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That the N97 Mini is having a low quality battery is well known. However the thing is, the battery does get heated up pretty soon and due to the heat generated the phone body (especially the back) becomes insanely hot. A 30 min call from my friend resultedin the phone getting so hot that I had to disconnect to prevent my ears from getting burnt. Thats simply unacceptable on a 21st century device. Although heating is not an issue when one is using 2G or GPRS connections, during wifi usage the phone becomes a pressure cooker. Again, not acceptable on a device which costs around/more than $400.

I am an avid ebook-reader and I am appalled at the lack of ebook readers at the ovi store. Adobe pdf is an extrememly slow ebook reader and so is a bunch of other softwares.

All platforms have proper ebook reading softwares, Well thats what you are supposed to do if a phone with a large screen size. Now anyone please make Nokia understand this. Starving new phones of hardware resources can only erode fan bases. And thats what it needs to learn.

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back with more.

1. What makes the N97 Mini special - Its probably now well known that even though Nokia manged to sell loads of N97s (the original N97), it really didnt fare well among users. Be it the less than sufficient processing capabilities, the 128MB RAM on a high end device, or the camera lens cover which actually ended up scratching the lens instead of protecting it. There was widespread outrage among users, many of whom had expressed it publicly on the web. It goes without saying that the N97 was terrible PR for Nokia, till then considered an innovative company at the helm of introducing ultra modern technologies to smart phones. The Symbian^1 which was then touted as the next big thing didnt help matter either. It reminded most people of their old S60 v2 and v3 phones and the UI was boring to say the least. Nokia had to do something to spice things up and restore ‘order’, releasing innumerable patches and updates for the N97 didnt work, and so it did the next best thing, reduced the memory and the size of the phone, packed in a weaker battery (1200mAh compared to N97′s 1500mAh) and termed it the new N97 Mini. However it did something positive as well, it improved the build quality of the phone and made it look classier. Or so I thought.

2. Okay, but why does it suck then - Hey wait, I didnt tell you it sucks, not yet. Anyway, lets look at the context of the mobile phone arena and then compare N97 Mini’s specs. The iPhone 3GS had been released and another iPhone was on its way which was supposed to have a huge amount of RAM and improved processing speeds. Google had released Nexus One armed with 1Ghz processor and an equally powerful RAM. And there was Nokia who was content with giving customers what they thought was the best deal possible, a 434Mhz processor and 128MB RAM in an attempt to compete. Spare me a second while I enjoy a hearty laugh. It had the same dated unusable insanely unprofessional looking (everything is being compared to iOS and Android here) and unevolving Symbian^1. And the price? Quoted price on most Nokia ads in India was/is Rs. 21000 (more than $400). I was one of the few who got mesmeried by the Nokia story (mainly because I had been a satisfied Nokia user till then). I decided to buy the Nokia argument of it being a better device. A decision which would come back and haunt me every single day henceforth.

When I first got my N97 Mini, I was really happy! The white phone looked beautiful and so did the keypad. I loved typing using the QWERTY and the phone soon became my treasured possession. I then started to put the device to the test and see if I could really be ‘at one’ with it. Shocks after shocks after shocks followed. It was soon clear to me that something was wrong, very wrong.

The phone wasnt lasting long enough, even on normal regular use which included listening to songs, browsing, using wifi to stream music and of course making calls it was hard to make the phone last more than 8 hours. In a bid to improve battery life and performance I changed from a snazzy looking theme to a toned down almost mellow inbuilt theme for my phone. Widgets, something of a huge USP for Nokia, had to be turned off, at least the online ones or else they would consume power and diminish battery life further. I had to reduce calls, reduce internet access and wifi usage to a minimum especially when I ventured outdoors without a charging cable in my bag. Yeah I know what you might be thinking, how was I supposed to use the phone without those features, well it seems Nokia cares little for its ‘valued’ customers and the sole reason for this uber crap battery life was nothing other than the underpowered 1200mAh battery. And that was just the start. Symbian^1 sucks just as much today as it did when the N97 Mini came out. The UI is outstandingly boring. You would need pure talent to create a boring UI like that. Well, at least they could have copied Apple or Android! That would have resulted in a better looking OS! Anyway. Next came the hardware which was so insanely dated that I could imagine my father getting this phone on his first mararige anniversary! Nokia has a strange fascination with dated hardware, it perhaps stems from a monopolistic attitude it has developed over the years being the no 1 smartphone manufacturer. Its like the company is telling its customers “haha you moron, this is what you deserve, cry as much as you want to, I wont give you a better device.” Of course Nokia didnt say this, but frankly as a customer who had bought a new N97 Mini this is what I felt. The application manager constantly keeps crashing and notifying me to close running apps when no apps are running. Multitasking is a pain thanks to the incapable processor and RAM.

