After a full week using my new Nokia N97, I can officially say that it’s quite a great phone. Mind you, it’s still far from perfect, but the experience in itself was more rewarding than when I got the iPhone. It has all the features that you can think of and none of the awful limitations of the iPhone. This is a list of pros and cons that I found when using the device.

• Battery life, compared to the iPhone is great. I can run the phone for about 2 days of heavy use without charging, so that is definately a big plus. Although in comparison, that battery diddnt last as much as it used to do on my Nokia N95.
• The phone suffers a bit due to the underpowered CPU and/or poor graphics rendering. The user interface animations are sluggish and the graphics in the games are poorly antialiased. This is a feature that should be addressed in a future version of this phone. This however doesn’t make the phone slow or unresponsive, it’s just the animations that are not so good to look at. It probably needs a RAM increase as well.
• The device operating system feels a bit unfinished. It appears like no (or just little) customisation has been done to port the Symbian Operating System to a touch interface. It also still has a scroll bar where-as, most phones have kinetic scrolling, which is missing in this phone. (Kinetic scrolling has been recently added thanks to a software upgrade.
  
• There is a MAJOR lack of widgets. One of the main features that is being advertised on the phone is the ability to customise your home screen with widgets like weather, email, Facebook etc… however these are basically the only ones available. Nokia really should have done much better and release more widgets to increase the customisability of the home screen. – I was quite disappointed with this one.
• The keyboard is awesome, I managed to get used to it in a few days. It’s very quick and responsive, and perfect for people with larger fingers since the keys are well spaced apart. However it does have a very weird space bar position (you can get used to this easily though) and I seriously miss a right side shift button. Also, inserting symbols is not as easy since you have to either keep the character switch button pressed all the time, or else double tap it for a “caps lock” effect. There is also a SYM button that brings up an on screen character map, however this one allows you to only select one character at a time, meaning if you want to write several symbols at once (say… :-) ) you would have to use a combination like this (SYM button + Tap : on screen, SYM button + Tap – on screen, SYM button + Tap ) on screen) – which is way too long. If a feature to allow you to tap multiple symbols at once exists. I haven’t found it yet.
• Another issue I have with the keyboard is with the Fullstop button. The button displays a fullstop symbol and a comma on top of it. This usually means that a press of this button will print a fullstop, and a Shift + button press will display the charachter on top (which is a comma) – on this phone, this is not the case, and the buttons are reversed, and the symbol at the bottom is actually printed on screen with a shift + button press. I don’t know if its a “feature” or a bug – (i hate it like this!) – This issue has been fixed with the release of the Firmware Update 12.2.024
• Menu Double click – some items in the menu require a double click… why? isn’t this quite useless?
• Email reading is not stellar. The software works well, its quick and very responsive, however I  believe that it’s not capable to read HTML email. most probably there might be an HTML capable email client for Symbian available, however I didn’t find one yet.
• App store is seriously lacking in applications. This is bound to improve on a daily or weekly basis. However for now, the applications available on the OVI store are very little, and years away from a great app store such as Apple’s. However on the plus side, you can find loads of applications on other sites simply by looking on Google.
  
• PC Synch is incredibly awesome using the OVI manager. It automatically synchronises the phone contacts, messages, music and photos automaticallly when you connect the device. very handy indeed and very nice interface.
• Maps 3.0 is a great application, expecially if you live in large countries. It has a great interface, and it also has information for travellers and also map overlays to pontpoint several touristic places, accomodation, services, transportation etc… but the maps for some smaller countries like Malta, it’s extremely bad. It’s not even close to the iPhone version. The zoom level for Malta is very low, and just gives you a slight idea where you might be located. This application however (unlike the iPhone) allows you to download the maps into the device, and therefore be able to use the map application offline, saving you loads of money while roaming.
• Camera, its absolutely awesome, its one of the best I’ve seen on a mobile phone. The level of detail is great and colours are nice and vivid. Not as vivid on night shots though where the colours looked a bit dull. (Examples below) I did notice however that with the Flash OFF feature, the LED lights still turn on for a few seconds. Some very helpful users at the N97 Geeks forum told me that most probably, the flash goes on for autofocus. However this defies the purpose of a flash off feature since this makes it unusable in situations where a flash photo is not permitted! There doesn’t seem to be an auto-focus off feature.

Click the image for the FULL photo

• On the phone I have 2 applications that I never plan to use JoikuSpot and Boingo that I never plan to use, however they seem to be “protected” and I can’t uninstall them from the phone. Why?
• Web browser on the phone is good, and it supports flash, however I found a browser called Digia @ Web which actually works a lot better than the default application (And it’s FREE). Same goes with the Photo viewer. There is a beta application which is downloadable from the Nokia beta labs which works a lot better than the default viewer.
• Most Nokia phones running the s60 Symbian OS can make use of the N-Gage gaming application, that usually works great. However yesterday I tried to install Age Of Empires on the N97. The installation went smooth and it successfully installed. However the game failed to load, and after a couple of tries and reboots, I gave up and uninstalled the game.
• Customisability is a feature that is completely absent from the iPhone. By downloading themes from loads of sites on the web, you can customise the appearance of the phone. The themes are able to change the appearance of the wallpapers, operating system icons, animations and more. there are tons of themes available. You can even customise the Nokia n97 to look like an iPhone.
• Screen is absolutely gorgeous, the quality is great and the colours are also very bright and vivid. This doesnt disappoint.
• Firmware updating is handled much better than the iPhone’s updating since it keeps all your settings, applications and files so you dont actually have to re-install all the software you have made on the device everytime you update it. This is absolutely great! – you are still advised to back up your data in case something goes wrong.
  

