[pensans]

About to buy the n97, and after reading about all the problems, was just wondering is anyone actually really happy with it? I'd like to hear both sides!

[mpierce]

Everyday, I'm beginning to love it more.

It is a superb phone for what it is and if you sort it out by setting it up correctly you'll really like it.

Read all the tips and tricks and get as many apps off C: and onto mass memory as you can. Set your messaging up before you use it to use E: drive (mass memory).

The firmware is still very much early days as this is version 11x and the N95 is on version 30x. It'll just get better as Nokia releases more fixes. IMHO, Nokia probably released the phone too early but you can't really **bleep** if you're an early adopter and you want the slick looks, operability, etc.

[au_n97_user]

You can read about happy people here /discussions/board/message?board.id=smartphones&thread.id=149719

Including me - very ahppy with it.  Lovely phone.

Message Edited by au_n97_user on 02-Aug-2009 12:02 PM

[pensans]

Good to hear all that. I guess the issues here are a small minority taking into account the total number of n97 users. I currently have an n96 and was terrified when I first came here and saw all the issues, but thankfully I have had very few problems with it, and the ones I have had were very easily sorted with advice from here. Definitely looking to upgrade to the n97, I have had a play with one and it looks great

[au_n97_user]

In my case - with an unbranded phone - the very first thing I did, even before putting a SIM in it, was to upgrade the firmware (result of reading these forums!  LOL).

Also as a result of reading the forums, I have never press ON the camera cover, I flick it across using my nail.

The only bug I have is the one where the screen doesn't always refresh after tapping the Messages icon on the Menu screen. 

So yes, I am VERY happy.

Always remember that on Forums such as these you really don't hear from the happy users - they have no need to come to forums, so they don't.  People like Radical and I and a few others whose names I  can't remember how to spell right now - oh well, I guess we just like Forums, so we come anyway!

[sapporobaby]

All the posts here are spot on, and very insightful. Take note about putting pressure on the lens protector. This will keep you scratch free. Many of the people here, this is my opinion only, have the scratches because of putting pressure on the lens protector to get it to slide. I have never put pressure on it and have gently slid it open and I remain scratch free. 

One thing to consider is your needs. This phone is not for everyone. It does many things well, but what it fails at, it fails miserably. No one phone does it all. With this in mind before hand, you are armed with all the info you need. Luckily I work for the govt. and part of my job is testing new devices for rollout. I looked at the iPhone and N97. I will not give you my opinion but I encourage you to go to your local shop and play with both and see which one makes you happy. Also remember, there are compromises built into every device. The key is to seeing if you can live with this.

Enjoy..... 

[roz_n97]

I think it's a great piece of kit, but it's still early days. Yes there are a lot of bugs (which some see and many don't), and some design "challenges" as mentioned above. I haven't got any of the bugs talked about on the forum except for my WLAN connection (ie. it won't after I upgraded to v11 firmware) but I seem to be the only one - go figure? I'm only glad I'm pretty IT literate, or it may have gone back by now...

As above, best thing is to go and try, and remember the the iPhone 3Gs is not without issues.

[musiclover08]

I would recommend it without a delay. It really is an amazing phone, I've had mine for about a week and everyday I learn something new with it. Bear in mind, this phone can do many things and fail at many things too. Think of it as a family sedan. It does things decently giving you good fuel economy but take it offroad and it just fails miserably. However, there are reviews which uplift the phone and ones which crush the phone so you probably will have to play with it. There are problems though with it so you will have to judge for yourself if they are things that you can live with until the next FW is released.

I found the screen easy to use although it seems that the screen cover (that plastic sheet that protects from scratches) is liable to marks even when using the stylus so a screen protector is highly advised. In comparison with the iPhone, you have to remember that it also does some things well and some that it fails at but N97 FTW.

Oh one thing that you should look at is a replacement of that back cover. One MAJOR flaw in the N97 is that it feels like you are gonna break it everytime you open it.

Overall though, its something that is amazing to hold. That slider will make your friends go ooooo when they first see it

[phatdumi]

I am happy with the phone but maybe it's because am a very patcient man. One of my pals took his back and has gone iphone, but if you don't mind a few bugs here and there and enjoy trouble shooting then I'd say go for it. It is a lovely phone which we will get to fully enjoy round about the third firmware release (I think )

[matt_t]

I am happy with my N97. 

I originally bought mine a couple weeks back so it was an early handset and after a few days, it started playing up.  My dealer exchanged it and the first thing I did was to update the firmware and run the Nokia software updates the handset informed me of.  I had been fine ever since.  I was just unlucky with the first handset.

I had an iPhone before the N97 and I got so fed up with the restrictions Apple placed on the device I couldn't stand it any longer so got rid of it.

It is great being able to do all the basic stuff again, as well as the more adanced things that my iPhone couldn't do.  The build is very good, the handset feels very solid, especially the slide out keyboard which I love.  A keyboard on a touch screen is too restrictive.

