Nokia N97 as an Outdoor Phone?
WILL ADD PHOTOS SOON
Features: 32GB storage, touch screen, built in GPS, slide out keyboard.
It arrived a few months back now, and I’ve had plenty of time to play with it. Ok, I admit that I missed the first few calls as I wasn’t sure how to answer it, but beyond that it’s pretty easy to use. It looks like a typical touch screen phone. You can easily customise the home screen with widgets such as Facebook, email, favourite contacts and so on. There’s not much choice yet, but this is certainly going to increase as this phone becomes more popular.

For a start there's decent video and photo quality, especially compared to the N95. The video quality is pretty amazing – playing back well in full screen on my netbook.

Battery life is now much better. I found that using Sports Tracker on my N95 would exhaust the batteries on one run! And I certainly can't run that far or fast. I can use the N97 all day on one charge, maybe browsing the web, making a few calls and using the GPS upwards of 2 hours depending how far I run. Using it lightly, I found the battery life good for about 2 days. I’m pretty impressed with this considering what’s been packed inside, and I’m sure with some fiddling around that battery life could be improved slightly (screen brightness). Some reviewers, even on the BBC, seem to claim the battery life is poor; but that's not been what I've found.

GPS speed is impressive, as opposed to the N95, and even picks up enough signals indoors. This means that the Sport Tracker running app work a dream. If you do any sort of outdoor sport then Sport Tracker is a free download from Nokia that allows you to track all your walks, runs, bike trips or whatever else you could apply it to. I found it tracked my stock run perfectly, where my Garmin GPS unit usually fails due to the tree coverage.

Nokia Maps has been useful on a few non-outdoorsy trips this summer, finding an Indian restaurant in Bridgnorth on foot and Stirling by car competently. It did try and re-route me to North Africa when I looked for an outdoor shop in Edinburgh (even on restarting!) It is also far from comprehensive when searching for local facilities, finding barely anything in Caernarfon. If you have the post code however, then you can use that to find your destination. That said, I’m making use of a free 30 day trial and would rather pay for a dedicated Sat Nav than this software; although the walking routing really was impressive. Google Maps is a free alternative that provides driving and walking directions, but only by a list of directions and a map rather than the more intuitive live map on the Nokia Maps. You can search for anything locally and it was pretty good, but like the Nokia offering, is still far from comprehensive. I can see this becoming a standard phone function in the next few years, most useful in the larger urban centres, but of limited use until there’s a proper database we can call upon.

GPS Viewranger works on the N97 and looks impressive. Viewranger and the N97 is definitely a killer combination – considering the GPS rarely worked on the N95. Being touch screen, you can scroll effortlessly through the maps and create routes much easier by tapping the waypoints in. If the phone was waterproof, it would double as a proper GPS, but it isn't and it's just not rugged enough to replace it outright.

Extras: Setting up the N97 as a modem is painless. I was online in seconds from my Samsung NC10, but then the performance depends on the signal strength in your area. There’s a built in FM transmitter so you can listen to tracks in the car, but whenever I used it I got an annoying beep every few seconds.

Some annoyances. While email was quick to set up, you can’t add a contact from a new email - something pretty fundamental if you ask me, or for that matter, by adding a new contact from a text message. On opening an html attachment in an email, you open the browser, but it’s not the full browser for some reason; bookmarks are missing. Overall, while I've found receiving email on the go has been a boon, the software is utter pants. Oh, and you’ve got to pay for Acrobat Reader – only a few quid, but annoying! Can be slow browsing the web, but this is probably down to the net speed than the phone.

Best features? 32gigabytes of storage means that you can put as much music as you’d need for a trip. It’s also large enough to store some video files, which you can download for free from iPlayer. There’s some half decent speakers built in, but you really need to listen on headphones for any real level of quality.
Some down sides? The overall build quality is good, but the battery cover is a little disappointing. It’s also a little awkward to remove, and suggests that it would not be wise to continually swap batteries. The silver button on the front! Why Nokia? Why? I’m not convinced either with the new charging socket – I don’t think that’ll survive the wear and tear over the next couple of years, but hopefully I’ll be wrong. Maybe once I stop trying to put it in upside down I might feel differently, but after three months I’m yet to figure up from down.

