The Nokia N8 is a great phone to have around. I use it a lot at the Hospital where I work mostly to take pictures of rare clinical cases, but I want to see more out of it. Recently I have been looking for medical apps around the Ovi Store and did some interesing findings. Talking about med apps there should be noted that there are two kind of apps: those that are directed to patients or non professional and those which are for the health professionals, such as nurses, medics (like myself ) and so on. While there is a lack of the later, there are some good apps for patients interested on keeping up with their health. This medic roamed the OVI Store with a Nokia N8 and these are my findings:

1. Heart Rate Monitor by Pico Brothers

One of the most simple and yet elegant heart rate monitors on the ovi store. Upon launching the app you are immediately asked if the app can connect to the internet for ads. I know, ads! But this makes the app free for all of us and stimulates developers to keep creating great apps. So on with the app. This app is meant to measure the heart rate and can be used both by patients and health workers, you just have to find your pulse or on your neck. and then tap the screen for every beat you feel. After a few beats you will get a fair measure of your heart beat. Simple and very helpful. Myself have used it to check my patient’s heart rate accurately. Great user interface too!

2. Health n Family by xcube

This app works like a medical file for family members. You can add each family member to the list and add important medic details such as blood type, alergies, medical history like previous surgerys and emergency contact numbers just in case. While it is very helpful to have that info at hand, it is kind of difficult to use it as a reference. There is no way to export the info to a computer file or to print it, so it is very  unlikely that a medic will have the guts to access your deeper phone apps in an emergency case.  On the other hand, this could be used to create a patient file for those that visit the medic office, but again, there is no  way to export / import the info, so it’s unlikely that I would use it in a practical way. Anyways, great way to keep some info at hand.

3. First Aid by Divum

This app is a great one I must say. Is a quite simple first aid reference. The core function is the Act Now option which is a list of emergency cases of all types. In example, what to do in Allergy? Well you can search the word Allergy in the large list and will display the symptoms and definition, this will teach normal people about how to recognize it and what to do in such cases. Excellent for non health profesionals! There is also a list of first aid and medical kit that will let you know what should be a must have in your house.  Another option is the life saving emergency techniques which include CPR, Choking, and dressing, great for non profesional with lots of picture and easy instructions. And lastly you can make a medical profile, just in case like in the Health n Family app, but again, I dont think is very practical. Anyways, great educational app for the non profesional. You should all check it out.

4. Blood Pressure Tracker by Migital Technovations

Another tracker for Blood pressure. This will do great for patients who suffer from hypertension. While the user interface isn’t very bright, this app works as it should. After checking the blood pressure, the user should use the Log Entry option and add in the results of the check both systolic and diastolic along with the pulse rate and a note if needed. Then you can see the results in a graph making obvious if your pressure is going down or up or if the current treatment is working. Simple, but nice. As a plus the app also has some useful tips and symptom list of high blood pressure. A way to export graphs and logs would have been nice, but still seems practical to have it on your phone.

5. Bacterium by OffScreen

Found this game while checking medical apps at the OVI Store. While not an app it is a great game that any health professional will find nice. We all like having fun . The gameplay is simple, there is a bacteria growing in a petri dish, they are  replicating all the time and after some time these bacteria blobs will produce a critter, this one will crawl out of the dish and make you lose health, until you lose all your life points. The user must use the gun around the petri dish and  try to control the bacteria population. This game runs until the user loses all the health, it gets harder all the time but you can go on forever and I can tell you, it’s very addictive. There are power ups dropped by the bacteria blobs such as faster guns, faster bullets, double gun, and super bomb great for when critters are too much to exterminate with the gun. The graphics are awesome and better yet, it is free at the ovi store.

After this short review of the best apps on the store what else do we need? I think there is a lack of apps for the health professionals. There is no drug dictionary, found just one medical calculator at the whole store, it just had 25 calcs and wasnt free. We all need more apps for doctors and nurses, apps what will serve as tools for our work. There is a great market oportunity there and  many developers are ignoring it. I will keep an eye there and bring any finding that I consider important. Meanwhile keep healthy .