Symbian2 is being released later this year apparently, and the N97 is compatible (apparently) with it so we have a whole new OS to look forward to as well!

[cvandend]

I was not sure about the N97 when I got it. I had an N78 which I really liked. After the July update I started really liking it. Now I wouldnt trade it for any other phone. Dont get me wrong, I like the iPod Touch but there is something evil with the iPhone and those crazy contracts that you have to agree to just to get one. I'm keeping my N97.

[mdoan300]

Happy? Yes. Really happy? No. The first 24 hours of ownership for me was a pretty sour experience.

Before you go out and buy one, be sure to learn the alternate way to do a hard reset. The dialer is software driven and if you need to do a hard reset because of firmware lockup/hang [on boot up], then you'll be up the creek w/o a paddle.

Overall, the N97 is a substantial improvement over the N95 8GB, especially for internet browsing and I use my phone primarily for phone calls (obviously), internet browsing, and taking pictures. The internet browsing experience is top notch... fast, plenty of screen, and QWERTY keyboard -- like a mini-laptop.

The camera is as good as the N95 8GB, but the flash may wash out the left side of an image. Last night was the first time I had encountered this phenomena and I certainly hope this will corrected in firmware update. I have not encountered the lens scratch issue... yet.

The GPS navigation is very handy, but unless it has a clear line of sight to the sky (via windshield cradle or passenger hands), it loses GPS signal fairly easy; I just can't leave it sitting on my center armrest cupholder and go by voice guidance if I am in a hurry.

If Nokia is really paying attention to this board, then the things I would improve:

1- firmware stability -- first and foremost, this is a phone and it needs to be a reliable one at that

2- ui -- the user interface does not have to be glitzy and glamorous like the iphone, but it can still be consistent and touch-friendly; requiring a stylus or fingernail to scroll a list is not exactly touch-friendly

3- power button -- if pulling the battery to powercycle hung firmware is to expected as a normal occurrence (for me, it's once every couple of weeks), then it would be nice if the power button actually cuts power; when Windows on my Dell laptop hangs, then holding down the power button will eventually cut power 

And, personally, if this is going to be SOP for Nokia, then I would offer a limited number of cost + small profit margin "pre-production" phones to real customers all around the world as a customer beta test program; maybe slap some logging software that automatically sends "anonymous" statistics/feedback/diagnostics/debug-dumps back to Nokia for analysis. Then, once the firmware build is deemed stable, release a production firmware update to those customers and start releasing the phones for retail sale. If I had to pay full retail price to ultimately end up a beta tester, then I would not be happy camper.

///Michael

[aritra39]

Hi!

Today is my 4th day with my new n97..

Previously, I use 3200 and still use it as a backup just incase my n97 goes wrong.

Overall, I'm happy with the phone except for the casing I guess. Whenever I try to switch my SIM card to another phone, I need to open the casing with this terrible thought in my mind - afraid of breaking it... *gasp*

Talk about being paranoid.

Anyway, phone navigation is smooth since you can just tap tap around the screen (and I've accidentally sent blank sms - twice! to my friends)

Speaker working just fine And the battery suprisingly last longer than I thought~

[mariachi4]

Im really disappointed in the N97.

Bad:

- The side of the touchscreen squeek after many presses

- Software (even at v11) hangs a lot.

- Earpiece speaker will make blown out sound when someone is talking on the other side. The voice is too sharp.

Even lower the volume down wont help.

- Very bad GPS signal with maps 3.0

- The compass is really a gimmick so far, it doesnt work all the time.

- The UI is slow and sluggish, touchscreen doesnt respond very well.

- When phone is on standby (black screen) and you flip out the keyboard, it takes forever before you see any backlight and the horizontal orientation.

- Camera lens scratch (design fault)

- Pictures in dark with flash is very bad, the left side will show some white wash out color. Doesnt help when you clean the flash and camera lens. Probably a design fault as well.

 - When you have custom ringtones assigned to a contact, sometimes it will ring the nokia tune instead.

- Too little RAM and too little Phone memory. Why didnt nokia use some of the 32GB to fill the phone memory.

- Sometimes the camera wont start when you flip open the lens cover.

- The Alarm will go off 5-10 minutes later than programmed.

- Speakers, just so medicore.

- And many more bugs.

Good:

- I like the keyboard

- The music through earpiece is acceptable.

I doubt Nokia will address all the bugs that are mentioned by all users, if Nokia could address all the bugs, new bugs will occur, before this will happen, we are already 10 light years furthur.

Anyways, nokia n97 is the worst phone i haver ever bought in my life!

