Nokia N97 vs. iPhone 3GS

A lot of people will be asking this question, Nokia N97 or iPhone 3GS? But for S60 addicts like me and I believe, like most of the people visiting this site, the choice will be clear, Nokia N97! Although in more cases this seems to be a predefined choice, I think that it will be good to compare the two phones and see what are the advantages and disadvantages of each mobile phone.

So here is a quick walk through the appearance, form, features like connectivity, image/video capturing and software for the two mobile phones that will be on the wish list of many people around the world.

Appearance and form

Compared, the two phones are not that much different when it comes to style, both look really good and if image is the main concern when buying a phone, the battle will be tight. On the other hand the iPhone 3GS is thinner, but wider from the Nokia N97, lets not forget that the N97 has a slide out keyboard versus the on-screen keyboard.

Since both phones have 3.5'' displays having the keyboard out of the display helps a lot and improves writing speed significantly. I am not saying that there is something wrong with the on-screen keyboard, but a physical keyboard has it's advantages when it comes to writing emails and chatting with friends.
Having both phones in your hand, you will find the iPhone 3GS lighter, weighting 135g, while the Nokia N97 weights 15g more, rounding it up to 150g.

Hardware and specs

Although both the iPhone 3GS and the Nokia N97 have 3.5'' displays the resolutions is quite different. Nokia boosts 360x640 pixels, while the iPhone 3GS has a 320x480 display. The visual difference you will notice when using these devices is that the iPhone has a more natural image, but the N97 has a sharper cleaner image and a bigger resolution.

Powered by different operating systems, the needs for memory are different on both phones but anyway, the Nokia N97 has 128 MB RAM and 32GB internal memory, the iPhone 3GS has 256MB RAM and 32GB internal memory, twice as much as the Nokia.

The talk time on the iPhone is up to 12 hours and up to 300 hours of standby time. The N97 has up to 10 hours of talk time and up to 432 hours of stand by. But as you know the real time you have depends on how much you use the extras like Wi-Fi, MP3 and video playback , the quality of the network signal of your carrier and many other factors.

Both phones have a built in accelerometer, a proximity sensor and an ambient light sensor. The GPS capabilities of the phones are a bit different. While both of them have a built in GPS receiver on the iPhone 3GS you can use only Google Maps for now. The Nokia N97 built on the S60 platform gives you more choice when it comes to GPS and maps. Starting with the preinstalled Nokia Maps (Ovi Maps from recently) and finishing with a few commercial navigational software systems like Route 66 and Garmin Mobile XT.

Connectivity

Both phones have USB, GPRS, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth, HSDPA and 3G capabilities. The difference is that the HSDPA on the iPhone 3GS goes up to 7.2 Mbps while on N97 it goes up to 3.6 Mbps and the Bluetooth version on the 3GS is 2.1 vs. 2.0 with with A2DP on N97. Also the Wi-Fi on the Nokia N97 supports UPnP.

Camera and video recording

This is where the Nokia N97 shines. Having a 5 megapixel camera (2584x1938) with Dual LED flash on the back and a secondary front VGA camera for video calls the iPhone 3GS with its 3 megapixel camera (2048x1536) and no flash, feels a bit inferior. Although in broad daylight there is not a big advantage to the N97, in night photos and in darker places when using the Dual LED flash the Nokia shows much better image quality. Also because of the bigger resolution of the sensor, the videos recorded on the N97 are a bit better then the iPhone 3GS.

Software and conclusion

This is a battle between the operating systems, the S60 5th edition vs the iPhone OS 3.0. There are a lot of things that can be said on this subject but in order to keep this article short we will mention a few keypoints only. The visual experience is better on the iPhone 3GS with all the effects, the Nokia N97 is a bit more conservative here. The built in browser on the iPhone provides better browsing experience, but the S60 browser is not far behind and it has a big advantage, you can see Flash. The choice of third party browsers available for the S60 platform opens new horizons for the N97.

The most important thing is that if you are not comfortable with the preinstalled software on the Nokia N97 you can easily find 3rd party applications that will do the job the way you like it. Unfortunately this is not the case with the iPhone 3GS even with all the software being written as we speak, the S60 platform as an older one, provides simply more choice.

I am not going to tell you which phone to choose, but personally I am a fan of the S60 platform and the Nokia N97 beeing one of the best phones built on this platform is a logical choice. On the other hand I must confess that I am impressed by the interface and all the effects on the iPhone 3GS, which make the phone fun to use. It makes me think that it is time for Nokia to start thinking a bit less conservative and make the mobile phones built on the S60 platform a bit more fun to use, especially the NSeries.

Read more on Nokia N97:

• Nokia N97 hands on review - First impressions and gallery photos from Nokia N97.
• Nokia N97 review, pros and cons - What we liked and what we did not!
  
• Nokia N97 camera image and video samples

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Found under: Nokia N97 or iPhone 3GS, Nokia N97, iPhone 3GS, Nokia N97 vs. iPhone 3GS Nokia N97 vs. iPhone 3GS - permalink Published on 20.06.2009 in Symbian Freeware Blog

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