David Castro

The n97 mini vs. the n900 seems like the classic case of david vs. golianth (and no not david castro) but all jokes aside the n97 mini and the n900 are arguably the top two nokia device available in the cell phone market today, this may or may not change pretty soon with the coming of the n8 but as for now the n900 and the n97 mini are the top dogs and as top dogs its only right for me to compare them and see which is the big and better dog in terms of form-factor.  As Marvin Gaye would say let get it on…

Front

Keyboard

Back

Right Side

Left Side

Top

It has been a while since I was looking to buy the Nokia Booklet 3G mostly because I needed something with long battery life and small size, so the Booklet was perfect for me. So I pulled the trigger when I saw it at Best Buy for $599 free from any carrier. I know, a bit expensive for something that could fall under the netbook category and something I could get for the half of the price with ‘almost the same specs’

Built Quality, the outer side of the Booklet

We know that netbooks are small, cheap computers, whose principal utility is to navigate the internet and have some office works done on the go. But we also know that most netbooks are made of plastic, and most of times, the manufacturer forgets about elegance. This is something that pulls the Booklet apart from the other common netbooks. While most netbooks have a plastic carcass prone to scratches, the Netbook has a aluminum unibody carcass that is a pleasure to touch, mostly on the mornings when the aluminum is cold to the hand. The design spells “elegance” at every angle you look at it, there is zero creaks. The top lid has a glossy panel that comes in three different colors: black, white and blue. This is Nokia sin, because the glossy top lid is a smudge magnet, but Nokia’s penitence comes in the form of a special cloth to clean it.

The dimensions are something worth mentioning. The whole thicknes of the netbook doesnt even reach the 2cm, it stays at 19.9 as you can see compared to the old and good N95 which is known to have 21mm of thickness. The display has 10.1 inches and over it you have a glass window. The booklet weights 1.250 kg making it really portatible. The hinge can open almost at 180 degrees, something that some people may find usefull. Maybe the hinge should be a bit more tight, because it can open fully by just picking up the booklet fast.

The keyboard has slightly smaller keys than my previous HP mini 110, making it hard to type at first, but after a few days I was typing fast without problems, just like I’m doing right now! The track pad is really big, sometimes too big, and the left and right mouse buttons are also big,, the travel and the clicks feel right. Something that I didnt like is that there isnt something tactible that separates  the buttons from the pad, making it hard to tell sometimes if your finger is over the button or the pad. The trackpad has multitouch, meaning that you can zoom in and out by using your both fingers ala iPhone. Have found it useful a few times.

There are  3 USB ports, one on the right hand and 2 on the left, a 3.5mm jack, the HDMI out, charger plug, SD port and a SIM card port. There is no VGA out, so connecting the booklet to a projector will require some adapters. Also on the top of the display there is a 1,3MPX front facing camera, with a mic on top of it. On the front corners there are two stereo speakers which are kind of loud.

The Inner of the Booklet

The booklet comes with Windows 7 starter, but have read that there are some booklets running home premium, so it makes me ask myself, why are  some computers running a basic OS while others have the complete one? Is it something based on the price?  Who knows! Anyways, the inner of the booklet is basically the spec sheet of any netbook. It has wifi, bluetooth, the not-so-powerfull-to-run-cool-games graphic card, atom processor, and 1GB of RAM. The only things that makes the booklet stand over the other netbooks in this area is the GPS, the 3G, and the long battery life.

The experience

Carrying the booklet around is pretty confortable, it is elegant, it is made of high quality materials, it’s slim and lightweigh. Also, because the battery life is long, you dont have to bring the charger to every place, unless you know you are going to have a very long day. Surfing the web with the booklet is the same experience you get like on any other netbook. Netbooks aren’t too powerfull, they shouldnt be used to make too many stuff at the same, they can hang or crash, something that sadly happens with the booklet from time to time. Watching youtube videos in 720p is not possible, too much lag, but any other quality is beareable.

