Motorola Milestone vs Nokia N97 Mini, QWERTY Head On

Yet another exciting price match on the prep, Motorola Milestone, an Android Éclair powered device being sold currently at PhP17,000-18600 in retail stores and Nokia N97 Mini, a Symbian^1 running device sold at around PhP16,200-17,300. Booth phones are very much available for purchase SIM Free with Nokia N97 Mini sold everywhere around the country while Motorola has limited retail reach, mostly major cities only.

I have to mention that my comparison is based only on the company’s given hardware and technical specifications, features and sample videos that can be seen in the web or in any video sharing sites. I have no hands on experience whatsoever on all of the aforementioned devices except NOKIA N97 Mini that I have trialed 6 months ago. The phone had several firmware upgrades ever since and that it might be currently running a far more better OS.

Operating System: Motorola Milestone. The graphic and feature riched Android system weights huge here compared to the limited capability of the Symbian^1 that is why I’m choosing it as the winner in the category. Then again, Symbian^1 is a very solid OS but it lags far behind the Android Éclair in usability and features. I would love to see how the final Symbian^3 play against the current Android but nonetheless it’s being taken care of.

Browser is part of the OS and the Milestone inherited the very capable browser of Android with all the added perks like pinch to zoom among others.

Outer Case: Nokia N97 Mini and Motorola Milestone. Of all the matched I did in the blog, this is the first time that I cannot decide which one edge the other when it comes to the outer casing. They are both very solid and robust being tinged with metal around them. The both have a very solid sliding mechanism that could stand abuse. Yes I have hold and snap a Milestone!

Size and Dimension: Motorola Milestone. The phone is a bit longer and wider compared to the Nokia N97 Mini but way thinner by few millimeters. Its dimension and size gave way to a bigger screen that is why I’m choosing it over the N97 Mini. It’s a lot heavier too, weighing 164 grams compared to the 138 grams of the Mini but I can live with that. Not all phones with small size or lighter wins in this criteria, the usefulness of its dimension to the phones functionality also counts.

Display: Motorola Milestone. Both phones have TFT screens with 16 million color resolutions but Motorola Milestone has a wider screen size, a higher pixel count of 480 x 854 making the screen color more crisp and clear, and a capacitative screen with a mulititouch support. The 3.7 inches of the Milestones is very much manageable like that of the Nokia N97.

Memory: Nokia N97 Mini. Call it small yet storagefull , the phone only had an 8GB internal storage compared to the 133MB of the Milestone. That would be 800 times higher! The N97 Mini only has a 125MB of RAM against the Milestone’s 250MB but the Mini running Symbian^1 is not RAM hungry that can handle phone operation flawlessly and multitasks with less crash unlike the Milestone that occasionally bug users with memory full incidents. The Android system automatically close running applications in the homescreen without asking users which app to be close whatsoever so it’s bothersome. Users will have to re-set and re-run this applications again in the homescreen.

Connectivity: Motorola Milestone. They almost have the same connectivity feature, Quadband with GPRS, EDGE, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth, microUSB, etc, except that Milestone has faster 3G HSDPA with 5.76Mbps speed compared to the 3.2Mbps of the other and has a Bluetooth 2.1 version. The Milestone can also charge via USB so it adds up to convenience.

Camera: Nokia N97 Mini. Both phones have 5MP camera with autofocus and LED flash to boast but the Mini carry no less than the Carl Ziess optics and Tessar lens giving a distant superiority difference compared to the Milestone. Milestone is capable of handing out an HD quality video with 24fps according to the specs sheet but the actual results were horrible. The Mini could produce far better video result. Milestone has no Secondary camera for Video call so it’s a big upset.

Entertainment: Nokia N97 Mini. The phone is an entertainment prowess having to support all of the possible media thrown under the hood most importantly, DivX/Xvid support which was already on the roll and in beta stage for all Symbian devices. The Milestone like most of the high end Android devices except Samsung’s doesn’t support DivX/Xvid files and it’s a huge mistake on their part. The Milestone could edge the Mini in the Flash support arena having the more advance 10.1 version compared to the v3 of the latter, and in handling 3D games having a dedicated graphics accelerator but having weight all this and Xvid/Divx support, I’m still choosing Mini because of its limitless entertainment feature.

