such as 'U' or 'E'. This letter indicates the region the charger is designed for - 'U' would be for the United States/Canada while 'E' is European. The same type of charger produces the same output regardless of the charger's region.
Charging my N82 took over twice as long to charge with the AC-3 compared to the bundled AC-5.
As you can see, Nokia makes various chargers and the higher the output the faster your phone will charge. So if you have a number of chargers available and need to charge your Nokia phone in a hurry, be sure to pay attention to the charger.
Nokia E71: A Year in Review
This was the phone I didn't think I'd love. Compared to its predecessor, it has a small screen and a small tight keyboard. But it went on to become one of Nokia's bestselling phones. After a year of use, I agree with everyone else and make the E71 one of my favorite phones.
Looking and functioning like new after one year of use
My E71 has travelled with me all over the world.Two main selling points of the E71 for me are its stylish design and highly demanded qwerty keyboard. The E71 is still one of the thinnest available QWERTY keyboard equipped phones. It's one of the first QWERTY phones to use metal accents which was quickly followed by the Blackberry Bold. More important than looks is the E71's great keyboard. The raised keys make it easy to distinguish keys and the narrow design makes it possible to use the phone in one hand. The keyboard is positioned well away from the sides of the phone so reaching for the keys at the edge of the keyboard, like the letter A, are not a chore. The weight of the phone lies just a bit below the center around the keyboard giving it good stability while typing. I actually use my E71 to write my reviews while I'm commuting because it's much more convenient than pulling out my laptop.
More after the jump!
It is not without its weakness. First thing i did when i got my phone was to replace the theme. The original theme had horribly bland icons. I would never use the original theme. The 3.2MP camera is the worst 3.2MP I've used. It doesn't even match the quality of 2MP photos from the 3 year old sony ericsson w810i. Unlike the thousands of photos I've taken with my N82, I've taken under a hundred photos with the E71. I just installed the latest firmware and it only slightly improves the magenta tint. Although the metal frame is nice, my E71 attracts fingerprints.
Handling Enterprise E-mail
E-mail looks very basic on the E71 through Mail for Exchange.It's no Blackberry. Carriers and companies have often set up Blackberries for their owners to fetch personal email or connect them to the company network. With the E71, you're on your own. Although Nokia has tried to make it a lot easier with their Nokia Mail offered on their E75 and wizards on the E71, users still need to know all the settings when trying to set up their E71 to their corporate mail server. At least Nokia offers a free Mail for Exchange client to sychronize your e-mail with a Microsoft Exchange mail server, which I actively use. Mail for Exchange leverages Nokia's basic included S60 mail client so doesn't look really good with no inline HTML support. I listed a number of limitations compared to the E71 competitors such as the Blackberry platform and the Windows Mobile in a previous blog post so I won't go into too much detail. Although it's functionality is limited, I do appreciate what it can do for me which is synchronize my e-mail, calendar (saved me on many occasions when I forgot I had a meeting to attend), and to-do. The screen will blink or even play an alert when a meeting is coming up within 15 minutes. Unlike the Blackberry, you have a lot more control of how you synchronize such as turning it off when you're travelling in another country to avoid roaming charges or only having the E71 check every hour on weekends to save battery. You can even set up the E71 to switch between Wifi and using your carrier's network using SmartConnect. I travel a lot so the flexibility is a strong selling point for me to keep using the E71 as my e-mail device.
S60 has saved my life
That might be an exaggeration but it has saved my work life on numerous occasions when I didn't have access to a laptop.
The ability to multi-task on a business phone is critical.
Here's a situation I frequently find myself in: I'm out on a business event and have to attend a project conference call. The call organizer only sent the powerpoint or spreadsheet file, which is the central discussion of the call, a few minutes before the call while i was out of the office. With my E71 on the call over speakerphone, i quickly sync my mail over 3G or wifi, open up the file, and follow along. A few times i've had to update a spreadsheet to send back too. The ability to multi-task on a business phone is critical. Doing all this without crashing is a testiment to the stability and maturity of Nokia's S60 platform.
Standing the test of time
Each of the E71s had a different problem.In a year of daily use, creaking has developed around the letter A of my keyboard. The firmware has been impressively stable since the phone came out. I did get the dreaded "Out of Memory" message before and had to remove the battery to restart the phone. The E71 had a number of initial manufacturing issues. I have gone thru 3 E71s and each had its own issues such as poor reception, photo capture delays, and weak GPS. But E71s manufactured after week 42 have seem to resolved these issues.
Battery life has been amazing and doesn't seem like it's lost any of its charge. I still never worry about running out of juice after using the GPS and WiFi.