And then came the ovi store. What the **** is that? Well its an app store. You mean like an Apple App Store? Yeah, kind of. Are you sh*tting me? Ovi and Apple? That is like the biggest baddest saddest and poorest joke ever! The ovi store is so starved of apps that in a bid to create proper ones, Nokia introduced an App wizard for non programmers! Yeah you heard me right. Well that did help increase the number of apps but what that made the ovi store was an absolute piece of junk. Whenever I see apps mentioned on sites on the web, I’m pretty certain that its either for the iPhone or for Android. I mean there is no proper pdf file reader for symbian platforms! Adobe reader is almost unusable and so are many others. Its a pain to read pdf documents on the N97 unless you have hundreds of hours to spare waiting for pages to load.

I will be posting more such reality checks soon. I have been CHEATED, DUPED AND MISGUIDED by the company I once was a fan of. I know I have been rude at places in this post, but hey, I have spent my money (and a huuge amount of it) on the phone and I have not been delivered what I was promised. I have the right to complain and let others know what they are signing up for when they buy a N97 Mini. Stay away from fanboys, do your research well, especially before you buy a Nokia.

Take care folks, and thank you so much for reading. I’ll be back with more soon.

1. Remove all online widgets: Yes I know that sucks and that Nokia has always proudly advertised widgets one of the strong points of the newer N-series devices, but fact is given the less than standard battery quality of the N97 Mini, you’ll have to live without these online widgets. In short make your phone look naked, like this:

2. Make changes to the Display settings: This might inconvenience a lot of people but this has to be done. Change your display settings to as minimalistic as it can get. Something like this is less than tolerable but will make your phone last about 6-8 hours (thats a long time for the N97 Mini actually as you’ll discover later in the post).

3. Switch off all connectivity options when not in use: This applies to Bluetooth, WAP services, 3G as well as WiFi. All of these draw insane amount of power from the battery. Remember this, if you switch on the WiFi on your phone manually, you’ll have to switch it off manually as well, it wont disconnect automatically. In short, remember to disconnect WiFi on your device as soon as you’re done. I had unknowingly used an online music streaming client for around 2 hrs and the battery drained to level zero in 2 hrs flat.

(Just for your info, WiFi connectivity is indicated by a small symbol on the top right corner of your N97 Mini display:

WAP/3G connectivity is indicated by another small symbol on the top left corner:

So make sure you aren’t leaving these in their “on” state when you’re done. I wont talk about GPS here since the N97 Mini does not come with a free GPS package, no sir, not even for a month. And since GPS rates in India are almost worth a new iPhone, I havent tried it out. But I believe the same rule of switch it off when not in use applies to it as well.

Oh wait, I almost forgot, using the WiFi for a long time, well 2 hours is all it can run anyway, makes the device suffer from SERIOUS heating issues. So make sure you have ice cold water near you just in case when you switch WiFi on)

3. Dont leave any games open: I know the N97 Mini does multitasking but its useless coz of the battery that has been packed in it. The N97 Mini seems to be screaming for more power and Nokia seems to have turned a deaf ear to all its cries. Anyway, if you’re into multitasking, make sure you’re multitasking with simple stuff like say, a music app and a calendar. Dont try multitasking with a game and a web browser or youtube app. The you’re gonna be pretty much in for a rough ride. So, if you leave any games running in the background, you can be sure that the next time you look at your phone, it will have run out of power and switched itself off.

4. Dont run constantly updating online apps for more than 5-10 mins at a time: This applies to Twitter clients like Gravity and Snaptu. If you’re using these apps, dont leave them running for hours. That way, you can be pretty sure of immense power wastage. I fell asleep the other day for around an hour or so and had left gravity running, to my utter shock when I woke up, the battery was nearly dead by then.

So, in conclusion what can I say?

Well lets say the N97 Mini looks better and performs better when its switched off.

Make sure you take utmost care of the device when its on, or else….bleeeeeeeeeeeep.

First up, the settings. I changed them to Close up and turned the Flash Off.

Here are a few macro images I shot with the N97 Mini (the pic following each of them, indicates detailed info about the shot and the lens used):

IMAGE 1:

IMAGE 2:

IMAGE 3:

IMAGE 4:

Tell me what you think of it.

