nokia n91 review: the good and the bad
What makes me excited? Getting a new toy to play with. A shiny one. Even if it’s for just a few weeks.
A Nokia-sponsored program recently sent me a Nokia N91 to use for a few weeks. I’ve put it though it’s paces, and definitely had some opinions to share, good and bad.
The music player truly rocks. Let’s you enjoyably utilize all 4GB of music lovin’ this phone can provide. With all the "mp3 phones" out there, most fail as a truly usable device because they 1) don’t have enough storage and 2) don’t have a good player user interface and 3) are too difficult to sync with your tunes on a regular basis. If you’re gonna compete with an iPod, you gotta at least approach what’s made them so successful. That being said, using the N91 as a music player was a total pleasure. Easy, fast, and lots of syncing options… from USB, to windows media, even iTunes if you don’t mind using a trick or two.
Love me a phone with built-in WiFi. I hate paying for data… and here in Canada, there isn’t an affordable all-you-can-eat data plan like I had back in the states. But when I opened the great web browser for the first time, I found 11 WiFi networks available to use for Internet connectivity. Gotta love that. How nice would this be while out at coffee or waiting at an airport.
Since this rather hefty phone was delayed way beyond when it was intended to hit the market, it’s noticeably dated. The screen isn’t high res like most current N Series phones, and by most high-end mobile standards, it’s below average.
The button arrangement on this handset is just poor. The menu key is on the right side of the phone at the top (why?), and the buttons are hidden by a slider with has music controls. These music controls could have existed next to the standard buttons and made the phone much more usable. They sacrificed this to make the look of the phone more iPod-ish I’m sure. But in the end, the button arrangement made texting a chore, and the flimsiness of the slider mechanism brought down the build-quality of what would have been a very solid-feeling phone.
The camera technology is already dated. A 2 megapixel camera phone with no focusing capabilities just doesn’t impress like it would have a year ago. Keep in mind that in this arena, I’m super-critical… a phone is more a camera to me, than it is a phone anymore.
Speaking of which… how much longer must I wait for my Nokia N93?
Very good review and interesting. Thanks for sharing your experience and opinions. The N93 is a phone, camera, etc that I have been waiting for.
Thanks again.
Wow. Yeah, that N93 might even take me away from Sony Ericsson.
Optical zoom even.
I’m really curious to learn if this phone is sluggish at all, consider all it must process.
Yeah they’ve been promising the N93 to be released in July for ages. It’s now half way through the month and still no word. When will they put us out of our misery?
Hey there Fawkes… you planning on gettin’ one??
good review andy…i still miss using my 6230 but you know you just can’t touch the w800’s camera especially for the size. I wish Nokia would realize that and put good cameras on <100g phones. At least it seems like the manufacturers are starting to realize we won’t tolerate these brick-sized pieces of equipment and are finally announcing slim/light full featured phones…I guess we can thank the RAZR for that.
Great review! You are in Vancouver, right, Andy?
1) Love to have you participate in BarCamp Vancouver as part of a loosely organized set of sessions called “Mini Mobile Camp”. Sign up at http://barcamp.org/BarCampVancouver
2) Also love to meet you for coffee some time and talk about mobile. M-F before work at 8a.m. or after 4p.m. works best and my fav place is Take 5 at 429 Granville. Interested. Email me roland AT rolandtanglao.com or SMS or call me 604 729 7924
Well the N93 is finally out. But I would personally wait at least 6 weeks for the recommended retail price to fall into place.
The cheapest place to get it online would be www.plemix.com They should release it next week, and the price will fall considerably within 4 weeks of it’s release. I got my phone there. The introduction price was US$1399 but within a couple of weeks it was falling at the rate of $30-50 every couple of days! Just goes to should how much profit they make from the die-hards.
Yup, Plemix is just one of 12 sites I check daily for it’s availability :) I do like that they’re the first to drop prices… the N73 has already fallen 120 bucks :)
What phone was worth 1400 to have right away?
Plemix is sweet but make sure you double check what’s included in the package. They have a fine reputation for not including all the original goods.
The N80 came in at $1399. Though definitely not worth having right away. And from memory, the K800 came in at $899.
Hmm just finished reading GSMArena’s preview. The color rendering is much better than the K800 but the noise levels are still very high. The video recording looks exceptional though. However, I won’t jump to any conclusions until I see some night shots/videos!
Plemix: $809. The hardest decision is whether to get it in Silver or Black.
One step ahead of you, my man…
Silver. :)
get a Nokia N83 basically a n80 plus 5mp with slider, 4gb memory, wifi, utms, quadband.. lsit goes on.. gotta love the reverse slide buttons tho~!!!! im gonna try to get one from my uncle for christmas over at headquarters in beijing!!
Poor review. Button arangement perfect; waited a long time for something like this. Review not very informative in any way.