The killer apps for me on this phone are Mail for Exchange, Garmin XT, Smartconnect, Fring, QuickOffice, Mobitubia, and the included Notes and web browser.
Long live the E71
The E71 has been my main data device since I got it. I would have a hard time going back to a number pad for my web browsing and note taking. I totally rely on my E71 to keep me synchronized with my work through e-mail and calendar freeing me from the shackles of my laptop. With such a long lasting battery, I rarely worry about using the GPS and WiFi. It has been a good compliment to my photo-centric N82. I don't think i'll be replacing my E71 anytime soon... maybe with the E72.
Nokia E75 Review
The Windows Mobile community long had the bar with qwerty keyboard slider form factor with their HTC S710. Finally Nokia delivers a S60 device in this form factor to meet the demands of the continually growing text messaging crowd. This was the form factor that I had hoped for a long time that Nokia would make. The slider merges the convenience of a keypad for quick calls while offering a full qwerty for typing out long messages. Find out if the E75 delivers the goods in my review. The firmware on my E75-2 is V 100.48.78 25-03-09 (the initial production firmware). The box contains the phone, AC-8U charger, CA-101 USB data cable, HS-43 Stereo Music Headset, Nokia 4GB microSDHC class 4 memory card, Nokia E-series carrying case, and Nokia CD with utilities and programs.
I must admit, I didn't think I'd get the chance to review the E75-2 NAM so soon. Thanks to WOM World for supplying me the E75-2 in this review.
Full review after the jump.
Quick facts:
Name: Nokia E75-2 NAM (RM-413)
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 850/1900
Weight: 139 g
Dimensions: 112 x 50 x 14.4 mm
Battery life (stand by): 270 hours (WCDMA), 280 hours (GSM)
Battery life (talk): 260 minutes (WCDMA), 320 minutes (GSM)
CPU: 32bit Freescale MXC300, 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S
RAM: 128 MB
My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) China.
The E75 closed:
A simple looking bar phone with the classic Nokia looks.
The E75 opened:
Inside hides the slide out QWERTY keyboard for increased typing speeds.
Top of the phone features simply the 3.5mm headset jack. Left of the phone have the microUSB and microSD slot which have a slight bump for your finger to nudge open. Right of the phone has the recorder, volume rocker, and dedicated camera button (great addition to the E-series devices). The volume rocker is not lighted but is sturdy like the E71.
Aesthetics
Nokia has been hitting the right design cues in their phones lately and the E75 is no exception with its nice metal accent and classy design. Its slide out keyboard has made many people compare the E75 to the very popular E71 and venerable E90.
The glossy top half of the phone mean you'll have lots of fingerprint smudges. The E75's top half has a little noticable wobble when closed and opened. Pushing on the top while the phone is open bends the top slightly. It didn't feel like it would break but makes you a little worried. 
The E75 shares a number of design cues from the E71 (right).
The status LED lies right under the d-pad so the ring between the center key and navigation ring will blink when an e-mail arrives. Unfortunately the LED doesn't blink frequent enough and not bright enough to notice. I couldn't tell the difference between the normal blink and the email notification blink.
The keypad light is strong. As with most phones these days, lighting is controlled by a light sensor.
The E75 while closed
The E75 while opened
The number pad is disabled while the phone is opened so it's not lighted.
The SIM mechanism is similar to the E71 but even worst. I have a hard time sliding out the SIM card from its holder.
Although the E75 doesn't have a rubber padding on the back of the battery cover, the snug fit and finish of the E75 produces no creaking or rattling.
In terms of thickness, the E75 is just a tad thicker than the E71 if you factor in the E71's camera bulge:
The E75 is thin compared to Nokia's older bar phones like the N82:
Display
The E75 uses a 2.4 inch screen with the same pixel density (320x240) as many of Nokia's other non-touch S60 phones. The screen feels small on this phone because of the large amount of black at the top when closed. But the screen is not too off center when the phone is opened. The E75 perfomed well under direct sunlight with emails readable without having to tilt the screen.
The E75 display has a higher contrast compared to the E71. It looks more vivid than the N82
To help conserve battery power, the E75 has a power saver timeout that blanks the entire screen and blinks the LED under the D-pad. unlike the E71, turning off the Breathing Light will not disable the screen from turning all black.
Keypad
The combination of a number pad and slide out QWERTY keyboard in a compact phone is the E75's selling point. But were compromises made in Nokia's first slide out keyboard phone?
The number pad:
The numberpad keys are very loose and feel cheap feeling. You can push them in between the rows of keys. 
The number keys have a lot of give when you push between them
The lowest set of keys are too low on the phone making some keys like * very hard to hit. The left soft key is very close to the home key so i frequently hit the Home key instead so i have to navigate back to where i was. The right soft key shares the same piece of plastic as the Delete key so it's not unusual to hit delete and see the e75 try to delete an application while navigating the menus.
