Nokia N90 3G Phone Review

My first impression of the Nokia N90 was the box it came in. The box reminded me of a type of "Starwars" toy packaging i.e. you can physically see the goods through the outer packaging and its looks a whole lotta fun.

An effective method of packaging yet I can't help thinking this made me more aware of the physical size of the Nokia N90. More about this below.

Inside the box. Well what a pleasant surprise. I have not yet seen a better laid out and designed package for housing a mobile phone and its accessories. No doubt in my mind that this is the neatest way to keep everything prim and proper.

My first impression of the phone itself was not as good. My first thought was that we have a "throwback" to the year 2003 when 3G phones resembled "bricks". This is not that big but cor blimey its well on its way.

The Nokia N90 is a member of the N series of Nokia 3G phones and is the first to hit the High Streets of the UK. The others in the pack are the N70 3G Smartphone and the N91 3G musicphone. The N90 is driven by the Symbian Operating System which has been well proven as a reliable OS over time.

Looking at usability and handling, I cant help thinking that some of the Nokia design team on this one have come from a "Robotics" design background. I mean the way to open this handset is a two stage mechanism, firstly to 90 degrees then fully open to maybe 165 degrees.

Also, as can be seen left, the phone twists and turns this way and that. This in all done in neat robotic type movements. It all works rather well.

On-board is the 2 Megapixel digital camera equipped with swiveling Carl Zeiss optics and a built-in flash plus auto focus.

The external screen - yes it does have one which is quite unusual for this type of clam smartphone, is 65K colour standard with a resolution of 128 x 128 pixels. Nice touch.

On the front of the N90, you'll find the camera module attached to the top. It is attached to a pivot point that works as the centrepoint for clam and camera flips and turns. It also allows the camera to be turned nearly full circle for easy snapping.

The main display of the N90 is first-rate. Its 2.1-inch internal display with a resolution of 352 x 416 pixels and 262K colour range is the best so far for any Nokia smartphone. With only 31 MB of memory of user available memory, it's no wonder that Nokia decided to bundle the 64 MB card. That has likely saved their bacon on the memory front.

Battery life is reasonably ok with the N90 as it lasts approx. 48 hours of general use. With regard to the Symbian operating system it actually seems to me to be a shade slower than say other Nokias running the same OS e.g. 6680. I don't really know why unless its because the processor has a greater load from the various improvements e.g. big screen and additional memory gobbling applications.

Is It Worth Buying ?

Nokia smartphones and Symbian OS have a huge fanbase but this handset is huge too and also carries an overweight price.

The picture quality you can achieve with the Carl Zeiss lens is truly top quality yet this achievement is subsequently traded off against its size and weight.

With all the twists and turns this phone can do, it will keep your friends amused for a minute or too and then they will likely think its far too big for me.

I feel that the buyers for this Nokia will be dedicated followers of Nokia and Symbian fashion. All the rest will will likely stick to small phones like the Samsung Z500.