Sebazy
27-09-2006, 06:45 PM
So my long awaited N93 finally arrived yesterday (No thanks to the timewasting enmass by Phones4U and Carphone Warehouse) and damn I was chomping at the bit to get my mitts on it and get fiddling, thankfully I didn't pull the DHL guy's arms off in the process!
My phones of choice over the last few years:
Motorola MPx200
Samsung D500
Samsung D600 (Sullied by the Orange firmware sadly)
Nokia 6270
Nokia N93
I also handle (And frequently borrow) large quantities of used/reconditioned phones through work and the nokia S60 line always had an appeal to me, but the older ones tended to simply be too slow and annoying for daily use, whilst the newer range just didn't quite hit the mark, either missing features I wanted or often suffering from a horrible build quality. Finally though the N93 seemed to be spot on on paper... Heres how it fared in the flesh...
Firmware wise:
The phone is completely brand and sim free in aluminium grey as supplied by Expansys.
V 10.0.0.25
12-07-06
RM-55
N93 (01.01)
First impressions:
As mentioned in just about every other comment over the N93, the size really is quite something, thankfully weightwise its not as bad as it looks, feeling pretty similar to my compact but still very hefty 6270, however its worth noting that its not nearly as well balanced as the porky slider, the center of gravity being just above the D pad makes it somewhat top heavy when held in one hand. I don't remember the dummy display model that phones4u had in briefly being anything like as unbalanced, so I'd strongly recommend getting your mitts around the real deal before you commit.
The solid build seems to have paid off though, in putting in the battery and simcard, everything went back together tightly, infact the Lens cap was almost too tight, although it seems to have loosened up a little bit after a days use, hopefully it won't be dropping off within the week! The battery/simcard bay cover is very snug and tight fitting, and even with the top catch not fastened properly its in no danger whatsoever of popping off. Much to my relief the unit doesn't creak in the slightest when gripped and squeezed (Play about with a 3250 to see why this is a very good thing)
Its also worth noting that whilst the keypad half of the phone is mostly made of plastics, the hinge and screen appear to be made around a metal frame (Explaining the somewhat top heavy nature). The hinge itself is absolutely stunning with no play or flex in the screen or its position even whilst gently shaking the phone. Movement is firm but still smooth, no signs of any grinding or creaking in action.
The rubbery/plastic pop port and memory card covers are my only real gripe with the phone physically, whilst they fit tightly and are not in any danger of dropping off, they don't really do the £450 price tag justice (They don't even really match the color of the phone). I'm not expecting an 8800 sheen, but something on par with what samsung manage to do on an £80 phone would be nice =(
The form factor of the phone soon makes you forget the poor trimmings though, 'laptop mode' is excellent providing a great platform for showing stuff to a group, or simply using the phone as a handy web browser whilst on lunch. However the phone doesn't sit so well whilst opened clamshell style, I'd imagine that without care, people will soon see scuffing on the hinge where it rests on a surface.
Otherwise the in pack bundle is a mix of good and bad, the usual nokia thin pin fast charger, regular stereo headset, charger port adapter and usb data cables are all there, alongside a DVD software bundle including photoshop elements a UPNP media client and most interestingly the TV out leads. The documentation was a let down, with the english manual looking like it was fresh out of a cheap photocopier with a glossy cover stapled on the top. To my annoyance, no memory card whatsoever was present although I suspect this was an honest packaging mistake, eitherway the usual 64/128 meg bundled cards only end up in the bin anyway.
Softwarewise, the first thing you notice with the phone up and running is the speed. No smartphone I've ever used has ever come close to being as brisk in general use as this, even the boot time is astonishingly quick, my N93 is good to go almost as quickly as my S40 6270 and I suspect it may even pip a few moto's to the post.
The second thing you notice is the screen, its very vibrant and although the default brightness level is a little conservative, its nice and bright too, with an excellent viewing angle. Its perfectly clear in strong daylight to boot. Noticably better than my old phones. Whilst its a shame it doesn't have the higher res screen of the N90, its still unfaultable giving crisp colorful video playback and perfect clarity for web browsing.
Sadly this goes against the external screen which really looks like a bit of an afterthought, it seems to have little more use than just caller IDs, quick profile selection and music playback. Active standby doesn't appear to have any control over it either which will prove to be an annoyance, especially for candybar/slider users.
Bundled software is well rounded and complete if a little bland, with all the current N series stuff present with the same ups and downs as you've probably heard 100 times over. Quick office and adobe reader are both present. The bundled games (A 3D snakes game, very different to the more classical 6270 version and System rush evolution) are flashy if a little pointless, great for showing off the phone to the mates but not much playability in them.