1. Widgets: Nokia has somehow been fascinated by widgets and is proudly hailing it as a USP in current devices. However what is missed especially in case of the N97 Mini is that these widgets, the ones which require internet connectivity eg. facebook, email widgets etc. draw a huge amount of power from the battery.

2. WiFi – Cool technology eh? Yeah I guess and Nokia thinks so as well, only if it had been serious enough to give it a proper thought before implementing it in devices. (Read on for more details on this)

3. Screen Display Brightness – Oh well, the one time I tested the device using full brightness, it didnt even last me 6 hours! So, forget about using your device outside an air conditioned chamber (read indoors).

Okay, so here’s what I tested. I enabled the facebook and email widgets and waited for it to see how long it lasted. To my utter shock and surprise, on normal use which included occasional phone calls and using offline games (oh well I do have Quake 2 installed on my N97 Mini, coz thats the only decent game available for the device. If you’re getting an N97 Mini make sure you’re NOT a gamer, it has NO GPU, so forget about gaming, just for the info, all recent devices including lower end Android ones and of course the iPhone have dedicated GPUs), the battery hardly lasted me 5-6 hours. Hence, if you’re using the N97 Mini, dont use online widgets, or else make sure you carry the charging cables (USB or charger) with you all the time and stay close to a PC or a socket, always.

Next came the acid test. WiFi. I was using Mobbler, a highly popular LastFM client and Tune Wiki. It took me simply 2-3 hours to reduce a fully charged N97 Mini to a completely battery life famished device. Which is like saying, dont use this device to use if you’re a heavy WiFi user.

And for the sake of decency I am not comparing this with recent Android and the iPhone, but you get the point.

So, not only is this device underpowered (memory and processing capability wise), its also under-powered (quite literally) as well.

I was completely unaware of this aspect of the N97 Mini till I put it to the test yesterday and today in the morning. Bottomline, I am hating it. I am looking at options to sell this device and get an Android powered one. The severe lack of processing capabilities, softwares, proper usable OS and now a less than usable battery is too much for me to bear. This is my last Nokia. I really dont care if the company comes up with a better device in the future. I am currently ruing my decision, and feeling really crap coz of having spent a substantial amount of moolah on this. May Nokia be a better company and may it produce better devices in the future, but I honestly dont give a damn.

Now even till a few years back I had my reservations about Ubuntu. It was a new distro, with a huge focus on making life easy for he average user. However, it was (and still is) being run by a South African billionaire, Mark Shuttleworth who made his fortune by providing security solutions for online transactions. I wasnt sure of his intentions and frankly I wasnt convinced if a new company with only a few employees would be able to revolutionise the Linux market by making it more user-friendly. Open SUSE had always been a very efficient OS and beating it to become the most popular distro was bound to difficult.

Fast forward to 2010. Ubuntu as of today is by far the most popular Linux distro on the planet with millions of users worldwide and gaining market share at a spectacular rate. Was this expected? I’d say no. But it only happened because the guys at Canonical (the company in charge of Ubuntu) knew what they were doing. They have in the past 2-3 years improved the usability of Ubuntu so much that now, its almost synonymous with Linux. Infact google insight predicts that soon, ubuntu will overtake linux as the more used search term! Thats quite an extraordinary achievement for a relatively new distribution.

Now there’s a new group of people who think that Ubuntu’s spoiling the Linux environment by making it a more n00b friendly. I really dont understand how something user friendly can be bad. Even experienced programmers I talk to tell me that after a hard day of coding, the last thing they need is to make another bash script when they get home, hence their liking for the distro.

Linux has forever been a geek’s platform, and thats exactly the reason why it has almost been neglected by software companies for many years. Thanks to Ubuntu’s success, Linux is making all the right noises. Ubuntu has such a huge market share with such a diverse community that its progress is the progress of Linux. Now that cant be a bad thing now can it?

I find it a pain to type on a virtual keyboard. That may also be because the N97 Mini doesnt have a true landscape keyboard and one has to use the default phone layout.

