Today is finally the day that I send off my N97 to be recycled. It is not a sad day, because I plain and simply could not get on with it.
First off is the hardware. When I first grasped hold of an N97 in a Vodafone shop, the immediate reaction was “Wow, it’s much smaller than it looks in the photo’s”. This is still true to a certain extent in my mind. When it is sat on the desk next to me, it still looks quite small. It’s only when you get it in hand, you realise that in fact it’s just slightly too large to to get to all area’s of the touchscreen with your thumb, using it only one handed.
This is where the problems started for me. I thought that the N97 was going to be a one handed device when closed, and a two handed device when open. The best of both worlds, so to speak. It’s not. Although, if you have massive Shrek like hands, you might well get on ok.
Next up, build quality.
Opening the slide mechanism with a satisfying thud, then snapping it shut with a resounding smooth finish exudes the amount of time and love the engineers put into into this hinge system. Unfortunately, they forgot to sort out a few other area’s. Maybe Nokia had put a ban on overtime. The back cover is horribly flimsy bargin bucket plastic. It bends when you are trying to take it off, and snaps back into place with the a noise which sounds like you have broken it. What’s more, when you finally do get the back cover securely mounted, you’ll think it’s not. This back cover, squeaks like a mouse begging for mercy, when caught by a cat. Surely I can’t have fitted the cover properly. You take it off, re-seat it, numerous times before you realise that’s just how it is. Woeful.
I’m sure everyone has heard about the camera shutter problems, with it scratching the surface of the camera, so I don’t need to go into details here. Also the GPS problems that almost all of the early run of N97′s suffered from. Both of these problems will see your N97 be sent back to Nokia for updated units to be retro-fitted. Whilst some may say, this is good on Nokia to offer this support, I’ll say, both of these problems should have been picked up in testing BEFORE the device was released onto the public.
There are many more area’s of the hardware that I could find fault with, such as the mushy menu button, the pathetic speakers, the unresponsive screen…. I could go on, but to keep my sanity, I won’t. Don’t even get me started on the whole heap of awfulness that is Symbian S60 5th Edition, in it’s current guise with some menu’s needing double taps, and other not! Add to this list, the menu inconsistencies, the lack of space on the C: drive, the minuscule amount of RAM memory, the keylock bug, the list goes on.
So there we have it. The N97 will be departing this household today, and I will gladly wave it off.
I just feel sorry for the poor person who will buy it next. Hopefully they will read this first.
Thank heavens for the N86.
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