UPDATE: On third day use, I kept the charger plugged in for most of the day. Odd, but battery life improved. It’s been 9 hours and I’m still on full bar. It is apparent therefore that the drain really comes in when you start doing wireless Internet and other such functions apart from calls and text. I checked other websites and they confirm the same thing as well — battery life is significantly less, but if all you do is SMS and call, you’ll get by on a single charge.
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I was able to borrow a Nokia N97 mini for the weekend. I’ve been using it for two and a half days. Despite being a new release, the phone suffers from two things which I think is integral to day to day use — weak battery life and a noticeably weaker signal similar to the E71.
Read on for the full hands on.
You definitely won’t get a full 24 hour charge on this one, so please take a charger along. On casual use I got myself about 12 hours of juice before it died. Too bad as its predecessor, the N97 has extremely good battery life.
I’ve also attached some photo comparisons with the Nokia XpressMusic 5530. As you can see from the photos, the N97 mini is about the same size as the former. I think Nokia did a good job with the real estate, especially the keyboard, although there is a disadvantage to left handed kids like me who prefer the space button on the left. I also find the location of the close parenthesis and the colon button too far away — it’s slightly harder to make smileys on the keyboard, but hey that’s pushing meticulousness against the wall. 🙂
What’s to like — the size. It’s small and pocketable but it doesn’t feel cramped. The screen is big, which is very much appreciated when browsing the Internet. I mean, I guess this is what the N97 mini is all about. Slightly cheaper, smaller with some features trimmed down.
Verdict
The N97 mini was obviously designed as a more portable N97. You can get all your productivity done without that bulk in your pocket. Taking a charger or a spare battery with you is a must as you’ll be getting at most 10-12 hours on a full charge. The charger itself isn’t the typical round charger (it’s a flat USB type one), so you’re really going to have slight difficulties finding another Nokia user with the same type of charger.
The Nokia N97 mini holds a suggested retail price of PHP 28,900.00
3 replies on “Hands on with the Nokia N97 mini (PHP 28,900.00)”
The n97 looks like a really cool phone, thanks for the review.
Hi, I’m planning to buy this phone. Can you tell me the music quality of this phone camparing to Nokia 5800? Thanks!
Your comments on the phone are very accurate. Indeed, the battery could store energy much longer, especially needed for this type of phones. Besides it’s a very good mobile phone. Thanks for the review!