Anyway, once the amazement factor faded away, I slowly discovered the true picture of the device. The thing is, this phone uses exactly the same processor and RAM as the new X6, N97 original. This has 128MB of RAM, runs Symbian^1 and has 8GB of internal memory. Symbian unlike the iOS is built for multitasking. In fact having used Nokia for many years now, I cant think of using a phone which doesnt offer multitasking, I have sort of taken it for granted on my phones. Unfortunately however, as you might have figured out, the RAM and the processor (ARM 11 434 MHz processor) are totally insufficient for this device. This is not to say that it hampers day to day use of the device, but it definitely doesnt give you the “edge” which something like a Nexus one or an iPhone gives you. Although the blame of producing an insufficiently powered device can only be blamed on the Finnish manufacturer, Symbian^1 doesnt help things either. Although decent, Symbian^1 is not specifically suitable for touchscreen devices, although ironically it has been built for it. Vertical browsing of apps is quite difficult simply because a) it takes quite some time to “load” the menu and b) its perfectly possible that you end up opening the wrong apps while browsing through the list. I felt disappointed, even though I knew that I was using one of the “high-end” devices of Nokia.

And finally came the death knell. The iPhone 4. Armed with a magnanimous 512MB of RAM and a blazing fast 1Ghz processor, this soon became the device of the year thus far. The iOS was revamped to support multitasking, subfolders and some extra jingles. It now has a gyroscope, obviously a superb touch screen and now a retina display. Its hard to miss the irony here. When Apple is trying to outdo everyone else by revamping their phone, Nokia seems quite content to come up with refurbished (sorry but thats the most appropriate term) devices for example N97 mini, N95 (phew cant even remember how many versions of it we had!), 5800 etc. These are dated devices in today’s scenario. Unfortunately Nokia simply ignores the current situation where all other manufacturers are simply coming up with better devices. And from the looks of it, the N8 wont be much of a game changer either. Its simply lacks the punch to compete with most of the flagship devices of other companies and I’m not even considering Apple.

Finally, the biggest failure of Nokia in my opinion is the failure to create a proper software market. Its obsession with Symbian, now MeeGo makes it really difficult for developers to come up with proper apps. Hence the Ovi Store even after a year of its launch is simply a complete and utter disaster. Compare that to the Android market or the Apple App Store.

Is Nokia losing? Hell yes, and fast. The departure of many noted blogs from the web including the famed SymbianGuru is proof enough of that. Unless they get their act straight, which in my opinion is going to be very very difficult, Nokia will soon become a phenomenon of the past which once had a majority market share in smartphone devices.

But lets end on a positive note, and hope this legendary company does get its act together (I alongwith millions of others are pinning my hopes on this man, Anssi Vanjoki, the new head of mobile solutions, Nokia. His recent statement can be found here on his blog: http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/07/02/the-fightback-starts-now/ )

Some say this augurs well for tennis as it opens the door for new talents, the younger generation of ultra fit sportsmen. Roger Federer was never really in the group of power servers or power players. His amazing agility on court, his breathtaking strokeplay coupled with his graceful movement and humility won him fans all over the world. I bet the English spectators in the court were as big a fan of his as any Swiss, and were as devastated by his loss.

Most people have started asking ‘the’ question now. Is it the end of the Federer era? Are we ever going to see a display of top class tennis from the man?

It would be unfair if not wrong to strike off Federer from the current best players list. Even though he’s all set to be ranked no. 3 in the world now, a new low for him, its still a very very good rank. Fans and non-fans alike always expect him to reach such a high standard of gameplay that it becomes noted as a failure if he does not manage to qualify for the semi finals. However none can deny that Federer’s current form is definitely not his best. We all know how he can come back after losing a set or two. I’m pretty confident that this great player will pave his back to the top, where he belongs.

Unfortunately life had other plans for me. I soon became interested in something as unrelated to engineering as ice cream is to onion. Biology. A subject which till then I had considered to be a mindless mugging up regimen, suddenly captured my imagination. I was sceptical of myself quite frankly when this sudden transformation in me took place, and wished and hoped that it was a passing phase. But it was not. Soon I was convinced that I had to pursue this awesome subject and do something meaningful with my life. Medicine was my true calling. And fortunately I was insanely lucky to clear one of the toughest entrance exams of this country and got accepted in a reputed med school.

But frankly, my passion for programming never left me. I soon discovered Linux and fell in love with it. Ubuntu has been my only OS for a long time now and I would highly recommend it. But frankly whats the fun of using open source softwares if you dont ‘give back’? Hence my urge to learn programming more seriously. But since I dont have the time to go through books and all, I have stuck to online tutorials. Of course, my friend Vivek (@milcom_) has helped me out immensely, I would be stranded in deep sh*t without his help. Hope I can start making simple apps real soon.

Anyway thats all there is to it. Thanks for reading. Take care folks.