Nokia N97 : Photographs or Snapshots ?

The Nokia n97 had been the perfekt phone until i slid open the camera cover.

- quoted by a saddened me.

Formalities first, the Nokia N97 sports a 5 Megapixel cam that is capable of shooting in 2584×1938 res and has f/2.8 Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, autofocus, video (VGA@30fps, H.263/MPEG-4), dual LED flash, f/2.8, 5.4 mm focal length, and a useless 4× digital zoom.

Nokia has put great specs for it's cameras on the NSeries devices and our Nokia N97 is no exception. It has Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus and DVD quality video recording that puts Apple iPhone’s camera to sulk away in shame. And that's where it ends.

My initial impressions were high about the N97s camera, but that was because the N97 had a superbright screen that produces astounding pictures when compared to my n95. Viewing those pics on my PC gave me a taste of the actual situation.

Problem No.1:

Using the dual-LED flash at night is trouble. Most of the pics that i shot resulted in a yellowish-grey blur at the bottom-left corner of the screen. At first i thought it was my finger, but the next shot had it as well. "Dirt..?", I cleaned the lens with the cloth Nokia provided but the blur remained. A coupla shots later the blur dissapeared! Dunno what caused it, but the blogosphere has many cases of similar blurs appearing on the other N97s as well. It's been attributed to the flash. It seems that the closeness of the dual flash and the camera cover may be reflecting some of the LED light back onto the edges of the lens which results in the blur. This probably means that Nokia messed up the cam cover design.

Problem No.2:

The auto-focus on the n97 is fast. Way faster than the n95 but it isn't always reliable. Some of the pics that i took produced a different image from the one i was viewing when i pressed the shutter button. The difference in the images is the focus - I'd have focused on one object but the final pic is shown focusing on a different object.

Shown Here ==>
And like it's predecessor the 5800XM, the Nokia N97 does not have any problems taking pictures in low light - unless the flash comes into play. This picture was taken in pitch dark conditions.


Here are the pics of a Nokia N95 on the right and the N97 on the left:

Related topics:

Nokia N97: Soundwave

Nokia N97: Frustrations

Nokia N97: Eye candy

Nokia N97: Eye candy

For one, I'm impressed by how Nokia has managed to miss all the cool transition effects on this phone. For goodness sakes, they've even managed to get away without transitions on that "Swipe away the widgets" thing that they had been so laudable about. The swipe at best vanishes the widgets. They could have at least put in some of the transitions that came on the N78 with it's FP2 OS. The fact that they managed to add touch scrolling on the web browsers is an attempt. In my experience, it always ended up crashing my Opera Mini. GMail is another story.

Conclusion: The N97 video released by Nokia shows their dream - reality is totally different. This phone has ZERO eye candy.

Nokia N97: Frustrations

There are some things touchscreens won't provide. And that is the ease of use provided by shortcuts. Apps such as Opera Mini and the GMail app have been designed to make accessing the internet and email unbelievably easy. With numpad shortcuts most functions whether it be saving a bookmark or archiving email, they can be done within a moments thought. If I want to archive my mail my fingers automatically move to those shortcuts. On the N97 i would still be correcting my aim with the stylus at the puny buttons on the GMail app.

I still haven't found out the forward shortcut of Opera Mini for the N97.. Occasionally I get stuck at the search page because of this. Not to mention the odd cases of Opera suddenly going kaput when i flick my fingers to scroll through.

Another thing that i came across is the absence of the paste feature from the keyboard view.. Grrr.

Current state of mind: Frustrated!

Nokia N97: Soundwave

Anyone seen Transformers 2 ? That is one helluva film ! Soundwave was lookin' killer good! besides he also reminded me to put up a post on the N97s Music capabilities - so here it is.

External Speakers:
A google let me know that the N97 speakers didn't turn out to be a favorite amongst it's users and i could see why from my Trial piece, but i really think that you need to think twice before ganking those speakers. True that they are not the loudest(lower sound than n95). Or faithfull in sound reproduction(no bass,excellent treble). The thing is, those speakers aren't made for music playback - it's tuned for vocals, as in making calls on the loudspeaker. You don't need bass when you talk to someone unless your the frog with the baritone from The Frog And The Nightingale. Those speakers provide excellent output when you use them to hold calls. For instance you could hold a conference call while the phone is in QWERTY mode which allows you to lean back and relax or you could use it to hold a Video call. In both these situations you'll notice that the N97 does what it needs to do - provide a front facing VGA cam that doesn't require the phone to be propped up and crisp clear voice reproduction from the speakers which are directly facing you from both sides. This is as good as it needs to be.