Gaming is something you don’t do on any netbook. I tried endlessly to install and run my favorite games which are Age of Empires II and III. At the end I had to install a custom driver for the video card and succesfully ran my games on my booklet, a dream, I know! They don’t look 100% perfect but I can’t complain.

Using microsoft office is a good experience, I can do my ppt slides and my word documents with no problems, too bad that the booklet doesn’t have a VGA out port, so I will have to get adapters to get it to connect to a projector. The Nokia booklet comes with an internal GPS which can be used to know your location, but only that, maybe Nokia will release updates that make the use of the GPS a little more usefull. The other feature is the 3G, there is a SIM card port on one of the sides, so you may just pop in the card and connect the 3G. This computer offers a great wireless experience, no charger, no internet cable, not dependant of wifi. Talking about this, the Booklet claims to offer 12 hours of battery life, but in my tests, I have only found from 6 to 8 hours, just enough for a work shift.

But…I always knew that windows 7 was not the perfect choice for the Booklet so I recently installed Ubunt 9.1 on it. Ubuntu is an OS based off linux, very similar to what Maemo is. So far, ubuntu is making a better use of the small resources the Booklet has, less hangs, less crashes, no lag. Out of the box, the booklet works with the ubuntu drivers, except for the display, so if you ever do this, you will have to download a driver for the Booklet to get a bigger resolution.

The best of Ubunt is that it can play my games without problems! There are stuff to take in consideration, like windows emulators, but if you are a geek and know what you are doing, then you dont have to worry. Now I have 2 OS in my Booklet, one is windows 7 starter and the other one is Ubuntu. I can use windows 7 to get the work done and Ubuntu to have some games, or net surfing.

As conclusion

I can say I am very pleased with my Booklet. It is elegant and have a really long battery life. But I cannot justify the high price of it. For 600 USD you can get a very powerfull laptop with double or triple specs, or for the half of the price, you get a netbook with (almost) the same specs. I should add that Ubuntu is the OS of choice  of the booklet, too bad that isnt as popular as windows, but if you have a booklet and know what you are doing, I would recomend you to install it on your computer. Better perfomance!

At the end you are paying for design and battery. This computer is directly aimed to the people who do not like the cheapness of plastic netbooks and that need a long battery life to get the work done, while conserving the mobility the Booklet offers.

David Castro

Hello friends, today we are going to learn how to built our hands free car kit. With this you will be able to have your own media player, your own gps navigator, and more important, your own hands free. You will be able to take calls while driving without exposing yourself to the danger that talking while driving is. And the best part is that almost everything you need is quite cheap and you may already have it lying inside your house. Save the car, that’s the expensive part.

So for this you will need the following.

1. Nokia Headset AD-54/HS-45. This is the one you get in the box of most Nseries handsets. This headset comes in two parts, a control with media buttons with mic and a pair or earphones. You don’t need the earphones part.

2. A 3.5mm jack extension, you get this in most electronic stores and quite cheap.

3. Your handset of choice, with 3.5mm jack output

4. Of course, a car with AUX input connection.

Installation is extremely easy and it consists of just connecting one end of the 3.5 jack to the AUX of the car and the other to the AD-54/HS-45 headset after disconnecting the earphone part of it. Then connect the control of the headset to your phone. You will have something like this

In this picture you can see on your right the jack extension connected to the AUX input and to the headset control which is looped around the gear lever to prevent it from moving away, finally the headset control is connected directly to the N97 mini.

The result: your may now play music from your phone and it will come from the car speakers, and more over you can have control of it with the headset buttons. Then if you receive a call you can answer it by pressing the button from the control, the music will pause and your call will be heard on the car speakers. If you remember well, there is a mic inside the headset control so you can talk back using it, you dont  have to speak too loud, the mic is perfect to use at that distance. After finishing the call the music will automatically continue.

Same with the GPS, you can hear the navigation voice comming from your car speakers, and  if you have music playing already, the navigation voice will cut your music a second just to give you directions and then continue. You got home? then just unplug your phone from the headset and your good to leave, an excellent solution that you should definately try. And if you don’t have a car with an AUX connection you may want to consider it now on your next purchase.