The D pad is very creaky when i push up and also very stiff.
The Bluetooth toogle on the * key is a nice addition allowing quick enabling and disabling of Bluetooth.
The QWERTY keyboard:
Tactile feedback on the qwerty keyboard is at the center of the key so if you hit off center, the phone registers the keypress but you don't get a satisfying feedback. The keys are not very deep so feedback is limited. It takes me more energy to type on the E75's full keyboard than on the E71. The keys are fairly wide so one handed operation is close to impossible. with my index fingers along the sides of the phone when typing, i found it hard to reach the left most keys with my left hand and right most keys with my right hand. It's nice that nokia included the backspace key in both the top have of the phone and bottom. The phone is top heavy so it lies well in your hand with your thumbs behind but typing upside down is a challenge as it tends to fall forward. Pushing the D pad with the phone open will slightly bend the top half back and creak a bit. I was concerned it'd break on me.
The QWERTY keyboards compared between the E75 and the E71:
I still find the E71 more comfortable to type with because it has more closely packed domed keys
I've typed this review on the E75 using the included Notes and find it more difficult to type compared to the E71. I wasn't fond of the flat keys making it difficult to feel the separation.
Software
The E75 is a snappy phone with very fast response throughout the menu.
Impressively, the E75 switches between landscape (QWERTY keyboard opened) and portrait (QWERTY keyboard closed) very quickly. By default the keypad will lock when you close the slider but you can customize this in Ctrl. Panel > Settings > General > Slide Handling
As you may have heard, or not, the E75 runs S60 FP2 but with some modifications. It's very similar to the E71 modifications but include improved icons based on FP5.
Note that some software don't work with the E75 so be sure to test out all your applications. This is what I've observed:
- S60SpotOn doesn't work
- Screenshot doesn't work.
- Vampent vBag doesn't work
Although Nokia has once again rejuggled where everything is again. S60 still needs a lot more work to be intuitive for first time users. For example to handle Wifi connections you don't look under Control Panel > Connectivity (where WLAN wizard and Conn. Mgr reside) but you have to look in Ctrl Panel > Settings > Connection > Destination > Internet.
Mail
Nokia has finally added HTML support to their S60 mail but the HTML version of the email arrives as an attachment to the text email. The recently released Blackberry Bold and iPhone both support embedded HTML so the email appears formatted once you open it.
Email allows you to highlight the sender and recipients but you still can't copy or email them individually.
Unlike the Blackberry, the E71 will continue to display a wallpaper behind emails messages instead of a flat color as it does when scrolling down the contacts page. This can make reading emails difficult if the background has similar colors to the text. Thankfully the included themes use a white text and dark background.
Blackberry
Much to the bemoan of a few users, the Nokia E75 doesn't supports Blackberry Connect like the E71. The E75 supports Microsoft's Exchange Active Sync through their Mail for Exchange software. Unlike other E-series, you can't upgrade the Mail for Exchange software through the separate Mail for Exchange install file.
Stability
During my time with the E75, I only recall about 3 reboots in the three weeks I've had the phone.
Multimedia
Those who say S60 is designed mainly for creating and not geared as much to consume multimedia must not fully use their phone. Out of the box the E71 supports H.264 video, the same video format used by the iPhone. With some added third party software like Coreplayer and MobiTubia, the E75 can open DiVX movies and stream YouTube videos. With the included 3.5mm stereo headsets (or get yourself a pair of AD2P stereo Bluetooth headsets) and music player supporting album art, you can easily have your favorite MP3s blasting in your ears. If you're an audiophile then you can install OggPlayer. S60 gives you more flexibility than both the locked down iPhone and the "lacking in software" Blackberry.
Camera
The E75 includes a 3.2 MP camera with autofocus and macro mode. Sounds the same as the E71 but it's a lot better.
The E75 sports a LED for flash and a mirror for self portraits
The E75 uses the same camera software as the N-series line of devices.
Camera uses the dedicated camera button which is a big improvement over the E71.
You can silent the camera but the led will automatically flash.
Outdoor Auto (E75, E71, N82):
Indoor Macro (E75, E71, N82):
Outdoor Auto (E75, N82):
Outdoor Macro (E75, N82):
Dim Indoor with Nightmode (E75, E71, N82):
Dim Indoor with flash (E75, E71, N82):
The E75 produced very impressive photos under direct sunlight that rivalled Nokia's photo-centric N82. Colors reproduction was more accurate just siding a little to more vivid. The night photos with and without flash were very poor. The E71 photos were poor in any condition and not worth mentioning.