Headphone Output (3.5mm):The headphone output from the N97 is impressive. It isn't exactly high-end if you're a audiophile but they were really good when compared with those from an N95 running the latest firmware. I used a pair of SHP 8500 Hi-Fidelity headphones for hearing a couple of tracks and the first thing that I noticed is the improved bass output, it's the deepest and fullest I've heard from a Handset. Even the SE Walkman phones never had one that was this rich. The tightness of the bass is comparable as well.


Verdict: The N97 audio output is beautfully done. The loudspeakers have an output that is just right for handling vocals during calls. And the output through the 3.5mm jack is lovely. Definitely the handset for all you audiophiles out there. Soundwave is gonna be proud! maybe he should consider transforming into an n97?

Nokia N97 : Photographs or Snapshots ?

Nokia N97: Frustrations

Nokia N97: Eye candy

Nokia N97 : First Take

I've just recieved my Nokia n97 from WOM world and boy was I in for a surprise. They packing was humoungous ! It looked like it could house a CPU or two. Eventually, after some serious plastic ripping and bubble bursting I reached The Box.drum roll ..

I'm not putting up the video showing me rip up the DHL plastic. But to keep you guys satisfied I've put up some other pics below..

Note to self: typing on the n97 is lovely!
Additional accessories include a 2nd gen and 3rd gen pin converter for the charger as well a velvety cloth for wiping the screen. The chromed stylus looks kewl!
It did take some pulling to get of the battery cover initially. And the MicroSD slot was a little too tight as well.
Charging the Nokia n97 lights up a white indicator LED. It also reminds you to unplug after charging. Very Eco-aware.
Beautifully designed and curved ergonomic body. We all love curves don't we ? =)Swipe left to unlock or right to answer. Easy as pie.

The coolest stylus of them all.


.. Love at first touch ... sigh


Related Posts:

Nokia N97 : Photographs or Snapshots ?

Nokia N97: Soundwave

Nokia N97: Frustrations

Nokia N97: Eye candy

Free themes: s60 5th edition

A Simple White theme for the Nokia 5800 and the Nokia n97 with a neat white background studded by black text . Makes your phone look smarter than the smartphone it is =)

Download this theme for s60 v5

Free themes: s60 v5

Nokia 5800 theme with an enigmatic Matrix Background.

Compatible phones include all s60 v5 phones in the market such as the Nokia 5800, Nokia N97, Nokia 5530.

Free Download s60 v5 theme

Web directories go mobile

Although the terms search engine and subject directory are used interchangeably they do not mean the same thing. A Web directory organizes Web sites by their subject, and is usually maintained by humans instead of software - this makes them more dynamic. The searcher looks at sites organized in a series of categories and menus. Web directories are usually much smaller than search engines' databases, since the sites are looked at by human eyes instead of by spiders. This sets up a limit at the number of pages that can be scanned per day while having a higher level of quality which is particularly useful for business web directory. There are two ways for sites to be included in a Web directory's listings; either the site owner can submit the site to the Web directory, or the directory's editor comes across the site and includes it by himself. Including your blog in a free web directory is a good way to increase traffic and PR. Examples are the very famous DMOZ, the yahoo directory, and BOTW. Almost everyone has a blog these days so i hope this post was of use to someone ..

The mobile web directories that are sprouting up these days are young so they lack in features but they are buding anyways.

BTW, i'm on the lookout for a co-blogger here so if you're interested do let me know.

Nokia browser on N95-1 is getting cranky

Of late the good 'ol built-in nokia browser on the Nokia N95-1 has started to act dumb(er). If i get an incoming call during a download usually it just holds the download if it's a short call. But now even for a missed call it shows an "Error" message. An incoming messgae while downloading causes the download to go on pause, withut resuming by itself. Eventually I have to resume it manualy. It seems the phone is losing it's multi-tasking badge by the minute..

Extracting conent from the www

As more and more information become available on the
WorldWideWeb, the tools for collecting, organizing, and sharing this digital
content become a lot more sophisticated than before.

Most institutions rely pretty heavily on internal as well as external data for decision-making processes for their businesses. While internal data ideally is well-formed and easily accessible, external data on the other hand may be found from different sources and more often requires precious time and effort to be gathered.

Data Extractor applications easily gathers and combines information from internal and external sources like databases and web pages which makes them a powerful and cost-effective service for data extraction. The resulting database can be imported into your own system, viewed in applications. One of the many ways to extract this content from cyberspace is to use a Web Content Extractor. I noticed one provided by Mozenda, a SaaS company. You could visit them to get full-service options.

On a side note, the Nokia N97 should be in by the end of this week, provided nothing untoward crops up.