Nokia’s powerhouse N97 touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard-packing smartphone may have arrived to mixed reviews, but its new, rescaled Nokia N97 Mini stablemate offers a refreshed take on the device.

Its ‘Mini’ moniker doesn’t mean this is a heavily stripped down version of the original N97, however.

While it does pare down some elements of the N97 – such as a smaller screen and reduced internal flash memory from 32GB to 8GB – the N97 Mini is still a big hitter in the pure feature count department.

The N97 Mini is a full touchscreen smartphone device, running on Nokia’s Symbian S60 5th Edition platform – previously seen on recent models like the N97 and 5800 XpressMusic.

It has a 3.2-inch display, and has a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard with a tilting screen, and, geared up to be a web-orientated multimedia device, it supports high-speed HSDPA mobile data as well as Wi-Fi connectivity.

It’s loaded up with an impressive amount of applications out of the box, and as well as multimedia player capabilities it has A-GPS location finding with Nokia’s Maps software, plus a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics.

But as we all know, particularly post-iPhone, smartphone success isn’t just about stacks of features – usability and performance are key to the touchscreen user experience too. So does the N97 Mini affirm the maxim that less can be more?

The typical touchscreen slab look of the Nokia N97 Mini is similar to the original N97, with a minimalist front panel sporting a trio of keys below the screen.

But the bodywork is smaller than the bulky N97 – the N97 Mini measures 113(h) x 52.5(w) x 14.2(d) mm and weighs 138g, compared to the original’s 117.2(h) x 55.3(w) x 15.9-18.25(d)mm, 150g pocket-bulging package.

That doesn’t make the Mini a miniature phone by any stretch – it’s still big, but it does cut a more pocket-friendly figure. While it’s thick for a touchscreen phone nowadays, this is explained away by the slide-out tray containing the QWERTY keyboard. Its build quality is reassuringly substantial, with some metal adding to the casing’s solid feel.

The display is scaled down from the N97′s 3.5-incher to a 3.2-inch screen on the Mini. It’s a 640 x 360 pixels, 16.7 million colour screen that’s lovely and bright, with a decent amount of clarity. It doesn’t have the pixel count of the very best touchscreens on the market, but it looks good enough on this showing for multimedia playback and browsing.

Like its predecessor, a resistive touchscreen is used on the N97 Mini – which means you don’t get the smoothly flowing multi-touch capability of the capacitive screens used on the iPhone and some Android OS-equipped models.

The screen is, though, more responsive to touch than Nokia’s earlier 5800 XpressMusic effort. It may not have quite the gentle-finger-stroke nimbleness of the iPhone but it reacts quickly to prods, taps, drags and swipes, and appears reasonably fluid for a resistive display.

Scrollbars on the side of menus helps scrolling through longer lists, and the operating system generally allows sufficient room to negotiate with finger tapping alone. Indeed, on this model there’s no stylus supplied (unlike the 5800 XpressMusic). It’s not the iPhone, but it’s decently usable.

Under the display, there’s just the touch-sensitive Call and End buttons plus a raised angled Menu key, which pulls up the main menu or (with a long press) shows open applications.

Around the body of the phone, there’s a lock/unlock sprung slider, volume rocker keys and a dedicated camera button. A microUSB port on the side takes care of data connections and charging, while thankfully Nokia has again included a 3.5mm headphone socket on the top of the phone.

A secondary camera for video calls sits on the front above the display, next to a light sensor (which is used to automatically adjusts screen brightness).

The main camera action, though, is on the back. Unlike the original N97, the Mini’s camera has no sliding lens cover to protect it. The lens and LED flash array still sits proud above the back surface though.

The screen still automatically tilts at an angle when the QWERTY keyboard slides out, with a reassuringly rock solid spring-loaded mechanism locking it in place.

The QWERTY keyboard has been given a makeover from the N97; gone is the five-way navigation pad, leaving a bit more finger-room for the 38 keys (which include direction keys). It has a much more usable feel, the rubber-like keys slightly less flush to the surface so you can feel more action as you type.

The space bar is still shifted over to the right rather than central, and while that may not satisfy the touch-typist, it’s very easy to get used to. And, in practice, it’s rather useful when you’re thumb typing when holding the device.

