Nokia N97

As the articles says the Mini is more than likely for real and will be made official at Nokia World in Sept. How long it will take to get here is the next question ... 2ndQ next year perhaps. Cheaper, smaller, hopefully updated, ... could be worth the wait ... but the E72 is going to eat into its prospects big-time.
 
True...waiting for another six months (or probably longer) just isn't worth the wait with so many other great phones out there. Will be nice for those that have upgrades due when the time comes. Guess I'll have to make a plan for that htc touch pro 2 then after all!
 
Have had my N97 for a while now, and still waiting for the Vodacom firmware upgrade. Made peace with some of the most ovious software bugs, but was just wondering - is'nt Nokia supposed to get better at this after all these years?

Started my OVI Suite tonight and was prompted that a new version of the Maps Loader was available. Clicked "OK" to download and install - waited for the 30MB download to finish, wathced the install start and then got a message "An older version of this software is already installed. Installation can not continue. Please remove the older version first..." (or something to that extend).

Had to manually uninstall Maps Loader and download the app again. Installed, and was then prompted that the phone needs to be reconnected in "storage mode" and the Maps app need to be started for the "first time" again.

Did that part and then was prompted for the 15th time this week to install the Nokia Maps upgrade and the Nokia Memory upgrade - only to be told there is not enough memory. Cleared the cash again and reset the messages to be stored on the E: (32GB) storage again (also about the 20th time since I've had the phone). Still no luck.

I am sure ( I hope) the missing firmware will fix this, but I am so frustrated that I really want to return this phone, unfortunately it is past the 7 day return date!

What to do? 32GB phone, but can't install updates due to lack of storage space as it tried to cram everything into the 10MB phone memory? Sorry guys, I have lost my trust in Nokia - this N97 is one overpriced piece of useless hardware. :mad:
 
jammie, I feel your pain. The N97 - in my mind - is like getting your steak rare when you ordered well-done. It's an unfinished product and the problem with Nokia - as happened with my E90 - is that you have no guarantees that Nokia will ever bring it up to the final product it should have been (and we all expected). Nokia will bring out a new device long before the N97 is sorted out.
 
Any other N97 owners have the scratched camera lens scenario? Well I really love the phone and ive put it to good use in all departments......but....! Having read articles on other users with scratched lenses I looked at mine and all was still good, I thought perhaps it was only a problem with the European models. So over the last week Ive been taking some pics and noticed a lot of flash bleed on one side of the image when taking night shots. Looking closer at the lens I now have a deepish gouge across the one side it. I seems because of the design of the slide lens cover, some grit has lodged itself between the slider and the lens......hence the deep scratch. I am under the impression now that the flash light is refracted into the camera lens because if this scratch. :mad:

So tip to new N97 owners......NEVER CLOSE THE CAMERA LENS COVER......EVER!

Next steps: This is clearly a design flaw from Nokia that has rendered taking photos with the flash at night impossible. Has Nokia ever done a recall on phones to correct a design flaw? Has anyone in South Africa sent their N97 back after the 7 day thing for this camera problem?
 
Leftfoot, if my E90 experience is anything to go by Nokia's not going to do anything for existing owners. They'll quietly fix the design and new phones rolling of the production line will be without the flaw. With the E90 there was two problems that affected me personally ... (1) keyboard scratching the inside screen, and (2) very flimsy battery cover. I got an exchange phone within the 7 days OBF return policy due to the battery cover problem (very bad on my first E90) but Nokia's never done anything like a recall as far as I'm aware. It's always risky going for the first phones coming off the production line. It's lekker to own and show off the phone as one of the first owners, but the risk of getting a flawed product is very real.
 
BeVonk! said:
Leftfoot, if my E90 experience is anything to go by Nokia's not going to do anything for existing owners. They'll quietly fix the design and new phones rolling of the production line will be without the flaw. With the E90 there was two problems that affected me personally ... (1) keyboard scratching the inside screen, and (2) very flimsy battery cover. I got an exchange phone within the 7 days OBF return policy due to the battery cover problem (very bad on my first E90) but Nokia's never done anything like a recall as far as I'm aware. It's always risky going for the first phones coming off the production line. It's lekker to own and show off the phone as one of the first owners, but the risk of getting a flawed product is very real.
Click to expand...
or like the n95. It had so many problems. Instead of recalling.. N95-i. Tahdah. Screw the poor orignal n95 owners.
 