Anything for the sake of safe driving!

David Castro

Tonite I’m bringing Nokia’s lastest flagship handsets face to face and yes, I’m talking about the N900 and the N97 mini. Both phones are on the top of nokia’s portafolio, yet they are completely different  devices, so join me and see which one suits you the best in different testings.

To begin with, the N900 is the multimedia heavyweight running Maemo 5 a magnificent OS that is simple, flashy, powerful and intelligent(based off linux, which is open source, just like symbian) and has everything hardware wise you can ask for in a phone. On the other hand we have the flyweight called N97 mini. The mini is a revised version of the slightly bigger N97 classic. By getting the mini you trade off the 3.5″ screen, 32GB mass memory, the big 1,500maH battery, camera cover and the FM trasmitter, while winning a smaller, lighter, more stable and fashionable device.

Size and materials

To start off, the N900 is a very big and heavy phone, making it a bit unconfortable to carry around in your pocket, maybe a belt clip could do it, but I’m not fan of it. It just looks like a big black and heavy brick. The N97 mini is very light and while there’s no much difference in size with the N97 classic, it feels surprisingly good inside the hand, it just fits, not too big, not too small, perfect size

chic vs geek

range comparison, the N900 is the thickest, heaviest and the widest of all

The materials used on both devices is plastic with a metal bezel around the screen. But the N97 has some metal parts on the backside: the battery cover and the camera face giving it some fashionable look to it, while the N900 stays at full plastic giving it a somewhat cheap look and feel.

Both devices do very good at build quality, making the wobble and creakings unexisting.

Software

The N900 runs Maemo 5, which is a computer OS based off linux, while the N97 mini has symbian^1 (also known as s60 5th edition) which pales awfully compared to Maemo. It’s just enough to see both home screens to understand the difference between these two operative systems.

Just for example the Maemo has 4 different widget-based  homescreens  which can be arranged at will, making possible to have a homescreen for the social networks, another for meetings and notes, the third one for media, and the last one for contacts, which is exactly what I did. The N97 mini homescreen is very basic. You are only bound to one homescreen and some widgets, which arent always very reliable.

There is a world of difference between Maemo and Symbian. And if you ask me, I prefer Maemo over Symbian

Features and power

The N900 has everything you can dream of. This includes: 32GB memory with SD expandable slot,  ARM cortex-8 running processor at 600mhz, 1GB RAM between physical and virtual, 3.5″ display, resistive touchscreen,  GPU with OpenGL ES 2.0, 5.0MPX camera with dual LED flash, 3G, IR port, wifi, qwerty keyboard and GPS. Everything, which explains the gargantuan size.

The N97 mini has Symbian^1, resistive touschscreen with 3.2″ display, 5.0 mpx camera with dual LED flash, sliding qwerty keyboard, ARM11 CPU running at 434MHz, with 128 RAM, and 8GB of capacity with expandable sd card slot,  3g, wifi, GPS and bluetooth,

While both devices are quite similar in hardware, the N900 is faster, more capable and more stable than the N97. Also Maemo opens a new world of posibilites inside the N900, since it is open source, it can be hacked from within and make the most use of it.

I want to mention the battery life of both devices. The N900 has a 1320mah battery and the N97 mini has a 1200 mah. While the N900 has a bigger battery, the life is so short, having such hardware inside means less juice, so making medium use of it while browsing, using GPS and the music player gives around 8 hours of battery, which is too short and unreliable as a primary phone, its unacceptable  having to charge it twice a day!

The N97 mini has also poor battery life, giving at most 16 hours of battery life having the same use as the N900. Meaning that you have to charge every night for the next day.

The conclusion

The N900 and the N97 mini are both nokia’s flagship phones, yet very different. The N900 is the geek’s dream, it is the handset you want to carry to the computer class, hack it all around, and use it for the wildest ideas ever imagined. However, it has very poor battery life so you won’t be using it as a primary phone, or rely on it for important communication, such as business or emergencies. Please bear in mind that the N900 is a tablet computer with cellphone capablities, so the GSM radio is considered as an extra feature waiting to be developed even more. For now, maybe they could include a red and green key along with a menu key

The N97 mini is the regular smartphone having everything the common user expects from it without hacking. It’s the pretty phone, the one that flashes when you pull it ou of your pocker, the fun to use, and fairly compact. While it doesnt have an ultra fast processor or a GPU, it will do everything else pretty well. Just unlike the N900, the N97 mini is an phone trying to be a computer.

