Buy This Product
January 9 2010: I amended the review to add some details about a couple problems I've had with the phone, slowdowns which lead to lockups and twice it suffered a system crash that leads to wiping out the phone's memory. I devoted a lot of the amended review to a hassle I had with Nokia's customer service. I realize that's unfair and irrelevant to the review of the phone, so I removed it.
Although it says I bought the phone from Amazon I actually bought it direct from Nokia. I canceled the Amazon order when I thought they had the wrong color. I'm sorry that happened because buying it from Amazon would have been a better experience.
My original review:
The quality of the materials and the fit/finish & construction is the first thing I noticed, taking this out of the box. It has nice surfaces everywhere, a shiny steel bezel on the front and highlights around the bottom section, a matte black (brownish) metal finish on the bottom with a steel battery door and camera lens bezel. The battery door latches securely (and easily) unlike any phone I've ever owned. The phone feels heavy in a high quality way. It fits in your hand in a way that makes it feel much thinner than you would expect from the measurements. The flare at the bottom makes it feel more secure in your hand. The raised lens bezel makes it easy to avoid inadvertently using the camera lens as a finger grip.
so many pros...
-- Touchscreen is very responsive and has kinetic scrolling and it's easy to stop the screen without accidentally launching something.
-- Browser is full screen and looks great. (embedded con - I'm not sure I like the controls that pop up for some basic stuff like "back" or bookmarks. I can't find an easy way to backtrack in sites without bringing up the clunky set of controls.)
-- The 3-row back-lit keyboard is easy to see in dim light, and it looks awesome with the gray and orange illumination. The layout works great for me, I'm already comfortable with how it works and find it much nicer than keyboards with 5 rows of keys.
-- 16 x 9 screen has excellent color and brightness, even outside. Perfect format for watching movies full screen.
-- Has native support for Flash and java so Youtubes and flash based websites look like they should.
-- When you open the keyboard the screen tilts into a good viewing angle, either for typing with your thumbs or setting it on a table. Works great for watching videos, you don't have to prop it up on something.
-- Stereo speakers sound great for speaker phone. Music sounds outstanding through headphones, it sounds like a high-end MP3 player. Music Player has the best sorting, album art, searching, Playlist creating and ID3Tag editing I've ever seen on a phone - wow.
-- Accelerometer is pretty fast and all menus and screens and all but a few third-party apps have a landscape mode. You have to turn it on, it's off by default. The keyboard forces a landscape mode.
-- This is the most customizable phone I've ever had. Nothing is locked in place, put it wherever it works best for you. I've already downloaded about a dozen themes and love how much you can personalize the appearance of the menus and screens, even the icons.
-- The widgitized home screen is of course just as customizable but has another feature I wasn't expecting. You can swipe your finger across it and hide all the widgets so your phone display is just the wallpaper you chose and the clock at the top. Another swipe brings them back.
-- Call quality and signal strength is very good - what you would expect from Nokia. I'm replacing a Samsung Eternity and this phone is a dramatic contrast, it's so much better.
-- All the phone stuff, voice dial, speed dial, endless contact list with all the fields you could ever need, excellent contact list access/search, full MP3 ringtones, etc. It's all there and implemented very well.
-- It comes loaded with apps, all of which can be removed if you want. Email is available in a couple different ways, a pay push system or free mail client in the messaging bundle. POP3 or IMAP.
-- App stores for Symbian S60 are plentiful and there are loads of free apps and themes as well as ones you pay for.
-- GPS is fast to fix on a location and stays locked on very well. Works much better outside than it does indoors.
-- WiFi was easy to set up with MAC address and WPA security on my home system. It seems a bit flakey about staying connected or the phone deciding which network to use for certain apps, GSM or WiFi. I haven't found the way to configure this yet but I'm sure it's in there somewhere. (edited: a call to nokia support took care of this. There is a way to make it ask which connection to use when launching)
-- Headphone jack has video out and hands-free mic & music controller inside the single 3.5mm plug. A nice set of headphones with mic and music controls is included but no video cable.
-- Camera is excellent from what I can tell, haven't tried the video recorder yet.
you get the idea... I really like this phone. It does everything and does it in a mature way, the OS feels like it's no-nonsense, something made for adults.