A neat little network settings wizard is also present although sadly it only had O2's contract settings, the O2 Prepay settings from the nokia website were problematic for me also. In the end it took me a good hour or so of fiddling to get GPRS data working. People with other networks may have an easier time of it though as O2 Pay and go data over GPRS is notoriously locked down which certainly didn't help things along, I've had a lot of trouble with O2 Prepay GPRS in several other devices such as my old MPx200 and XDA IIs. In its defense, the settings wizard went on to redeem itself by effortlessly getting my gmail account working on the phone in moments, top stuff.
Connectivity seems good, with my main O2 2G card, GRPS and voice reception were both spot on and speed seemed good. The position of the microphone seems odd, but in practice it all works out ok, although beardy types may have cause for concern =)
Wifi reception is inferior to my Vaio Z1 laptop and is a left comparitively lacking in speed for sustained downloads, but fairer comparisons to a Clie UX80 I had the pleasure of borrowing came out very favourable to the Nokia, Wireless configuration is straightforward, and dare I say it, getting an internet connection going on it was easier than any Windows mobile pocket PC I've dabbled with, let alone the Palm powered Clie. ~500k transfers were reasonably speedy taking 3 or 4 seconds and much to my delight, the Nokia's 1150mah battery seemed to stand up to moderate wireless use very well, far far better than the Clie which would usually be left exhausted after a Starbucks lunch, let alone serious use. Whilst the Clie UX80 is an impressive piece of kit in its own right, the Nokia left it looking rather sorry for itself.
As far as stability goes, I'm yet to have a single crash in a full days worth of extensive toying and playing with the device. Although I did have quite a scare with my 1gb kingston miniSD memory card, under heavy use and especially when using the camera, the phone will frequently simply stop reading the card only to claim its corrupt and will refuse to read/write/format it until you soft eject and reload the card, the problem then promptly vanishes without a trace, very offputting. However, a bit of googling quickly showed a lot of people having the same problem with this particular card, so much for Kingston being a trouble free brand eh, time to buy a Sandisk Ultra II I guess =(
The old firmware (V10.0.0.25) and its memory inefficiency rears its head from time to time as well, whilst its no 6680, its still fairly easy to get my N93 to run out of memory, so no leaving agilemessenger open 24/7 for me just yet, at least not till I get my firmware updated. However, once again even with several smaller apps open at once, the speed of the phone never lets up.
Whilst its early days and thus hard to say, overall battery life so far seems impressive, after my 6270's disapointing battery (And samsung's horridly power hungry bluetooth) the N93 really does shine, with a full overnight charge, so far today I've watched ~1hr of fullscreen video, used maybe 30 minutes of browsing through wifi, played a few rounds of snake and system rush as well as several hours worth of putzing about with menus, new apps and data over bluetooth, thats alongside the usual couple of calls and texts. The battery is still on 6/7 bars. Keep in mind I'm only using a 2G simcard though, no doubt the switch to a 3G sim will have a bit of a negative impact.
Unfortunately rain stopped play (Thankfully predicted by Handy Weather) as far as testing the camera went, but experimentation indoors gave pretty poor results on automatic settings, detail was decent but noise was a problem under incandesent lighting, more so when just relying on the weak internal flash, I'll nip down to the coast tommorow during lunch to put it through its paces properly.
So far, memory card problems allowing, the overall impression is very good. The size and weight may be offputting for some, the camera doesn't appear to be living up to the hype so far and the limited external display and cheap pop port/memory card covers are disapointingly tacky for a phone of this league.
However, in my eyes at least, these qualms are swept away by the rest of the phones features, the package as a whole really does ooze quality, and with the new processor its astonishingly quick for a smartphone. I can't remember who said it, but the N93 really does feel like the Rolls Royce of smartphones, its certainly not perfect, but its getting close, and whilst it doesn't seem as slick as the likes of the D900 and W800i, it blows them clean away in terms of functionality whilst still being strongly competitive with its basic features.
Hopefully tommorow I'll resolve the memory card issues and get some quality snaps to boot =)
*update*
Photos! Conditions were ok if quite overcast with a fair amount of haze from recent rain still. Noise is definately the number one issue, although exposure and barrel distortion defects are visible to varying degrees too. Its certainly no D-SLR, but I'm still impressed, its decent enough for everyday snaps as long as you are careful with conditions and settings.
