I recently had the chance to have my hands on the Nokia N97 Mini, a device that I didn’t gear much attention towards during Nokia World 2009. The Mini is, like its name calls, a smaller version of the Nokia N97 in terms of size, weight, screen, and mass memory features. The difference might not be very obvious when you put the two siblings next to each other, but try holding the Mini in your hand and you’ll “feel” the difference. Many are saying that the Mini is geared towards a more feminine market with its design and size, and as one of representatives of the female gender, I must say that I fell for its charm.
Below, you will find a short video of me fiddling with the N97 Mini. The video goes quickly through several aspects of the device, showing:
- An overall preview of the hardware.
- Music player UI: kinetic scrolling, as well as scroll by first letter and search by letter.
- Keyboard functions: pressing and holding a key inserts the corresponding symbol, unlike the N97 on its current firmware.
- The amount of free internal memory : here’s a shocker for you, 285 Mb of free internal memory!
- A side by side comparison of the 2 colors, in black and bronze (for lack of better color description).
- A side by side comparison with the N97 and the Sony Ericsson Satio.
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The amount of internal memory really blew me away. It was one of the main things that made the N97 a power-user fiasco in my experience, and a big letdown for a device this powerful. I’m glad to see it fixed in the N97 Mini, though I would have loved if it wasn’t broken in the first place.
What do you think of the N97 Mini? Were you put off by some of the N97′s issues, like its size & weight, or its lagging software, or its tiny internal memory? If so, are you starting to consider the Mini as your potential next phone? I have to admit that I’m personally tempted, very tempted.
Against all my better judgement…yes, I am tempted. I can’t explain it rationally but by shrinking the form factor, Nokia have really made the N97 Mini much more desireable than the regular model.
I am only disappointed by the pricing of the Mini: at least here in Italy it’s been announced for €529 while the N97 now costs €549. Only €20 difference is too little.
Great that the C drive is now way larger, but what about RAM?
Is it increased?
Correct me if I’m wrong but Mini doesn’t have fm transmitter, right?
The feature I thought I will never use, yet I use constantly in my car.
Despite the odd colour scheme, I want. Wish it came in white, though…
And it looks like this is indeed Nokia’s first quad-band 3G device:
http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/devices/nokia-n97-mini/specifications
nice and cute, the device and your fingers. :-)
@Vladimir
I believe its the same RAM amount. Basically this can be sort of fixed with a FW update that improves memory allocation, but the internal memory was a real issue.
@krisq
I think it doesn’t have one. I haven’t really asked, but you can’t find it anywhere in the specs, or in Forum Nokia. That’s personally a good deal breaker for me, as I really enjoyed the feature when I was driving in Lebanon with the N86.
@AC
Interesting. I didn’t really look at the 3G bands, but that’s a nice observation :D
I also like the redesigned keyboard layout. At least the . (dot) is on a dedicated key. I don’t know who designed the N97′s keyboard but he must be one of the guys who writes without any interpunctation.