N97 vs N97 Mini

I had the opportunity to compare two of Nokia’s current flagship phones recently, namely the N97 and the N97 Mini. The N97 was launched first followed closely by the N97 Mini. Since there are already quite a few comparisons done on these two phones, I will attempt to concentrate more on the subjective aspects rather than the numbers.

As the name suggests, the Mini is the smaller of the two phones. In my opinion, the smaller size makes the Mini look sleeker and classier than its bigger brother. The Mini is also lighter at 138g instead of 150g. However, I felt that the N97 felt better in my hand than the Mini did. I constantly felt as though I might lose grip and drop the Mini whereas the N97 felt more secure. The bigger N97 also has a bigger screen at 3.5” instead of 3.2”. Again it may not sound like a lot but it does make a difference especially if you have middle aged eyesight.

The next difference you will notice is the keyboard. While the N97 has a D-pad, the Mini makes do with 4 arrow keys. I must say this is not as intuitive as the D-pad and takes a bit a getting used to.

Around the back of the phone, the first thing you will notice is the Mini has a metal battery cover while the N97 makes do with plastic. This again gives the Mini a classier feel and look. One omission on the back of the Mini is a camera lens cover. While some may say that like a cover to protect the lens, I personally don’t see much point in that and this may be due to the way I normally carry my phone around. Looking at it from another perspective, it avoids the N97 scratched camera lens problem.

Opening the battery cover reveals a smaller battery in the Mini at 1200mAh hours instead of 1500mAh in the N97. This did not result in a perceivable difference in the battery life with both phones lasting around 2 days per charge with moderate use. Both phones easily lasted 3 days over a quiet weekend.

Apart from the physical differences, the only other major difference between the two phones is the amount of memory. While the N97 has 32gb of internal memory, the Mini makes do with only 8gb. This may be a little low for users who like to store plenty of media files on their phones. However, in return, the Mini does get double the ram of the N97 at 256mb against the 128mb in the N97. This is pretty much the extent of the differences between the two phones. There is the small issue of the FM transmitter being omitted from the Mini, but I don’t think this is going to be a deal breaker for most.

I prefer the smaller size and feel of the Mini. The bigger screen and extra storage on the N97 is nice. In everyday use, the two phones are very similar as you would expect. They perform all the normal phone functions very competently. When it came to the smartphone functions, I expected dramatic differences in performance due to the differences in the ram but I did not notice any in normal use. The N97 match the Mini for speed and response in normal use. The only time I managed to coax the N97 into freezing momentarily was when I was browsing using Opera 10 Beta while running Skype, Facebook in the background. It froze for around 5 seconds following an out of memory warning. This could potentially be a problem for heavy users who may find the N97 freezing regularly as it runs out of memory.

In the time I ran the phones side by side, both worked as well as I would have expected and neither let me down at any stage. The only episodes were due to slow satellite fix but this is partly due to my refusal to enable agps and pay network data charges to use navigation. I did notice that the Mini was better in this respect and would get a fix noticeably quicker and was able to hold onto the satellite signal better as well.

In conclusion, if I had to give one back, it would be have to be the N97. I feel the Mini suits me better. I prefer the smaller size and extra ram over storage, not to mention the cheaper purchase price. However, if I had been 20 years younger and play plenty of music and take plenty of photos, I would probably have picked the N97 instead.

Nokia Notification - I'm glad it's back

A beta version of Nokia Notification was released on betalabs today. I have been using this all of 10 minutes on an N97 and I like it and it is definitely a keeper. It revives a feature that used to be on some of the older S40 phones where you can see the details of the missed call or sms before you open it. Why this feature was removed from the latest smartphones confounds me.

The beta installs to the phone memory and takes up around 221kb, which isn't too bad. I presume the commercial release will give have the option to install to mass storage/memory card.

To the left, you see a small box with a counter showing you how many events you've missed and to the right you have 2 rows displaying the 2 latest missed events, who they were from and time. If you have more than 2 missed items, you have to tap to see the rest. You also have the option to delete items before you read them. Very nice for spam.

All in all, it is a very nice utility to have and one that should find it's way into firmware updates and new models.

Click on this link to download and try it out for yourself.

Navigation on your Nokia for free?