Video
The maximum video recording resolution supported by the E75 is 640 x 480 at 29fps which puts it on par with N-series devices. Unfortuately, the results weren't so great.
These are the available quality settings:
TV high quality: MP4 640 x 480 29fps 2.93Mbps
TV normal quality: MP4 640 x 480 15fps 1.46Mbps
E-mail high quality: MP4 320 x 240 29fps 873kbps
E-mail norm. quality: MP4 320 x 240 15fps 454.
Sharing quality: 3GPP 176 x 144 15fps 93kbps
The image quality is very grainy in an indoor setting. The camera is also not set to be focussed on close up objects.
Reception
The E75 had about the same number of bars as the N82. Although bars isn't an accurate measurement of a phone's reception but a phone without bars can't make calls.
Speakerphone
The audio was not as loud as the N82 but good in a quiet setting.
Headset
I didn't have a chance to test this.
Connectivity
Unlike the Blackberry and iPhone, the E75 offers a wealth of Bluetooth profiles that allows you to share files with other devices, listen to music over a wireless stereo bluetooth headset, or sync data to your home computer.
Sadly, after a number of criticisms, Nokia has removed infrared from this E-series device. I still primarily use infrared to share small files between laptops that don't yet have Bluetooth.
Connecting the E71 to a computer using a USB cable will automatically keypad unlock the phone (but not phone unlock) allowing you to select the connection type (mass storage, nokia suite, etc.)
WiFi
The WiFi sensitivity is weaker, picking up less wireless routers, than the Nokia N82 but stronger than the E71. As usual, the sensitivity is weaker than the standard Centrino package from Intel for laptops.
In case you were wondering, you can find the E75's MAC address behind the battery or on the box. I wish it came up with the *#0000# command on the home screen.
Global Positioning (GPS)
The E75 has an integrated GPS chip to get an accurate position of the phone.
Here is a comparison of the E75 to the E71 GPS status screen:
Both phones had their GPS started at the same time from cold boot
The N82 was consistently faster at locking a position and much more sensitive. The E75 usually took 1 minute more to lock compared to the N82. The E75 locked on far faster than the E71 which never achieved a lock on within 10 minutes.
Time to lock is dependent on your location and weather conditions. Turning on assisted GPS in Tools > Settings > General > Positioning > Positioning Methods will reduce lock time but requires a data connection.
External Memory
Like most other S60 Nokia handsets, the E75-2 NAM includes a memory card with the retail package (4GB microSDHC class 4). However it easily supported the 2GB microSD and 8GB microSDHC cards I had on hand. The small slot and rubber cover make inserting the memory card very tricky. Make sure you don't insert the card upside down because it's really hard to take out. The memory card goes gold connector side facing up.
Battery
The E75 uses a thin BL4U Nokia battery with 1000mAH to keep the thickness down. The 1000mAH is adequate for light usage. Under medium usage with occasion wifi and GPS usage, the E75 lasted about 1.5 days compared to 3 days with my E71 under similar usage.
The E75 still has the smaller Nokia charger jack at the bottom. But, surprisingly, also supports USB charging through the microUSD jack! I wish all Nokia phones will keep both because I still have a lot of legacy Nokia chargers.
Conclusion
After 3 weeks of testing the E75, I grew to like it. I initially didn't like the cheap feeling numberpad and disliked the flat wide QWERTY keyboard but I slowly got used to the QWERTY keypad. The camera on the E75 is possibly the best on an E-series device. It gave my N82 a good challenge. Unfortunately photos in dim situations were not so good. The E75 supports Rogers and AT&T highspeed 3G HSDPA networks and 802.11b/g wifi giving users a variety of connection methods. Nokia's open nature with software ensures a wealth of third party software is available for the S60 platform. If you're a business user who doesn't need Blackberry support or a frequent text message sender looking for a phone with a QWERTY keyboard and multimedia capabilities, I highly recommend taking a look at the Nokia E75. It is the form factor that I had longed for but I like my E71 much more and the Xenon flash on my N82 always wins. If you can't carry two phones with you, then the E75 is a great mix of the two!
Ratings:
Performance...........9
Build quality...........8
Keypad...................7
Connectivity...............9
Features for $.........9
Software................8
Camera..................8
Battery life.............7
Overall.....................8
PROS:
*compact design
*lots of memory to run apps simultaneously
*WiFi
*very impressive camera under sunlight
*Great incoming sound
*lots of existing S60 games/apps
*landscape screen
*long lasting battery
*number pad or QWERTY keyboard when needed
*slim design
CONS:
*HTML in e-mails as attachments
*grainy camera in dark
*Paying for navigation in Nokia Maps
*small screen
*wide keyboard
*smudges easily
*organization of menu items still not intuitive
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