I’ve given you a taste of the things that I like and dislike about the Nokia N97, and now it’s time to get down to business. In this first part, I’ll give you a rundown of the hardware aspects of this smartphone, including build quality, buttons, and audio quality through the three outlets (3.5mm, A2DP, and speaker). Tomorrow, you can expect a full rundown of the software side of things, including a full report on the various multimedia aspects, since it is an Nseries, after all.
As mentioned in my list of things I love, the Nokia N97 is finally an Nseries that feels like it was built by the Eseries team. This means that they’ve clearly used high quality materials, but it’s also obvious that great care was taken to ensure that the various parts fit together as solidly as they should. In fact, I sometimes have a hard time remembering which side of the phone it is that slides open. There is zero wobble, and zero loose space between the top and bottom pieces of the phone. It’s just sad that I’m so amazed by that.
The top of the phone is a nearly solid piece of plastic, with two touch-sensitive end/send buttons at the bottom, and a hash-mark type menu button diagonally off to the side of these. The menu button is the only hardware button on the front of the phone, and honestly, I think that makes for a seriously inconsistent experience. It does offer a nice tactile feeling, but when everything else on the front of the phone is touch sensitive, it’s slightly confusing, at least to me. The large 3.5-inch nHD (640×360 pixels) touchscreen display is indeed resistive, but is also much more sensitive than its 5800 XpressMusic kid brother. I’m able to nearly swipe my finger across to scroll in Gravity or the browser, without worrying about pressing down too hard.
Once you open the N97, the screen is at an angle and you gain access to a hardware d-pad and full QWERTY keyboard. The angle of the display is nice, but I sometimes find myself wishing that it stood up a bit more, specifically for media playback, such as pictures or video. The slide is slightly spring loaded, so that it eventually snaps into place, and holds it position firmly. As has been stated many times over, the entire slide mechanism on the N97 is simply a work of art. It’s smooth like butter, and feels as though it might very well outlast the phone itself.
As we saw in the video of the N97’s shipping from the factory, the QWERTY keyboard hidden beneath the display is a single, solid membrane. It’s a three-row keyboard, which means that to type numbers, you’ll need to use the blue Fn key on the far right. The d-pad is positioned to the left of the keyboard, and while some have blasted it, this layout works incredibly well because all of the other controls are handled by your right thumb, such as opening the menu, pressing buttons in the various applications, etc.
The spacebar is also on the far right, a move that has garnered Nokia quite a few haters, and at first glance, it’s really frustrating. However, after typing out 4-5 SMS, I found that the location was actually extremely logical. Unfortunately, the keyboard itself is very disappointing. There simply is little-to-no tactile feedback, and worse yet, it varies depending on which button you are pressing. Some buttons, such as my Shift key, have at least some tactile feedback, enough that I knew I had pressed it. Others, such as the Fn key, have precisely zero tactile feedback, so I was never quite sure if I had pressed it or not.
Another unfortunate aspect of the keyboard, at least on my white N97, is the backlight. The white color of the main characters, paired with the white color of the actual buttons, means that in moderate lighting situations, it is nearly impossible to read the characters. This is definitely tragic, but something that I doubt affects the black variant.
The top of the device holds the 3.5mm audio port and tiny power key, though oddly, this is the first Nseries that supports TV-Out, but ships without the cable in the box. The two stereo speakers are located along the left edge of the phone, which is also the part facing you when the display is slid up. These are, without question, the best set of stereo speakers I have heard on a phone, ever. They’re much louder than my 5800 XpressMusic, and produce better quality sound than my N79 does.
Similarly, music played through the 3.5mm audio port is rock solid smooth. I tested this with the included Nokia headphones, my own pair of Bose headphones, and the 3.5mm input I have in my truck. All three were beautiful, with no hiss, clicks, or any other fault. Just pure music.
Between these speakers is the microUSB charging port, with a tiny yet significant pinhole light next to it. This tiny white light comes on when you begin charging the phone, and when the battery is full, turns off. This is something I have requested from Nokia for over a year, and I’m glad to see it come to fruition, sort of. The glanceability of this little light is awesome, but I would like to see it taken one step further in the future, with a tri-color LED showing red, yellow, and green. The purpose of this would be to show me – at a glance – roughly how much power I would have if I were to disconnect the charging cable at that moment. In any case, I’m still glad to have this tiny light positioned next to the microUSB charging/data port. I have also not had any trouble charging the phone, with with the supplied wall plug, the USB computer cable, or the included 2mm-to-microUSB adapter.
Below this is the slide-lock switch, and my only complaint here is that I wish Nokia would pick a position for this switch to be on the phone, and stick with it. Some phones have this switch on top, others on the right edge, and now the N97 has it on the left edge. Thankfully, the slide-lock on the N97 is much smaller and more recessed than the 5800 XpressMusic, which I was prone to accidentally flick periodically. Along the other edge of the phone is the volume up/down rocker and the camera button. I touched on the camera button previously, but I want to highlight that it is very well implemented. Previous phones either had a camera button that jutted out, making it an easy target for accidental activation, or one that was too far sunk in, which made it difficult to press to snap a photo. The N97’s camera button is a perfect position in the middle of these two extremes.
The back of the phone is where you’ll find the 5 megapixel autofocus camera with 2nd-generation dual-LED flash. There’s a large sliding lens cover that activates the camera, and protects it when not in use. The bottom of the back cover has a rather prominent lip that sticks out, to serve a few purposes. For starters, this lip allows the N97 to sit flat on a table or desk, in the open position, to offset the camera module sticking out. Also, this lip provides a bit of a grip when holding the phone, either in landscape or portrait mode. It’s subtle, but insanely convenient to have, and is another job well done for the design team. Unfortunately, the battery cover, like that on the 5800 XpressMusic, does not have a release button, instead you simply pull it off. This can be slightly disconcerting, and is definitely not something that’s comfortable to use.
Below are some camera samples from the Nokia N97. As you can see, Nokia has nearly mastered the 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens by now, with great colors. The dual-LED flash surprised me in how well it could light up an area, too.
Taken in Automatic mode
Taken in Automatic mode but up close
Taken in Macro mode up close
Taken in Automatic mode
Taken in Automatic mode with no flash
Taken in Automatic mode with flash
Taken in Automatic mode with flash disabled (same as above, minus the flash)
Here’s a video sample from the back camera:
And here’s one from the front camera:
The hardware side of the Nokia N97 is, quite simply, one of the best Nseries ever built. The QWERTY keyboard could be slightly more responsive, and I would have liked to see different colors used on the keyboard, specifically for moderate light. However, the massive nHD-resolution touchscreen display is beautiful, the speakers are loud, yet clear, and the camera button is really well designed. If you’re used to the Eseries, but need more multimedia functions, then welcome, my friends, to the Nseries way of life.