In my personal opinion I really prefer using the N97 mini as my main phone, while I can see the N900 replacing my laptop, I cannot see it replacing my phone, things like short battery life, big size or poor phone app restrain it from the mainstream success.

But, I do really want to see a mix of both. The size, sliding keyboard and materials of the N97 mini mixed with Maemo OS and the ultra fast processor of the N900. That’s a dream of both mine, and Nokia’s, to make a real mainstream phone that will not only appeal to the geeks, but to the high end masses.

David Castro

A few days ago I received an invitation from Nokia to watch their events.nokia.com site, supposedly they had a big announcement up their sleeve and that we all should be expecting it. We had our own guesses and these were the following.

1. Revamp of Ovi Store

2. Revamp of whole Ovi Services (files, share, email, etc)

3. New device with Maemo

4. First Nokia’s Symbian Foundation powered device

5. Your guess???

But we wrong, even when we were almost sure it was about the Ovi Store we were not even near! The big surprise was 10x bigger! Nokia announced that the premium-paid-services on Nokia maps was going to be, from January 21st of 2010, totally Free Forever!

At first it reminded me of Google’s Android announcemente a few months ago that said that their maps where going to be totally free including voice navigation, and though that Nokia was trying to catch up again with the competition. But then I realized that Nokia is a giant global company spanning around all the countries of this earth, against google which is just hatching from the egg. So this implies that the whole nokia user base, calculated thousand of MILLIONS are going to benefit from this announcement

But not only that, since Nokia is so big, they have a great influence on the whole mobile market which they also created. So this means that now voice navigation for free will be expected from every other manufacterer, changing the game related to the satellite navigation. From now and on you can expect Apple, Motorola, RIM, Google, HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony-Ericsson to provide free navigation to their devices. But, Nokia will still have the upper hand, because they are the only company in which maps can be saved in the device and be used without internet, making it usefull for people who don’t want to spend more money to download the maps on the go. And don’t forget who owns Navteq, the ones who get the mapping done!

This means that now satellite navigation will go ‘mainstream’ and you will now see people using it as every other basic function on every phone. This will make the GPS receiver a must have on any phone, just like cameras where set as a standard or every mid-low to high devices. Combine this with the new era of social networks and you will have the Social Location concept, which was first introduced by nokia on december 2008 with the announcement of the N97.

People will now share their physical location with their significant others and not because they couldnt before, there are lots of apps that could do that before, but because it will so ubiquitious that they will have the option on their head more present than before and also because it will become more easy every bit. Also events like concerts and other will be shared more easily.

I can see the future of social location, and it looks sweet! By now you can install the improved-new-free version of Ovi Maps from here, I have tested it and it is a big improvemente form the older Nokia Maps version. I was navigation earlier on my car and saw on the map that there was a mechanic shop on my left, so I turned around and saw something like this:

Which means that even smalls shops have been added to the points of interest! I tried food restaurants and mostly got big chains of food like mcdonalds, subway and peter piper pizza, so I hope they get more and smaller restaurants on the list. This is good for a small mexican town which isnt new york or more important places like mexico city. Is great to have Nokia give a good service and make it free to the masses.

For now, a big thumb for Nokia and hope they can keep improving and innovating. This is their chance to push their other Ovi services to their giant user base.

David Castro

ps. By the way I found this funny when a day before the big announcement nokia mexico was giving away free licences for voice navigation on their twitter account. I though I was smart since I caught 5 licences from them. The day after licences were useless, because Maps was free! LOL

Just today I received an invitation from our finnish friends at Nokia, it seems that they are going to announce something big on tomorrow. This is the invitation.