CPU: Motorola Milestone. A runaway winner I would say having an ARM Cortex A8 600Mhz processor plus the aforementioned 3D graphic accelerator against the oldie ARM 11 434Mhz of the Nokia N97 Mini. The phone is faster and sleeker overall with vengeance and it’s undeniable.

Features: Motorola Milestone. Threaded SMS is here, voice and memo dial, Social Network integration with the contacts, among other useful features.

Battery Life: Nokia N97 Mini. So how could a 1400mAh powered Milestone be defeated with a 1200mAh battery capacity of the Nokia N97 Mini? Simple, the phone could manage power efficiently having a less power corrupt Operating System, smallish screen size and lower speed processor. The Milestone gains a lot of negative feedback regarding its battery life which is said to last less than a day in normal used and 5 hours on heavy used? (Shorty!) I could rich a day and a half with N97 Mini on normal mode and less than a day on heavy used!

Customer Support (Care Centers): Nokia N97 Mini. Nokia have strategic Care Centers all over the country so I am assured that if anything happen to my device, I have somewhere near to bump into. Both also have ready to use accessories, parts and supplies to purge.

Final Score:
Motorola Milestone – 7 points
Nokia N97 Mini – 6 points

Motorola Milestone wins overall! Cheers Moto Pepz! The phone is undeniably better than the N97 Mini and lowering its price to the Mini’s level is a smart move. I may be Nokia’s biggest fan but I can also recognize the effort of other companies to compete and I believe Motorola nailed it big time here. Perhaps what Nokia can do is lower the N97 Mini’s price further so it gets away with the Milestones price reached or better yet introduce another phone with better Operating System (Symbian^3) and capable specs as soon as possible and throw it within the bracket. Harsh truth!

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Warning! #NokiaDATE is Dangerous to your State of Mind!

I may have only been given two opportunities by WOMWorldNokia to trial a device but I can share a story about my dose of the so called DATE, (Despair After Trial Experience) that they genius-ly created as a malign mockery of their vicious intent to make this world a difficult place to live. Anyways here is my dramatic story ala Jersey Shores!

It was November 2009 when I got an email from the legendary Phat^Trance of DailyMobile.se informing me that a Nokia N97 Mini trial device is on my way from WOMWorldNokia as a prize for having written the craziest reason why I should be trialing the device. It was totally unexpected giving me a thrill of a lifetime since it will be my first and that the phone is no less than my dream phone. After the hysteria brought about by the email comes anticipation out of excitement, then sleepless nights as a result of anxiety having to prove WOMWorldNokia and other people that I deserve the prize, and then the weird day/night dreams as an effect of my subconscious lust like Jersey Shores writers!

Then came the day that I have been waiting for, a call from DHL asking me to pick up a package from the UK because they cannot locate my address, good for them! A mad dash to DHL office followed and the historic meet and great. The phone was so beautiful and shiny that I want everyone to know that I am holding one by showing it intentionally to every possible human being I meet. It wasn’t love and first site that I felt that time, but happiness and contentment, as if I was living a wonderful and meaningful life, as if I own the world!

Then came an email from WOMWorldNokia 4 days after reminding me that my trial ends in 2 days and that the DHL dude would pick it up the day after. Yes, it was preposterous because WOMWorldNokia folks doesn’t know basic Math ala Jersey Shores casts! How did the 14-days trial as stipulated in the Contract became 6 days? This lead me to seek legal counsel from my lawyers then send WOMWorldNokia a reply refuting it to the highest intent, that I still have 10 days to go before they could send the DHL Terminator dude and destroy my world.