Now the cons (including a big one - oops nokia!)
-- limited video codec support. No DiVX. Player is from Real Player. I'm looking for a video player app to replace it - any suggestions would be appreciated.
-- photo viewer doesn't recognize folders. This means all your contacts, album art, phone photos and collections of photos are all in one list, not necessarily sorted in the order you would expect. It's a pain to do anything with photos (my old phone worked the same way). I see there are third--party apps that seem to address all the issues. A Nokia update would be nice to make the photo viewer usable.
-- GPS has an indicator to show it's running but it doesn't show if it's connected to any satellites. (edited: some of the GPS apps have a satellite signal strength indicator on the screen.)
-- some of the menus and built-in apps like the media player have a bland retro look. A bit of skinning would have helped, smaller boxes, less 3-d shading and touches like that. Simpler would have been nicer. Maybe some different fonts.
-- There's a blinking indicator for unread messages that won't stop flashing. I've marked everything I can find as read but it continues blinking.
-- The screen is a little stiff to flip up, but it's spring loaded so once it gets going it flies into place. Getting a fingernail under the back part really helps pop it into place. A small indent back there would have helped.
-- USB connector is uncovered (dust) and is placed on the front so it's a bit awkward using it while plugged in.
-- not a con but I haven't figured out where the mic is - so I'm not sure if I'm putting my finger over it.
-- Here's the big one... The bottom of the phone has the camera lens bezel on one side and a flare on the other side to make it sit flat on a flat surface. The space in front of the lens bezel is enough to make it tip when you type on that side of the keyboard. It's frustrating to use something that is such obviously high quality and have it be wobbly, bouncing up and down as you try to type. It's easy to get around by putting something under it. It's like an annoying table at a restaurant that needs a matchbook under a leg to keep it steady.
The original N97, the design this phone was based on, has a lens cover in a shroud that extends to the front of the phone. Leaving the lens cover off the mini created the problem. The designers must have not thought it through (or tested their design) but it clearly is a flaw Nokia needs to correct.
This phone is just too cool to give up on so I used a wooden matchstick to steady it and then realized I could just glue it to the case.
I took a photo of my matchstick mod and will put it in the user photo gallery. If anyone else comes up with a solution for the tippy case I'd love to see it, I hoping to use the mini for at least a few years.
Although it says I bought the phone from Amazon I actually bought it direct from Nokia. I canceled the Amazon order when I thought they had the wrong color. I'm sorry that happened because buying it from Amazon would have been a better experience.
My original review:
The quality of the materials and the fit/finish & construction is the first thing I noticed, taking this out of the box. It has nice surfaces everywhere, a shiny steel bezel on the front and highlights around the bottom section, a matte black (brownish) metal finish on the bottom with a steel battery door and camera lens bezel. The battery door latches securely (and easily) unlike any phone I've ever owned. The phone feels heavy in a high quality way. It fits in your hand in a way that makes it feel much thinner than you would expect from the measurements. The flare at the bottom makes it feel more secure in your hand. The raised lens bezel makes it easy to avoid inadvertently using the camera lens as a finger grip.
so many pros...
-- Touchscreen is very responsive and has kinetic scrolling and it's easy to stop the screen without accidentally launching something.
-- Browser is full screen and looks great. (embedded con - I'm not sure I like the controls that pop up for some basic stuff like "back" or bookmarks. I can't find an easy way to backtrack in sites without bringing up the clunky set of controls.)
-- The 3-row back-lit keyboard is easy to see in dim light, and it looks awesome with the gray and orange illumination. The layout works great for me, I'm already comfortable with how it works and find it much nicer than keyboards with 5 rows of keys.
-- 16 x 9 screen has excellent color and brightness, even outside. Perfect format for watching movies full screen.
-- Has native support for Flash and java so Youtubes and flash based websites look like they should.
-- When you open the keyboard the screen tilts into a good viewing angle, either for typing with your thumbs or setting it on a table. Works great for watching videos, you don't have to prop it up on something.
-- Stereo speakers sound great for speaker phone. Music sounds outstanding through headphones, it sounds like a high-end MP3 player. Music Player has the best sorting, album art, searching, Playlist creating and ID3Tag editing I've ever seen on a phone - wow.