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/8792/image008vz2.th.jpg (http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image008vz2.jpg)
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/2071/image009ix7.th.jpg (http://img393.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image009ix7.jpg)
http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/4507/image010wh2.th.jpg (http://img400.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image010wh2.jpg)
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/214/image011mt7.th.jpg (http://img393.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image011mt7.jpg)
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/3638/image012zf4.th.jpg (http://img393.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image012zf4.jpg)
My phones of choice over the last few years:
Motorola MPx200
Samsung D500
Samsung D600 (Sullied by the Orange firmware sadly)
Nokia 6270
Nokia N93
I also handle (And frequently borrow) large quantities of used/reconditioned phones through work and the nokia S60 line always had an appeal to me, but the older ones tended to simply be too slow and annoying for daily use, whilst the newer range just didn't quite hit the mark, either missing features I wanted or often suffering from a horrible build quality. Finally though the N93 seemed to be spot on on paper... Heres how it fared in the flesh...
Firmware wise:
The phone is completely brand and sim free in aluminium grey as supplied by Expansys.
V 10.0.0.25
12-07-06
RM-55
N93 (01.01)
First impressions:
As mentioned in just about every other comment over the N93, the size really is quite something, thankfully weightwise its not as bad as it looks, feeling pretty similar to my compact but still very hefty 6270, however its worth noting that its not nearly as well balanced as the porky slider, the center of gravity being just above the D pad makes it somewhat top heavy when held in one hand. I don't remember the dummy display model that phones4u had in briefly being anything like as unbalanced, so I'd strongly recommend getting your mitts around the real deal before you commit.
The solid build seems to have paid off though, in putting in the battery and simcard, everything went back together tightly, infact the Lens cap was almost too tight, although it seems to have loosened up a little bit after a days use, hopefully it won't be dropping off within the week! The battery/simcard bay cover is very snug and tight fitting, and even with the top catch not fastened properly its in no danger whatsoever of popping off. Much to my relief the unit doesn't creak in the slightest when gripped and squeezed (Play about with a 3250 to see why this is a very good thing)
Its also worth noting that whilst the keypad half of the phone is mostly made of plastics, the hinge and screen appear to be made around a metal frame (Explaining the somewhat top heavy nature). The hinge itself is absolutely stunning with no play or flex in the screen or its position even whilst gently shaking the phone. Movement is firm but still smooth, no signs of any grinding or creaking in action.
The rubbery/plastic pop port and memory card covers are my only real gripe with the phone physically, whilst they fit tightly and are not in any danger of dropping off, they don't really do the £450 price tag justice (They don't even really match the color of the phone). I'm not expecting an 8800 sheen, but something on par with what samsung manage to do on an £80 phone would be nice =(
The form factor of the phone soon makes you forget the poor trimmings though, 'laptop mode' is excellent providing a great platform for showing stuff to a group, or simply using the phone as a handy web browser whilst on lunch. However the phone doesn't sit so well whilst opened clamshell style, I'd imagine that without care, people will soon see scuffing on the hinge where it rests on a surface.
Otherwise the in pack bundle is a mix of good and bad, the usual nokia thin pin fast charger, regular stereo headset, charger port adapter and usb data cables are all there, alongside a DVD software bundle including photoshop elements a UPNP media client and most interestingly the TV out leads. The documentation was a let down, with the english manual looking like it was fresh out of a cheap photocopier with a glossy cover stapled on the top. To my annoyance, no memory card whatsoever was present although I suspect this was an honest packaging mistake, eitherway the usual 64/128 meg bundled cards only end up in the bin anyway.
Softwarewise, the first thing you notice with the phone up and running is the speed. No smartphone I've ever used has ever come close to being as brisk in general use as this, even the boot time is astonishingly quick, my N93 is good to go almost as quickly as my S40 6270 and I suspect it may even pip a few moto's to the post.
The second thing you notice is the screen, its very vibrant and although the default brightness level is a little conservative, its nice and bright too, with an excellent viewing angle. Its perfectly clear in strong daylight to boot. Noticably better than my old phones. Whilst its a shame it doesn't have the higher res screen of the N90, its still unfaultable giving crisp colorful video playback and perfect clarity for web browsing.
Sadly this goes against the external screen which really looks like a bit of an afterthought, it seems to have little more use than just caller IDs, quick profile selection and music playback. Active standby doesn't appear to have any control over it either which will prove to be an annoyance, especially for candybar/slider users.
Bundled software is well rounded and complete if a little bland, with all the current N series stuff present with the same ups and downs as you've probably heard 100 times over. Quick office and adobe reader are both present. The bundled games (A 3D snakes game, very different to the more classical 6270 version and System rush evolution) are flashy if a little pointless, great for showing off the phone to the mates but not much playability in them.