Even if they rescheduled the pickup date, it was like a major blow on my part since I have to prepare myself for the inevitable. What’s so sad about it was the reality that once the phone was returned, I would never be able to use it again since I cannot afford to buy one. This would mean goodbye to owning the world, goodbye to happy days and goodbye to meaningful life. I even wished that it didn’t happen so I wouldn’t be subjected again to the pain of parting ways, please don’t ask why!

Anyways, the day did come as well as the doom. It was like part of me died again, it’s definitely not my heart because it already died a year ago (maybe my brain?), that I don’t want to go to work that day and just cursed my low paying job and Nokia for tagging the phone too expensively and out of reached. I even beg Nokia to lower the phones price down that time so it can compete aggressively but nothing happened. Told you my brain died!

“Denial Phase” followed after the separation and so I’m still telling everyone on twitter that I’m using the N97 Mini. The typical “I love twitting on the N97 Mini!” message still flies around a week after, no frills. The imaginary playing with the non-existing phone also propped up, sliding and swiping every stuffs I got hold into, nothing much of a difference from people going nuts in Jersey Shores!

Then came “Acceptance” basking on hope and prayer that one day Nokia will drop the price to half from the original. Visiting mobilephone shops and asking about its price even became my passion and obsession, yet after 7 months of countless shop visits, the phone is still too expensive to own, the agonizing, unforgiving and unfortunate truth. I am still far-fetched to relieving my dream life.

So how much longer do I have to suffer to be able to live a happy and meaningful life again? I leave that up for WOMWorldNokia to answer…

(P.S. I don’t unboxed stuffs and post it on youTube but I boxed stuffs and give it to people so it will be posted in their hearts. It’s how I make a difference in this cruel world!)

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Nokia N97 Mini on I Got The Feeling Music Video

Well it seemed that Nokia and the Black Eye Peas made a strong bond this past few months as I've notice another music video of them with a Nokia phone posted, the N97 Mini on the I Got The Feeling video, the sexy QWERTY sliding touched superphone. Well, it might have came out months ago but I only noticed it yesterday after watching Channel V accidentally while channel surfing. It came out twice in the early minutes of the video blazing its audacity to spell charm and interest to the video. Another well placed advertising for Nokia in here as the song make wave in the charts among music video channels like MTV, Channel V among others.

The N97 Mini is a powerful phone with design and form factor unlike no other, take a peek on its glorious façade and dance your feeling out like what I did.

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Around The World With Nokia and Ruffa Gutierrez

Do you always want to know where Ruffa is?

Now you can with Nokia’s latest mobile phone service, Share Location on Ovi Maps. Using her Nokia N97 mini, Ruffa can now upload her whereabouts in Facebook and her friends will also be able to see the location and map so that they’ll be able to join in on a conversation about where she’s at or where she’s been. “I love to share new discoveries with my friends – whether its in the Philippines or out of the country,” says multitalented actress and TV host Ruffa Gutierrez. “Through Share Location on Ovi Maps, I’m able to show them instantly the places I enjoy visiting or restaurants I’ve eaten in.”

“Ruffa embodies the Nokia user and is the perfect person for Nokia’s Share Location on Ovi Maps,” says Benoit Nalin, General Manager, Nokia Philippines. “With Share Location on Ovi Maps she can now share her locations and give people a glimpse into her multi-faceted life. Nokia is all about connecting people in meaningful, relevant ways. Ruffa is a shining example of how that can happen easily, seamlessly, with Nokia devices and services.”
Whether you explore a city on foot, hit the road driving, plan a trip, or just want to get the best out of a new destination, Ovi Maps is at your fingertips on your mobile or computer. Aside from Share Location, Ovi Maps also comes with Drive and Walk navigation, Real-time weather service including a 5-day forecast, and premium travel content by Lonely Planet and Michelin for over 1,000 destinations.

Download Ovi Maps on your Nokia phone* now at www.store.ovi.com and download the maps of the countries that you choose.

*Current list of compatible Nokia devices: Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia E52, Nokia E55, Nokia E72, Nokia 5230, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 6730 classic and Nokia X6. For the latest device list, please go tohttp://www.nokia.com/maps.