The keyboard buttons have a responsive action, unlike some stodgey phone keyboards; it’s comfortable to type accurately at a reasonable pace, even with our large digits.

The angle of the screen with the keyboard out makes it ideal for typing when sat on a desk. The phone is reasonably well balanced for desk typing – though there is a touch of wobble in the left-hand corner owing to the raised camera lens on the back of the bodywork – something that might have been easily remedied with a slight tweak in the casing design.

Nokia N97 mini Specifications

Design

Dimensions

* Side slide with tilting screen
* Dimensions: 4.45 x 2.07 x .56 in
* Weight (with battery): 4.87 oz
* Additional size and shape information: sliding tilt mechanism

Display and User Interface

* Size: 3.2″
* Resolution: 640 x 360 pixels (QVGA)
* Up to 16.7 million colors
* Resistive touch screen
* Brightness control
* Orientation sensor
* Proximity sensor
* Ambient light detector

Personalization

* Customizable home screen:
o Widgets
o Themes
o Icons
o Shortcuts
o Menu
* Customizable profiles
* Ring tones: mp3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, WMA
* Video ring tones
* Themes
o Wallpapers
o Screensavers
o Ring tones
o Installed themes
o Changeable color themes

Hardware

Power Management

* BL-4D 1200 mAh Li-Ion battery
* Talk time (maximum):
o GSM up to 7.17 hours
o WCDMA up to 4 hours
* Standby time (maximum):
o GSM up to 320 hours
o WCDMA up to 310 hours
* Video playback time (nHD, 30 fps, maximum): up to 3.5 hours
* Video recording time (VGA, 30fps, maximum): up to 2.83 hours
* Video call time (maximum): up to 2 hours
* Music playback time (offline mode, maximum): up to 32 hours

Operating Frequency

* Quad band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900
* WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100
* Automatic switching between GSM bands
* Flight mode

Sharing & Internet

Browsing and internet

* Full web browsing of real web pages
* Web browsing with touch control
* Supported markup languages: HTML, XHTML MP, WML, CSS
* Supported protocols: HTTP v1.1, WAP
* TCP/IP support
* Visual history, HTML and JavaScript support, Flash Lite 3.0 and Flash video support
* Nokia Mobile Search
* RSS reader
* Support for Nokia Download! to discover, download, and install add-on applications and widgets
* Support for streaming video
* Photos with view by tag cloud, month, album, slide show, and photo editor
* Online Share with connectivity to popular sharing services
* Nokia XPressPrint: direct printing via USB connection (PictBridge), Bluetooth connectivity (BPP) or via online printing
* Video call and video sharing support (WCDMA network services)

Navigation

GPS and navigation

* Integrated GPS, A-GPS receivers
* Compass and accelerometer for correct orientation of display
* Nokia Maps
* Nokia Maps loader application via PC
* 10-day Walk and Drive navigation license included (some variation by region)*

Photography

Camera

* 5 megapixel camera (2584 x 1938 pixels) with Carl Zeiss optics
* Still image formats: JPEG, EXIF
* Autofocus and dual LED flash
* Zoom up to 14x (digital)
* Secondary camera for video calls (VGA, 640 x 480 pixels)

Other

* 8 GB internal memory, expandable to up to 24 GB with microSD card
* High-Speed USB 2.0 connectivity

Video

Video cameras

* Main camera
o 5 megapixel with Carl Zeiss optics
o Take high-quality 16:9 videos
* Video capture in MPEG-4 up to VGA at 30 fps
* Video clip length: up to 90 minutes
* Video file format: .mp4 (default), .3gp (for MMS)
* Settings for scene, video light, white balance, color tone
* Secondary camera
o QCIF for video calls

Music & audio

Music features

* Nokia Nseries Music Player
* Music Recommender
* Nokia Music Manager (PC application)**
* Music codecs: .MP3, WMA, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+
* Music meta-data ID3 tags, album art
* Bit rate up to 320 kbps
* DRM support WM DRM, OMA DRM 2.0/1.0
* Stereo FM radio (87.5-108 MHz/76-90 MHz), RDS

By Phil Lattimore – TechRadar