A neat little network settings wizard is also present although sadly it only had O2's contract settings, the O2 Prepay settings from the nokia website were problematic for me also. In the end it took me a good hour or so of fiddling to get GPRS data working. People with other networks may have an easier time of it though as O2 Pay and go data over GPRS is notoriously locked down which certainly didn't help things along, I've had a lot of trouble with O2 Prepay GPRS in several other devices such as my old MPx200 and XDA IIs. In its defense, the settings wizard went on to redeem itself by effortlessly getting my gmail account working on the phone in moments, top stuff.
Connectivity seems good, with my main O2 2G card, GRPS and voice reception were both spot on and speed seemed good. The position of the microphone seems odd, but in practice it all works out ok, although beardy types may have cause for concern =)
Wifi reception is inferior to my Vaio Z1 laptop and is a left comparitively lacking in speed for sustained downloads, but fairer comparisons to a Clie UX80 I had the pleasure of borrowing came out very favourable to the Nokia, Wireless configuration is straightforward, and dare I say it, getting an internet connection going on it was easier than any Windows mobile pocket PC I've dabbled with, let alone the Palm powered Clie. ~500k transfers were reasonably speedy taking 3 or 4 seconds and much to my delight, the Nokia's 1150mah battery seemed to stand up to moderate wireless use very well, far far better than the Clie which would usually be left exhausted after a Starbucks lunch, let alone serious use. Whilst the Clie UX80 is an impressive piece of kit in its own right, the Nokia left it looking rather sorry for itself.
As far as stability goes, I'm yet to have a single crash in a full days worth of extensive toying and playing with the device. Although I did have quite a scare with my 1gb kingston miniSD memory card, under heavy use and especially when using the camera, the phone will frequently simply stop reading the card only to claim its corrupt and will refuse to read/write/format it until you soft eject and reload the card, the problem then promptly vanishes without a trace, very offputting. However, a bit of googling quickly showed a lot of people having the same problem with this particular card, so much for Kingston being a trouble free brand eh, time to buy a Sandisk Ultra II I guess =(
The old firmware (V10.0.0.25) and its memory inefficiency rears its head from time to time as well, whilst its no 6680, its still fairly easy to get my N93 to run out of memory, so no leaving agilemessenger open 24/7 for me just yet, at least not till I get my firmware updated. However, once again even with several smaller apps open at once, the speed of the phone never lets up.
Whilst its early days and thus hard to say, overall battery life so far seems impressive, after my 6270's disapointing battery (And samsung's horridly power hungry bluetooth) the N93 really does shine, with a full overnight charge, so far today I've watched ~1hr of fullscreen video, used maybe 30 minutes of browsing through wifi, played a few rounds of snake and system rush as well as several hours worth of putzing about with menus, new apps and data over bluetooth, thats alongside the usual couple of calls and texts. The battery is still on 6/7 bars. Keep in mind I'm only using a 2G simcard though, no doubt the switch to a 3G sim will have a bit of a negative impact.
Unfortunately rain stopped play (Thankfully predicted by Handy Weather) as far as testing the camera went, but experimentation indoors gave pretty poor results on automatic settings, detail was decent but noise was a problem under incandesent lighting, more so when just relying on the weak internal flash, I'll nip down to the coast tommorow during lunch to put it through its paces properly.
So far, memory card problems allowing, the overall impression is very good. The size and weight may be offputting for some, the camera doesn't appear to be living up to the hype so far and the limited external display and cheap pop port/memory card covers are disapointingly tacky for a phone of this league.
However, in my eyes at least, these qualms are swept away by the rest of the phones features, the package as a whole really does ooze quality, and with the new processor its astonishingly quick for a smartphone. I can't remember who said it, but the N93 really does feel like the Rolls Royce of smartphones, its certainly not perfect, but its getting close, and whilst it doesn't seem as slick as the likes of the D900 and W800i, it blows them clean away in terms of functionality whilst still being strongly competitive with its basic features.
Hopefully tommorow I'll resolve the memory card issues and get some quality snaps to boot =)
*update*
Photos! Conditions were ok if quite overcast with a fair amount of haze from recent rain still. Noise is definately the number one issue, although exposure and barrel distortion defects are visible to varying degrees too. Its certainly no D-SLR, but I'm still impressed, its decent enough for everyday snaps as long as you are careful with conditions and settings.
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/8792/image008vz2.th.jpg (http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image008vz2.jpg)
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/2071/image009ix7.th.jpg (http://img393.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image009ix7.jpg)
http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/4507/image010wh2.th.jpg (http://img400.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image010wh2.jpg)
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/214/image011mt7.th.jpg (http://img393.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image011mt7.jpg)
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/3638/image012zf4.th.jpg (http://img393.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image012zf4.jpg)