We have been reading lately that Nokia was going to revamp the whole Ovi Store to fix some issues that they have been having since their launch on May 2009, so I guess that is all about, but who knows? Might be something else, and that is just exciting!

Our guesses

1. Revamp of Ovi Store

2. Revamp of whole Ovi Services (files, share, email, etc)

3. New device with Maemo

4. First Nokia’s Symbian Foundation powered device

5. Your guess???

So you can watch the announcement live tomorrow at events.nokia.com at 9:35am GMT, thats about 3:35am on this side of the pond. There is a big counter, and the guest list with lots of familiar names (guess who is on it as dcastrog? So if you feel like waking up early or sleeping late then you might want to see the big announcement.

Cant wait!!

David Castro

ps. by the way I came across with this video, and I liked so much, it’s about the greatness of the Ovi Store, very nice!

Today I received an envelope directly from womworld Nokia. I’m now wondering what can be inside? It’s pretty light and small, so surely it is not a new device, a shame I know, but let’s open it

So inside there is an invitation card and says:

Dear David,

You are cordially invited to the Ovi Daily App “Must Have App of the Year” virtual awards 2009. The announcement will be made at blog.ovi.com/dailyapp in january 2010

Please find enclosed some sample applications for your consideration. The ballots open on december 14th 2009 and you will have just seven days to cast your votes in the corresponding categories.

Please watch the video embedded here for further information: blogs.nokia.com/dailyapp/appawards

May the best app win!

(QR code include)

Also, included inside the envelope there is this ultra cool USB stick which includes 6 apps that I will check out very soon. The apps are the following:

1. Fring

2. Nimbuzz

3. Nokia Barcode Reader

4. Touch Note

5. Tweets

6. World Mate

So now, in the following week I’m going to check these apps and then I will cast my vote. Exciting, I know. Keep an eye for more details on the next days! Meanwhile you may check some apps at the Ovi store and visit the Daily App Awards site to cast your own vote!

David CAstro

ps. wondering what does the QR code says?

“Why are you messing around with QR codes? You should be voting!”

Of course!

This time last year i moved my personal blog from google sites to worldpress with the help of my now good friend matthew, before this well oiled phone reviewing machine that you see here to day, CJ’s Nokia Blog was known as “Nokia E65 and S60v3 Downloads”  and then “Carlton E65″ i know it was not the  best names ever but it was the best that i could have think of at the time, moving on after 2 to 3 weeks at google sites and no feed back what so ever, i sent an email to a youtuber that did a show called the “nokia daily news”  and with a few emails and a video CJsNB was on the map but if it wasn’t for you guys, the readers of CJsNB we would be here today, that being said David and I would like to say THANK  YOU to everyone that SUPPORTED us over the last 12 months and it will make us have happy if you continue supporting us.  Happy birthday CJ’s Nokia Blog and Merry Christmas to all of its readers

The allmighty N97 was released to serve as the Nokia flagship after two years with only one king: the N95 with all its variations from N95-1 to N95-6, but does it really deserve the title, or should be called N95-7 (along with the N96 and some other few phones)? Let’s review the reasons to get it, and reasons to avoid it.

Reasons to give some love to the N97.

I can still remember, it was a cool night when I was sitting on my bed with my old and trusty laptop and I was reading a nokia forum where people were making a poll of what features would you like to see on your dream Nseries phone. People where asking for a qwerty, they were asking for a touchscreen, camera cover, they were asking for many other nonsense stuff. The perfect Nseries was on it’s way. The very day they announced the N97 I was so excited. I can remember it was a December night and I was at my bed watching the phone I had always been dreaming of.

The N97 has the perfect form factor. It has a big touchscreen which you can use it with your fingers, or the handwriting recognition with a stylus, or if you prefer the oldschool you can always use the hardware keypad and buttons. You can leave it at the table while watching a video on the screen and the screen will tilt at a very confortable angle.

Also the keypad is excellent; I have learned to write on it pretty fast. You can hear and feel the keys clicking under your fingers and I find it so satisfactory, and very joyful to use. Despite people saying that the Dpad should be on the right hand, I have found that it is perfectly placed for gaming. Remember the NES dpad? It was on your left hand. The other day I installed a NES emulator and hooked the N97 to the TV and played all the day. I went 20 years back in time.