This is the end of the review for now. I plan to add and modify additional points to this post as we go along since new firmware updates might bring improvements to the phone’s usabiliy and more functions could be added or improved. Keep reading!

For some people, internet on the go is no longer a luxury. Business people and technology enthusiasts nowadays feel the need to be connected at all times. There are several phones that allow you to use normal internet features on the go, however the current top choices for a consumer are probably the iPhone and the Blackberry. Whilst being very distinct from each other, both the iPhone and the Blackberry, offer a great and reliable way to stay connected on the road.

The problem that a client faces when the need arises for this on-the-go internet connectivity is: Which of these devices should I buy? – It’s not an easy question because this depends entirely on your needs. This article is aimed to clear out any confusion between those devices so a consumer can make an informed decision.

For the purpose of this review, I’ll be comparing a Blackberry Curve 8900 Smartphone and an Apple iPhone 3G

Design :
The Blackberry looks more like a typical phone with a large 2.4” standard high quality screen and hardware QWERTY keyboard on the front and on the sides plus a nifty track ball style controller in the centre.

The iPhone is dominated by a huge 3.5” high quality touch screen and just one button at the bottom of the screen, and a couple of buttons on the sides.

Both devices are meticulously designed and both look and feel really good and solid. The major difference between the devices is the design and the way the user navigates through the interface. The blackberry offers a more standard button/track ball driven navigation whilst the iPhone is completely touch screen driven.

The data input/navigation of these two phones is probably one of the features that you would need to consider when trying to choose between those devices. Some people would prefer the hardware keyboard, whilst others prefer the more high tech approach of a soft, on screen keyboard. Personally, I prefer the hardware keypad, since once you get used to it, you can write emails and messages without even looking at the keyboard. On the other hand, typing on the on screen keyboard without looking is virtually impossible since there is no feel of a button being pressed and therefore you wouldn’t know if you are pressing a button or not.

User interface
Both devices offer a really neat and well designed user interface however on this front, most people probably feel that the iPhone’s interface is probably one of the best. The iPhone has a powerful internal graphics engine that gives it the ability to display an incredible level of detail previously impossible on a phone. The iPhone’s interface is incredibly simple to use, intuitive and looks very sleek and glossy with nice fading and sliding effects. No other phone so far has managed to replicate this type of interface. The blackberry interface on the other hand is far more professional looking and serious, but unfortunately has a slight learning curve. This approach would probably appeal more to the serious business users.

E-mail/Messaging
Both devices offer a great and reliable way to be able to send and receive email on the go. Both devices are perfectly capable of connecting to a multitude of email systems and online email services. This is however an area where the Blackberry absolutely rules the pack. The blackberry allows a user to connect to a Microsoft Exchange Environment and make use of most of the features usually available in an Exchange environment. The phone can synchronise to an Exchange corporate directory and also synchronises your personal schedule with your Microsoft Outlook. With the blackberry you can also open and make basic editing to Word and Excel files – which is definitely a very handy feature for a business oriented person..

Internet Navigation
Internet browsing is the top and most commendable feature of the iPhone. With its Safari web browser, the iPhone offers amazing web browsing capabilities, and is able to render all sorts of websites with very few problems. Since the iPhone has a much larger screen, it allows to a far better website visibility, and the orientation sensor also allows you to view the websites horizontally by tilting the phone sideways. It also allows you to zoom into the page for clearer visibility. On the other hand, the Blackberry does fail to load some websites, and also sometimes formatting the website incorrectly. It should be noted however that both phones do not support flash content. Both phones will fail to display flash animated content.

Connectivity
Both phones offer a vast range of connectivity options. Both offer USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. On a downside, both the the Blackberry and iPhone USB ports are not standard USB cables, so if you need to connect the phone on a USB connection, you would need to carry the original cable with you. Another note on Bluetooth, the iPhone’s Bluetooth cannot be used for data transport. It’s only good to use for audio headsets.

Expandability
Both phones are very flexible and allow for future updating and additions. Both offer an application store where a user is able to browse through a list of applications and purchase and download any applications that the user needs. The iPhone’s application store is huge, and the list of applications that are available for purchase is endless. The Blackberry version of the application store is still in its early stages, and therefore the list of applications is much smaller. This is however growing very rapidly, and will surely have a very large application database very soon.

Other features:
Along side the phone’s applications such as media player and GPS maps, the Blackberry also has a built in 3.2 MP photo/video camera with flash. The iPhone 3G only has a 2MP camera, with no flash, and no video recording options. The iPhone, also lacks MMS capabilities. (Video capture modes and MMS capabilities have now been introduced in the new iPhone 3Gs) A fact worth mentioning also is that the blackberry has longer battery life.

Conclusion:
As previously stated, it’s only a personal choice on which is the best device for you. I would recommend that when one is interested into purchasing one of the devices, one would go to his service provider to try out both phones and ask any questions you might have to the sales people. I’m sure they can ask you the right questions to help you make an educated purchase.