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Sunday? Customize! Nokia N97 Mini Theme New Dark Shimmer by Babi

Every week I'm featuring exceptional Themes from creative and talented authors in a way of recognizing there hard work and dedication. Kudos!

Another Babi theme in the house! Again its about having customize icons in most of the 3rd party application software that makes his theme my personal favorite. The theme also includes beautiful wallpapers fitted specifically for it giving you a choice to change wallpapers as much as you can, Enjoy people!

New Dark Shimmer by Babi
Download Here

























For more Exceptional 5th Edition Themes, Click Here!

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Sunday? Customize! Nokia N97 Mini Theme Gray Lines by Babi

Every week I'm featuring exceptional Themes from creative and talented authors in a way of recognizing there hard work and dedication. Kudos!

This is one of my most favorite theme at the moment, the icons just glows beyond the background, something new for Babi and as always like the rest of the his themes, most of the 3rd party application icons where covered, anyways, enjoy folks!

Gray Lines by Babi
Download Here

























For more Exceptional 5th Edition Themes, Click Here!

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Sunday? Customize! Nokia N97 Mini Theme Black Xmas by Babi

Every week I'm featuring exceptional Themes from creative and talented authors in a way of recognizing there hard work and dedication. Kudos!

This came a little bit late but Christmas season last until January anyway's better be late than never. This is the only Christmas theme that I like that came up, a Babi classic.

Black Xmas by Babi
Download Here

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Face Off, Still Images: Nokia N97 Mini VS Nokia N82

This is a fair face off, both phones have a 5 MegaPixel Carl Zeiss camera with Tessar lens with a difference in flash with N82 having a Xenon prowess against N97 Mini's dual LED flash.

Lets see how both fared! (N97 Mini on the left, N82 on the right)

Outdoor Shots:




















Indoor Shots: (Day Time)




















Night Shoots:



















I am not a photography expert but its not difficult rather to choose the best images. Though booth phone have the same Camera specs, Nokia N82 produces better images compared to N97 Mini. Very big difference of course is the LED of N97 Mini, it produces disappointing results just like the inset image on the right.

So what is it with the recent 5MP Nokia phones nowadays, why they slump short against there old devices, does this mean they are now taking the camera department for granted?

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Nokia N97 Mini Review, The Software

The Nokia N97 Mini with a device software version v10.0.20 has the most mature and stable version of the Symbian 60 version 5, lots of improvement were seen compared to the earlier versions. Most visible is the User Interface’s (UI) responsiveness, it’s undoubtedly faster and hardly experience lags in opening applications, the kinetic scrolling is also now by far smooth. The 250MB of Phone Memory is a welcome addition, this would mean more applications can be downloaded and installed on the phone memory creating a faster application response compared to those that are save in the memory card. The problem though is the phones RAM, it’s not enough to cover its capacity specially in multitasking, often than not, few warnings of Memory Full comes up while running Nokia Messaging, Gravity, Music Player, Web Browser and youTube client at the same time, but at least it can, other phones doesn’t even support multitasking. It would really be appreciated if Nokia will double the RAM capacity of the phone.









Homescreen:

The live homescreen of the N97 Mini is its best feature, there can never be any better than be updated to your most favorite applications making use of a once boring space. This perhaps is one of the biggest envy of other manufacturers as Nokia toss this down exclusively. The only problem that crops up was its limited customization like the eMail slot, there’s only one slot intended for this that will show only a single eMail account, it would have been better if there were 2 or more, no doubt people nowadays maintain more than one eMail account. It would also have been better if Nokia would put more Shortcut content, only two slots were given for this at the moment.









Calendar and Contacts

Nokia’s calendar set up is as always, excellent, adding up events, schedules, reminders among others is a breeze. Dividing the calendar screen to half giving way to daily activity list is a welcome addition, this eliminates the tapping of the date to show its content. Contacts is rather a charm, you can add every possible information into it. Searching for contacts is now easier than ever as kinetic scrolling is also implemented. Ovi chat is now pre installed and works perfectly well. Ovi Contacts needs to be integrated here, this will solidify the Contacts feature more edging other manufacturers.