Another thing that I enjoy with my N97 is the camera. Let’s forget a bit that the cover will actually harm it instead of protecting it (we will get there soon). It takes the most beautiful pictures I have seen on a Nseries (I haven’t tested the N86 . But really, it is a big improvement from the N95 and the N82. The dual led flash are really helpful on dark environments. Videos are crisp and clear. The only downfall here is that the videos have low volume when recorded, might be because the mic is under the keypad, so recording with the slider open might help.

The phone itself looks awesome. Mine is white, and it just looks very classy. The steel bezel delivers all that bling bling we all need. The big screen is just beautiful, and it is a pleasure to watch videos or pictures on it. Even watching the homescreen is a joy. I have caught myself many times unlocking the phone just to see that pretty screen.

Top Reasons the run and hide from the N97
The flagship is supposed to have the best of the best, the elite phone. Very exclusive and, for sure, very powerful. But as much as I try to get a reason to name it flagship I just can’t. The screen is big sure, the keyboard is handy and the form factor is something fresh, but I just can’t see a reason for such title and the heavy price tag. Almost every feature, every specification that the N97 has, has been used the two last years on different models.

Let’s name a few, dual led flash has been on the N96 since one year, the 5 MPX camera has been in the line since the Mr N95. The ARM11 processor is used by the 5800 and they are now clocked at the same speed. The GPS is also present from two years ago. The N97 has only 128 MB RAM. So I have to conclude that the qwerty, 3.5” touchscreen, compass and the 32GB of memory are the really expensive stuff here, because now I’m sure that Nokia had a drawer full of 128MB RAM chips and had to find a way to rid off them. With this amount of RAM is almost impossible to multitask properly. What were they thinking? Where they trying to copy the non multitasking fruit phone?

The N97 is overall a very solid phone, but has a really serious design defect. The camera cover has been reported to scratch the glass (mine does). So we have a device that will hurt itself just as a mental patient. These scratches will cause the flash to flood the pictures, so you will end with one side of the picture with a white cloud when using the flash. So if you are a big picture fan, this a good reason not to get the N97 right away, unless nokia fixes it.

Another thing that I would like to point out is that the N97 is not a phone, it’s a hive full of bugs. Some are annoying, like when I try to zoom in a picture at the gallery, the app will go to the background and take you to the homescreen. Some widgets would stop working just because. The transitions (theme effects) would turn off by themselves. And sometimes when receiving a call the phone would freeze, giving no option but remove the battery. Once I was watching my phone directly while it was sitting at the table, it was a touching moment between my little device and me, and then suddenly without me doing anything, the Nokia logo comes up, and the phone restarts itself, it was just awkward.

can you hear the bugs buzzing??

We all know that Nokia will release firmware updates very soon, ceasing the existence of such bugs. My inner nokia fanboy tells me that the N97 will be an awesome device in one or two months after some updates and that RAM shortage will be a past thing, Im sure Nokia will do wonders with 128MB in the future, I know we are before the next N95; but my common sense says that two months is an eternity in “gadgetical” years. Hell, nokia will surely release 4 new models in that time, 5530, N900, N97 mini and the E72 are on their way. That makes 4 devices born in the time they make one flagship show all what it can do. Dont get me wrong, the N97 is completely usable, but those random bugs are a big annoying issue.

Get or not?
So finally we can conclude that the N97 is a great device, it has everything you would need in a gadget. But I don’t think there is a good reason to rush out and buy it right away, at least not yet, unless you are digging the form factor which i awesome on its own.  It will be a month or so when they release a killing firmware that will make it work 100% flawlessly and deliver awesome features, by then the N97 price will drop and you will be able to get it cheaper than the actual hive nokia sells for a flagship. Just wait and see.

But if you ask me if I love my N97, I strangely would say YES!

David Castro

ps. many thanks to WOM World for taking me into account in the trial a nokia program! THANKS!