Message Edited by mariachi4 on 03-Aug-2009 03:52 AM

[n97kid]

Say Whaa.......Happyyy.....I am Hell Happy it.....Its da most awesomeee phone I have Eva seen....Look there are a few bugs...So big deal............The new Firmware will fix them

[parinjay]

I came back to the Nokia family when I bought my E71 last year after a gap of 5-6 years my last Nokia phones before that were the 6100 & 6600, what a great phone it turned out to be, I rated it 9 out of 10. Then I saw the N97 specs and just got plain greedy, great specs, great looks, Nokia phone that too the FLAGSHIP and I went for it, June24th!!! And what a lemon it has turned out to be.....

It is a great phone with great specs but its just too buggy. I have updated to the latest version of the software and the feedback is post this upgrade.......

1. When I answer a call using the answer or unlock swipes when the phone is locked for a while, it will hang. It answers the call, but then it doesn't respond to anything. I can't hang up, I can't do anything except take the battery out and restart. Infact I have taken out the battery so many time that the back cover is all loose & squeaky. The fancy slide keylock doesn't work too well either, the time on it is usually not updated so if you locked it at 15:13 and then go back to the phone at 17:15 it still will show 15:13 and sometimes it just plain hangs, I have disabled it to make things simpler

2. The camera slide cover rattles, I usually have long conversations while being driven and the rattling of the slide cover is now a constant companion during conversations in moving vehicles

3. On normal to medium use days the battery stays almost full strength on Day-1 drops 2-3 bars Day-2 and when I hit the sack on the night of Day-2 with 2 bars still left on the battery display happy assuming that we will charge in the morning I don't wake up, I didn't go to happy land it just that the phone died during the night. Further research shows that thejourney from 2 bars to No bars is an unpredictable and sometimes very short journey so keep the charger handy and keep checking the battery levels, from a battery low beep it will usually die within 25-45 minutes

4. No memory, QuickOffice sent an update but alas the free space on my C drive is ZERO, the only additional software I use is Handy Safe and Handy Taskman rest is what the phone came with. The RAM also keeps dropping off to 5-10 mb every half a day so I then go close all applications and often restart to get better performance. Also once in a while the "low memory" flashes and the phone reboots.

5. If I change to landscape and slide open the slider to use the qwerty key board without giving phone sensor time to reorient properly we are at hangsville again

6. Camera & Video, I was underwhelmed by the quality, though in all fairness I think I got carried away by the Carl Ziess stuff and my expectations were just too high so we can strike this off as a crib rather than a complaint

7. The key board is just not a patch on the E71 the keypads don't have adequate feedback and often your enter the alphabet too many times or not at all, also the slider has some free play already wonder what happens 12 months later

8. The phone is a little bit of a prima dona and often reboots and sometimes shuts off without any command or word from the master (sometimes I wonder who the master is???). Friends and Colleagues have many a time come back to me saying that my phone was not reachable so now I look at the phone every 5 minutes just to make sure it on!!!!

9. Another comment that is in the category of a crib rather than a complaint is the touch interface, so very clunky the HTCs run rings around it forget the iPhone

10. I did send Nokia a email listing out my issues as above and got such a kiss-off email that I didn't even consider a response. As a last resort I went to the Nokia Store and asked them if the issues were specific to my N97 or generic, I was happy (misery loves company I guess) to know that a large % of N97s suffer from these issues. Finally I asked them the buy back price and I was informed that my 40 day old phone bought for 35k (Indian rupees) was now worth 20K WOW!!! or should I say OUCH!!! the saving grace is that the E71 is for 19.5K so I could exchange and go back to the E71 immediately, unfortunately my better half is not aligned to this logical end to my N97 adventure so it continues....

[roz_n97]

It's just so weird that some people have issues and others don't. I've got none of the problems above other than weird battery meter, but no-one else seems to have my wlan issues!
But as before, I do love it (just wish it all worked)

[mdoan300]

---

aritra39 wrote:

Overall, I'm happy with the phone except for the casing I guess. Whenever I try to switch my SIM card to another phone, I need to open the casing with this terrible thought in my mind - afraid of breaking it... *gasp*

Talk about being paranoid.

---

I was apprehensive like you at first, but when you remove the battery as many times as I have to powercycle a hung phone, then it's no longer a big deal. I'm actually afraid that my battery cover will stop staying on now, LOL.

///Michael

[thejohnny]

 Like mpiece said... Is a superb phone but the soft is still too young, but is something that can be fixed and is not an absolute problem as you can find workarounds to most of the soft issues it has, at least till nokia fixes them.

I must admit that I am very happy with my n97

[radical24]

i love my phone, and every day i grow more and more found of it, especially the qwerty and how easy it is to work on it and write long notes, emails, papers and such. Consistently the only down fall of this beautiful device is the completely LACK OF RAM !!!!!!!!! To the point where it is shameful that a leading manufacturer in the world would sell short their own flagship device. 

other than that i love the phone despite the very immature software and inability to remove certain embedded apps

the rest is simply brilliant.