Music

Music Menu have a facelift, it’s now on a List View adding up the option to open the last track played. Music Store was integrated as well, another welcome addition. Music library didn’t change much while the Album Art on the portrait mode now shows a huge album image, makes the screen more lively to gaze, landscape mode is roughly the same.
Music Player is the best on its class, as mentioned on the Daily Chronicle, the device plays top of the line music with crisp and clear sound using the headphone. Loudness and Stereo Widening works perfectly well rather and the Bass Booster is rocking its way. Stereo Speakers though was let down, it’s seemed distorted on high volume, Nokia 6233 sounds even better and louder than this. Music Player supports MP3, WMA, WAV and AAC+ files.
















Video and TV

The Video and TV menu is something new to S60v5 showing the same List View menu to that of the Music folder with a Last Video Played sub menu, other sub menu includes My Video and Video Feeds. The Nokia N97 Mini plays WMV, RealVideo, MP4 files flawlessly in the full screen mode but the absence of support for DivX and Xvid files is a bit of a letdown but can be covered by a 3rd application software like the SmartMovie that can be bought online, but then again other manufacturers supports this file for free so it’s an additional expense for Nokia devices. It’s high time for Nokia to dwell on this matter as there where countless of people who make this there most preferred basis in buying phones.

Web and Email

As mentioned on the Daily Chronicle, the web page implementation of this phone was greatly improved, it now supports automatic fullscreen transition which is another welcome addition making use of the phones entire screen rather than the ¾ screen dissection before. Kinetic scrolling was also added making web browsing experience more enjoyable and lively. There is also a youTube video support which makes it possible to play videos directly from the web page unlike the 5530 XpressMusic that needs a 3rd party client to view one, a huge step up.
The Nokia N97 Mini has the typical Nokia Messaging client but its stability is worth nothing, it never resembled the same problem to that of the 5530 XpressMusic, no freezing or lag in opening eMails, no failure to open the client itself, among others. It’s not E75-like in interface and reliability but it serves its purpose pretty well.









Camera and Photo

The Nokia N97 Mini sports a 5 MegaPixel Carl Ziess Camera with Autofocus and like Nokia N82, it also produce similar top end images in well lit areas. No improvements though on the camera feature except that the touch interface provides a more interactive experience. Dim and Night shoots on the other hand is below average having only a Dual LED Flash. Images comes out cloudy and blurred with lots of background noise. As you can see in the images below, the difference is a quarter mile compared to N82’s Xenon especially in far angle shoots. Video of the N97 Mini supports VGA with 30 frames per minute, same quality to that of N82 except that N97 Mini was fun to use with its large screen.

Outdoor Shoots









Indoor Shoots









Close Up Night Shoots










Games

Nokia’s initial success in the mobilephone market was solely achieve by integrating games and entertainment to their mobilephones and N97 Mini is no different from its ancestors, it is game capable and has one preinstalled, the Mix DJ Tour and there were tons of additional free games that can be downloaded via Ovi Store. If you happen to be in the APAC area, Ovi Store has 10 free top end Gameloft games that you can download for free, to mention some, The Assassin Creed, Prince of Persia, Block Breaker, Brain Challenge 2 among others. The phone have no N-Gage client pre installed, an obvious omission from Nokia since their closing the service to gave way to Ovi Store but there is an N-Gage installer than can be downloaded in the web if you wish to install one.









Conclusion

There is no doubt that Nokia N97 Mini is the best on its class, having all this feature into one device is incredible, it was named Mini yet its larger feature wise than any other phone in the market at the moment. It has the best touch sensitivity, best UI, best form factor, best QWERTY, best build quality, best services and it’s even the cheapest among phones with the same capability, call that the best value super phone. If you’re looking for a touchscreen phone within the price point and you want only the best, then this is the only phone you can find, it’s worth every penny you spent.

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