I was wondering if anybody is picking up 3G / HSDPA / 3.5/6G on their N97's ?

Saw someones 5800 This weekend displaying 3G where mind shoes the 'E' for Edge and we were both in the same area and both on MTN

Shouldnt mind have been displaying the same ? Or is there a cfiguratin i need o force to get it there ?
 
Seems you have to force the way you phone picks up the network.

Between Dual Mode / USMTS / GSM i had mine set straight to GSM
as soon as i changed to Dual Mode it Replaced the Edge 'E' with '3G' Yay

Google is your friend it seems. :D
 
Please help. I've spent hours looking for this online and am about to set my N97 alight out of pure frustration.

All I'm trying to do is send a photo to an email address that is saved in my contacts. But the phone keeps telling me 'No phone number defined for Jason MMS'. I have done this on all my nokia phones before but this is the first time it won't insert the email address in the TO field on the MMS. What is CRAZY is that if I type in the email address manually into the TO field, then I can do it. But I can't do it if I choose a saved contact with just an email address and no other info. I mean, what's going on here? This phone is supposed to be the future of handset technology but I can't send a basic photo via MMS to an email address!
 
mohebo said:
I was wondering if anybody is picking up 3G / HSDPA / 3.5/6G on their N97's ?

Saw someones 5800 This weekend displaying 3G where mind shoes the 'E' for Edge and we were both in the same area and both on MTN

Shouldnt mind have been displaying the same ? Or is there a cfiguratin i need o force to get it there ?
Click to expand...

Yeah I get 3G and 3.5G no problem on the N97......Only I would like to figure out how to stop it dropping back to Edge as there is a big pause in data delivery. Seen it on the net somewhere.
 
jct said:
Please help. I've spent hours looking for this online and am about to set my N97 alight out of pure frustration.

All I'm trying to do is send a photo to an email address that is saved in my contacts. But the phone keeps telling me 'No phone number defined for Jason MMS'. I have done this on all my nokia phones before but this is the first time it won't insert the email address in the TO field on the MMS. What is CRAZY is that if I type in the email address manually into the TO field, then I can do it. But I can't do it if I choose a saved contact with just an email address and no other info. I mean, what's going on here? This phone is supposed to be the future of handset technology but I can't send a basic photo via MMS to an email address!
Click to expand...

So do you want to send an EMAIL (email option) or an MMS(message option)... Email sends it full size. MMS as far as I know requires a telephone number.....:confused: I might be wrong. My N97 can send to email address, just at full resolution.
 
Leftfoot said:
So do you want to send an EMAIL (email option) or an MMS(message option)... Email sends it full size. MMS as far as I know requires a telephone number.....:confused: I might be wrong. My N97 can send to email address, just at full resolution.
Click to expand...

I want to send an MMS to an email address. This is standard for services like twitpic, facebook, zoopy etc. The N97 CAN and DOES send MMS messages to an email address, but only if you type in the email address manually on the MMS send screen - if you try to choose a contact who only has an email address, it gives the 'no phone number defined' error.
 
Comments (Zach) on Engadget about the N97:

I've had this phone for a month and I first want to echo the most common
comments: Needs to be snappier (=faster processor) needs more RAM, needs
a more responsive touch screen.

Before I add anything else in this comment the most important thing
about the phone is this:

** The Nokia N97 has probably more features and a better spec sheet than
almost any other device out there. It can multitask and DO more things
at one time than probably any other device. The problem? Its not FUN
to actually use any of this functionality, it's FRUSTRATING!**

Heres why:
1) As you go about your routine of installing apps and bits of
functionality to the device you will inevitably use up some of the
(TINY!) main onboard memory. Thats right, the box says 32GB and it has
a 32GB memory device inside, but its also got this tiny ~100MB memory
device for the OS and lots of critical applications. If this tiny main
memory gets to less than, say, 10MB then the overall device performance
slows down to a crawl and the device becomes unusable.

