Yes, I doubted. The Samsung Omnia HD made me doubt. It made me question whether I’d be sticking with Nokia when the time comes for me to switch handsets in the following months as well as wonder about my priorities in a new device. Samsung has gotten so many things right with the Omnia HD, it’s scary. I really want a huge OLED touchscreen and I want HD video recording, but the Omnia HD isn’t the right device *for me*, the N97 is. Here’s why.
Two in One
I currently own 3 gadgets: the Nokia E71, Nokia N82 and Kodak V1273. The E71 is my main handset and 97% of the days it’s the only device I take with me when I walk out the door. It’s my workstation and I love the QWERTY, it’s my browser, my only music player, and my GPS. The N82 stays at home, it serves the sole purpose of allowing me to try accelerometer-based games and applications, as well as N-Gage stuff. I use it as a camera rarely. The Kodak V1273 is a 12MP camera with HD video recording that I got for blogging purposes to make macro videos of my phone’s screens (video reviews of phones, applications, games), it has also become the camera I take with me on special occasions. So where does the N97 fall? It’s a 100% replacement to my E71 and N82, so if I buy it, my everyday device will have the good ol’ Qwerty, N-Gage, the accelerometer, not to mention an FM-transmitter for when I’m driving, a HUGE screen to watch videos and browse webpages on my boring commutes, and 32GB of built-in storage to load with a good deal of my music library. On the other side, the Omnia HD is neither a 100% replacement to my Kodak (how would I make video reviews of applications and games running on it if I sold my camera to get it?), neither to my N82 (there is an accelerometer but there is no N-Gage), neither to my E71 (no Qwerty, duh). Since I need to sell two gadgets at least to buy a new one, the N97 turns out to be a clear winner.
Widgets
The Omnia HD has support for homescreen widgets, but we still don’t know if developpers would be able to write these widgets or if they’d be closed down to Samsung and the Operators. If that’s the case, it’s a big waste of screen estate. Nokia, on the other hand has fully embraced Widgets and made a clear statement that anyone would be able to write their own. The customizable homescreen on the N97 is the closest I can get to the awesome versatility of the Today Screen on Windows Mobile without actually having to touch a WM device. Plus, the Facebook, Reuters and weather widgets being demo’ed now are really cool.
Nokia Services
Apart from Share On Ovi, I’m not a big fan of the new Ovi services by Nokia, but I suppose this is all due to the fact that they haven’t come implemented out of the box on a handset and integrated into its functionality yet. The N97 will be the first device to offer that, and I’m really curious to explore the world, Ovi-style. I’d like to see how all the pieces of the Ovi puzzle will fall together as one.
Resistive Screen
I’m sure a lot of users would vote for capacitive touchscreen over resistive any day. But I live in Paris, and I get cold frozen hands easily. Wearing gloves is part of my daily routine, so if I can’t use a phone for the major part of my commutes, it’s pretty useless to me. This is where the N97′s resistive screen trumps the Omnia HD’s capacitive one.
Skype Integration
It’s true that there is a downloadable version of Skype mobile for nearly any phone, yet it doesn’t work on my operator’s blocked 3G connection. I’m interested to see if Skype would work, when it’s built into the firmware. I’ve come across instances where built-in apps worked even if they didn’t if they were installed (Nokia Internet Radio).
Firmware Updates
This is a huge one. We know that Nokia provides firmware updates for their devices pretty frequently, whereas so far I’ve heard of one firmware update for the Samsung Innov8 for example. Since both the N97 and Omnia HD are cutting-edge, I expect them to be really buggy when released. Nokia gives the best value on the long term, since I’m sure the N97 will be updated very frequently and for a long time to iron out the bugs and maybe even add features.
Of course, the reason behind this article isn’t to convince you that the N97 is better than the Omnia HD, far from that. My main goal is to show you that sometimes you have to think about the small things when choosing the perfect handset for YOU. Personally, although I’m convinced that the Nokia N97 is the handset for me, the Omnia HD intrigues me and I would really, really love to get my hands on it, even if to be proven wrong in one or many of the points raised here.