Another problem is the current lack of decent specific accessories. There are no decent cases available, and due to the annoying lock button on the side of the phone, it’s very difficult to unlock in a standard aquapack case as the plastic is thick, and while I can unlock it, it’s only going to be a matter of time before the case is holed. The arm band case from Aquapack though does the trick, but as the fit is snug and the plastic so grippy, it takes five minutes to get the phone in. Will post a review soon as I think that it’s becoming easier with age.

As an outdoor phone I’ve been more than impressed with the phone’s performance so far, but I’ve mainly tested it as a runner’s phone. I’ve recalled my letter to Santa asking for a Garmin Forerunner 305 now as this does mostly what I need. What will be an obstacle again is Nokia’s inability to market and support their technology in the way Apple can. There’s a Bluetooth heart rate monitor available by Polar, but only as a bundle with another Nokia, and not as a separate accessory. This is typical Nokia, great hardware but no follow through and support that you’d expect for what is arguably one of the most advanced smart phones yet.

Wild camping, I can watch a video or listen to music now, as well as the radio but at the risk of flattening the battery. Being a competent camera (for a phone) means further battery drain. So yes, it’s useful, but so damned useful that you’re likely to drain the battery before you need to make a call, so again a spare battery is essential for multiday trips. But I’ve used it for a few overnighters, listening to loads of music on the mp3, browsing the internet, couple of calls and a few videos and photos and still had enough battery to make and receive calls the following day.

Summary. A Smartphone that does it all, and much more if the software will be developed for it. Very expensive unless you pay £40 a month on a contract to receive it for free. Could be a tad faster and could do with being sturdier for outdoor use, but then it’s designed for mass market. Still waiting for the perfect outdoors mobile, but despite small niggles, this is a huge leap in the right direction. 9/10.

Nokia have released their latest mobile, the N82, as an Adventure Pack. This means that you get the phone, a Salomon Raid Revo 20 rucksack and Sports Tracker software. I''ll be reviewing just the phone in this blog entry. With thanks to N Series WOM World for the opportunity to try out some shiny new kit!

This new mobile from Nokia has similar features to the N95. It''s a bit larger, doesn''t slide to reveal the keypad and has a slightly smaller screen. The display though smaller, looks cleaner and ‘whiter’ than the N95. You can even flip the screen from landscape to portrait depending on the way you hold the phone - this really is a cool feature! The keys look tiny at first glance too, but are well defined so reasonably easy to use.

One gripe with the N95 was the atrocious battery life. The N82 is a lot better in this respect, though i''d like to take the phone on a proper wild camping trip to really test it. I got the impression that i''d not need the 3 spare batteries that i went through last time i camped overnight (yes, i flattened 4 batteries just on radio, MP3 and some voice calls - without the use of the GPS!)

The camera is a competent 5 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and a Xenon Flash. I thought the flash looked impressive, and was a bit too powerful for some of the close range shots i took. So you need to play with the settings, and probably take some photos without the flash. The lens has a cover, but it''s manual. That means i''m likely to forget the cover''s off and let the lens get all grubby in my pocket. I don''t think the camera will replace my Fuji Finepix, which at 3.5 megapixels still gives me a landscape i''m happier with. I still regret taking my N95 to Scotland and getting mediocre lanscapes - despite my best attempts with the settings.

Wifi connectivity – you can connect the phone to your home wireless network. This is very stable, and i didn’t lose the signal once (the N95 has been rather flaky, but to be fair it has been 3 floors away from the wireless point). There is even a way to use it as a media centre, but i''ve not managed to get that to work wirelessly.