This is unfortunate as things like NGage, Nokia Maps, the Ovi Store etc.
all must be installed on this tiny main memory, leading it to quickly
dwindle to an unsafe range

2) Responsiveness (even with 10MB + on the main disk) Occasionally I'll
do something, like say hang up at the end of a phone conversation and the device will
just sit there for 3 or 4 seconds. I'll push buttons and nothing will
happen. Then, when the phone feels like it, it'll snap back together
all at once replaying all the haptic feedback that should've happened 4
seconds ago and I end up accidentally opening like 4 applications and
the headache starts all over again!

3) It crashes. The web browser is pretty horrendously unstable and
difficult to use. On Wifi its not so bad but on 3G the overall
experience is pretty lame. I'll echo the 'the menu on the side often
takes up FAR too much real estate' sentiment here.

Also, those crashes where the device locks up and I have to take out
the battery? Not cool. This happens once a week at minimum.

4) The homescreen 'Widgets' that Nokia pushed so hard for are ultimately
a giant fail. None of the internet connected widgets can stay on the
hoemscreen because inevitably one of them will decide they want the
internet connection to be active all day and my battery will be dead by
lunchtime. Theres the option to disable internet connectivity for
widgets but then whats the point of having internet connected widgets if
I have to manually tell them when they can and cannot use the internet
every time? They should connect once, get the data they need and
connect again an hour later to refresh etc.

5) The Camera application still takes way too long to startup, I've
missed countless photo ops because of this, very frustrating.

6) Enabling 'theme effects' (AKA bring the UI out of the 90s and into
the ~2003 Era of UI bells and whistles) uses so much memory and makes
the phone so unstable that i had to turn it back off.

7) EVERYTHING should use kenetic scrolling, i do NOT want to use my
fingers to grab those tiny scrollbars. EVER!

8) Symbian needs threaded SMS. Nokia's "Conversation" application which
did this for S60v3 had not yet been ported to S60v5 and messaging is
rather lame without it. This app should ship built in with every
symbian s60 device -- third party unintegrated solutions just don't cut
it with their level of integration into the native messaging system.

9) Notifications. In the era of the Palm Pre and Android with superb
notification systems, Nokia's tiny little icons need work. As it is I
had to install a third party app to actually show me the incomming txt
when its recieved ontop of my currently running application. But then
to get rid of the 'new message' icon in the corner I still have to open
the normal messaging application and 'read' the message!

I could go on... but I think I've made my point. The UI is outdated and
unfun and Nokia has failed to innovate and failed to pick up on
the innovations of the smartphone os ecosystem as a whole. I do not
recommend people buy this device -- get yourself a pre, an android or an
iphone if you care at all about ever *wanting* to use your phone, I
always dread taking mine out of my pocket.
 
this Engadget review is biased...read a balanced review from GSMArena,Mobile Review or Phone Arena...or a S60 site like AllAboutSymbian that does diss the phone but gives it credit where its due...

I know the N97 has lots of issues at present..but with cont. firmware Nokia is giving it will get exponential better...

This article was also written by Americans who DO NOT understand or know the benefits of S60...all they care about is iPhone and Berries now Pre's as well...just my 2cents...:rolleyes:
 
well i have experienced a lot of those points from the engadget post ... but i still like this phone ... and what ever issues the phone does have will be fixable by a software update ... a lot of my widgets do switch between wi-fi and 3G and vice versa with very little hassle ... the only pain in the butt widget is facebook and it just is so buggy that ive decided not to use it .... biggest plus for me with this phone is mail for exchange and nokia email app that ive been using ...

the phone memory dwindling in size is yes an issue ...

Camera lens scratching ... (but i have realised you need to be very careful how you open the lens cover, that way no scratches)

It has hung on me, where i needed to take out the battery

but all of this has not be happening so often that it makes this phone frustrating .... (except facebook thats why its off the phone)
 
I have removed my camera lens cover....hehe, no more scratches!:D

I also thinks the review is a little biased.... I do have 1 or 2 of those issues but it happens so infrequently that I dont really botter about it.
 
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