Nokia recently made the unprecedented move of making navigation free forever on some of their current handsets. Their marketing department came up with the slogan "Navigation on your Nokia. For free. Forever." emblazoned across their website with a list of compatible devices in very small and grey print at the moment of the page.

I presume they expected mobile phone users around the world to flock to phone shops to purchase the compatible handsets. While this may have happened to a certain extent, there was also a backlash in the form of owners of older Nokia handsets logging onto forums and complaining about being forgotten by Nokia. Some of these people did not read the fine print and were genuinely agrieved when they went to the Nokia website only to find that they could not download the free version because their phone were not supported.

The current list of compatible handsets are as follows:

1. X6 - S60 5th Ed
   
2. N97 Mini - S60 5th Ed
   
3. N97 - S60 5th Ed
   
4. E72 - S60 3rd Ed FP2
   
5. E55 - S60 3rd Ed FP2
   
6. E52 - S60 3rd Ed FP2
   
7. 6730 Classic - S60 3rd Ed FP2
   
8. 6710 Navigator - S60 3rd Ed FP2
9. 5800XM - S60 5th Ed
   
10. 5800 Navigation Edition - S60 5th Ed
11. 5230 - S60 5th Ed
    
12. N86 - S60 3Ed FP2
    
13. E71 - S60 3rd Ed FP1
    
14. E66 - S60 3rd Ed FP1

Indications are that no more S60 3rd Ed FP1 phones will be supported but the jury is still out on FP2 phones. We will just have to wait and see.

Have Nokia done anything wrong? No, not really because they always stated the list of compatible devices, albeit in fine print. It was not possible for them to anticipate the number of people who do not read the small print. Nevertheless, some of these people were genuinely agrieved, with some thinking they were duped by crafty advertising.

In addition to making navigation free for some phones, Nokia also substantially reduced the price of navigation licenses. The navigation license for the whole of europe is now only €9.99 for the year and €2.99 for a month.

Overall, I think it was a very positive development from Nokia although they could have been a little more forthright and put everything in big print. The marketing department needs a rap on the knuckles.

Disassembling Motorola Startac 130

I gave my old mobile phone collection a spring clean recently to see if there is anything I could throw out to make room for a few recent acquisitions. As usual, every single one of them had a sentimental value so I decided to hold onto all of them again and revisit the issue in 12 months time.

While going thought the collection, I noticed that the keypad on my old, otherwise mint condition Motorola Startac 130 was peeling revealing clear plastic underneath. After weeks of ringing, emailing and googling I resigned myself to the fact that parts were no longer available for this phone and ended purchasing one on eBay to be stripped for parts.

Now that I had the parts I had to disassemble the phone. I was unable to find any proper disassembly instructions for this phone on the internet. I had to bite the bullet and proceeded to carefully take the sacrificial phone apart, knowing that if I did break anything, it would not be the end of the world. Now that I have taken it apart, I feel I need to share this experience so others in my position can benefit from it.

The procedure for disassembling the Startac 130 is as follows:

1. Remove the sim card cradle completely.
2. Retract the antenna and you should see a slot separated by the shaft of the antenna in the middle, then using a 2 pronged (forked) tool, unscrew the base of the antenna. I happened to have a forked head in my screw driver set which was perfect for the job. Now completely remove the antenna.
3. Next step is the tricky bit because you probably need 3 hands to pull it off. There are two holes on either side of the port at the base of the phone. With the keypad facing down, you need to insert a small screwdriver into both holes and push the tab inside downwards towards the keypad. At the same time you need to press down hard on the rear cover either side of the charging contact points and slide the rear cover of the phone (the side with the gold M) upwards as well towards the antenna. This should release the rear cover. You can now take a deep breath as that was the hard part.
4. You should now be looking at one of the two boards in the phone. Before you can remove them, you need to undo the clip that holds down the ribbon cable at the top of the phone.
   
5. Once the cable is unclipped, you may now carefully pry the two boards out at the same time. You will notice that you need to slide is upwards as it comes out of the phone casing. Take care not to dislodge the antenna tube casing.
6. Once out, you can now see the underside of the keypad.
7. You should now also be able to see both boards in the phone. They are held together by a connector which you can just pull apart gently like a press stud.

This pretty much gives you access to every bit of the phone. Reassembly is the same process in reverse. This procedure worked for me but follow it at your own risk.