It is also an MP3 player and radio, useful for wild camping. Can play certain types of video files too in Real Player, but does not appear to like the usual windows video files (.avi). You need to know soemthing about different video file formats to get them to run, which is unfortunate. I''m certain that there''s 3rd party software available that can run any video file, but i don''t think it should be necessary to fiddle like that to get the most popular video files to run. A clever feature that Nokia have addedd in recent phones is that you can connect a standard 3.5mm headphone to the mobile rather than the usual proprietry headset. As the headphones are the aerial for the radio i presume the radio will still work with standard headphones, but i have no spare headphones to test! Nokia provide a 2gb memory card as standard, which means that you can use the phone ''as is'' for a while - but you''ll still want to add a 4/8gb card if you''re serious about your music.

A final feature is the N-Gage gaming platform. There''s a racing game and a footy game on there that you can preview, and i thought they were visually impressive. That said, the last console i owned (still have it somewhere!) was a Playstation. No, no numbers, just the original one. Check the screengrab out below if you want an idea of what the games look like. I found the keypad a little awkward to use for the game, but then i''m probably getting towards old fart status.

Nokia Maps. I’ve had this on my N95 for many months now, but took no notice of it. You can use it as a sat nav (but you need some sort of bracket to hold the phone to make this practical) and you can run a simulation to see what it’s like. The full navigation service is only available if you pay, and this is currently €6.49 for a week, €7.99 a month, €59.99 a year or €69.99 for 3 years(note, Euros not £s!). You can get the nav feature free for 3 days as a trial, so you can see if you like it or not. It seems to do the job, and might be suitable for the majority of people who may only need the use of an in car sat nav once or twice a year. Some sort of bracket, though, is essential to get this working.

http://europe.nokia.com/link?cid=EDITORIAL_358059 - for full prices.

The internal GPS is quick. I had no problem getting a satellite fix in the open. It was almost intantaneous the first time i used it (perhaps the phone locks onto signals automatically so that the GPS fires up immediately on demand?) This speed means that the bundled Sport’s Tracker software is a practical proposition (unlike some previous mobile/bluetooth GPS combos i’ve tried to use). I’m sure that View Ranger OS mapping would run like a dream on this phone – but they limit their licences and i wasn’t able to sort this out with them as i had the phone over Christmas. Runs great on the N95, so should be quicker on here. Running an N95 and N82 side by side on Nokia maps demonstrated a clear speed difference – the N95 being frustratingly slow.

I am forced to give 2 verdicts on this phone. As an outdoors phone, that you’d be happy to take with you on a walk or run i’m less impressed. The comments that follow though, are not specifically aimed at the N82, but at all the phones i''ve used recently. I’m yet to see the phone i’m happy to carry about in my pocket or coat, especially as i do most of my outdoor activities in the rain (not out of choice i’d like to add!). I find that they get condensation on the screen, even if it’s not raining. And while a drybag may be the ideal solution, i drowned my N70 in a heavy downpour last June as the drybag was now a wetbag. Now it''s a belt and braces approach. Phone into plastic ziploc bag, ziploc into drybag, drybag into waterproof jacket/trouser pocket. Of course, this means that if it’s raining i can’t really use the phone.

All that’s needed is a water resistant phone. Waterproof would be better, like my wind speed meter that survived a washing machine cycle, but i realise that for practical purposes it may not be marketable. Simple solution i think is an enclosure for the phone that’s waterproof. But i reckon i may be waiting some time before i see the phone i can whack in my rucksack mesh pocket, next to my GPS and laminated map in typically wet Welsh weather.

But, as a general multimedia mobile (or computer as Nokia calls it) it runs smoothly, and isn’t flaky like some of the previous ones i’ve used. Video is smooth and the camera is passable for your usual shots. It doesn’t replace a proper camera for my outdoor photography, but that’s just me. I’m sure the camera will suffice for most purposes. Of course, if you’re an upgrading Nokia owner, you’ll find that the user interface is familiar and easy to get where you’re going. Now i’ve had this for a fortnight, i’ve decided i prefer the fixed phone to the slidy N95, the build quality feels much better, though still on the plasticky side. I''d happily swap this for my N95 tomorrow - that tells you all you need to know!

Price of the N82, with the Salomon Raid Revo pack and Sports Tracker is £399. http://www.nseries.com/index.html#l=campaigns,n82