-- Accelerometer is pretty fast and all menus and screens and all but a few third-party apps have a landscape mode. You have to turn it on, it's off by default. The keyboard forces a landscape mode.
-- This is the most customizable phone I've ever had. Nothing is locked in place, put it wherever it works best for you. I've already downloaded about a dozen themes and love how much you can personalize the appearance of the menus and screens, even the icons.
-- The widgitized home screen is of course just as customizable but has another feature I wasn't expecting. You can swipe your finger across it and hide all the widgets so your phone display is just the wallpaper you chose and the clock at the top. Another swipe brings them back.
-- Call quality and signal strength is very good - what you would expect from Nokia. I'm replacing a Samsung Eternity and this phone is a dramatic contrast, it's so much better.
-- All the phone stuff, voice dial, speed dial, endless contact list with all the fields you could ever need, excellent contact list access/search, full MP3 ringtones, etc. It's all there and implemented very well.
-- It comes loaded with apps, all of which can be removed if you want. Email is available in a couple different ways, a pay push system or free mail client in the messaging bundle. POP3 or IMAP.
-- App stores for Symbian S60 are plentiful and there are loads of free apps and themes as well as ones you pay for.
-- GPS is fast to fix on a location and stays locked on very well. Works much better outside than it does indoors.
-- WiFi was easy to set up with MAC address and WPA security on my home system. It seems a bit flakey about staying connected or the phone deciding which network to use for certain apps, GSM or WiFi. I haven't found the way to configure this yet but I'm sure it's in there somewhere. (edited: a call to nokia support took care of this. There is a way to make it ask which connection to use when launching)
-- Headphone jack has video out and hands-free mic & music controller inside the single 3.5mm plug. A nice set of headphones with mic and music controls is included but no video cable.
-- Camera is excellent from what I can tell, haven't tried the video recorder yet.
you get the idea... I really like this phone. It does everything and does it in a mature way, the OS feels like it's no-nonsense, something made for adults.
Now the cons (including a big one - oops nokia!)
-- limited video codec support. No DiVX. Player is from Real Player. I'm looking for a video player app to replace it - any suggestions would be appreciated.
-- photo viewer doesn't recognize folders. This means all your contacts, album art, phone photos and collections of photos are all in one list, not necessarily sorted in the order you would expect. It's a pain to do anything with photos (my old phone worked the same way). I see there are third--party apps that seem to address all the issues. A Nokia update would be nice to make the photo viewer usable.
-- GPS has an indicator to show it's running but it doesn't show if it's connected to any satellites. (edited: some of the GPS apps have a satellite signal strength indicator on the screen.)
-- some of the menus and built-in apps like the media player have a bland retro look. A bit of skinning would have helped, smaller boxes, less 3-d shading and touches like that. Simpler would have been nicer. Maybe some different fonts.
-- There's a blinking indicator for unread messages that won't stop flashing. I've marked everything I can find as read but it continues blinking.
-- The screen is a little stiff to flip up, but it's spring loaded so once it gets going it flies into place. Getting a fingernail under the back part really helps pop it into place. A small indent back there would have helped.
-- USB connector is uncovered (dust) and is placed on the front so it's a bit awkward using it while plugged in.
-- not a con but I haven't figured out where the mic is - so I'm not sure if I'm putting my finger over it.
-- Here's the big one... The bottom of the phone has the camera lens bezel on one side and a flare on the other side to make it sit flat on a flat surface. The space in front of the lens bezel is enough to make it tip when you type on that side of the keyboard. It's frustrating to use something that is such obviously high quality and have it be wobbly, bouncing up and down as you try to type. It's easy to get around by putting something under it. It's like an annoying table at a restaurant that needs a matchbook under a leg to keep it steady.
The original N97, the design this phone was based on, has a lens cover in a shroud that extends to the front of the phone. Leaving the lens cover off the mini created the problem. The designers must have not thought it through (or tested their design) but it clearly is a flaw Nokia needs to correct.
This phone is just too cool to give up on so I used a wooden matchstick to steady it and then realized I could just glue it to the case.
I took a photo of my matchstick mod and will put it in the user photo gallery. If anyone else comes up with a solution for the tippy case I'd love to see it, I hoping to use the mini for at least a few years.
