I’m sure you know that the N97 firmware was launched a few days back. I have a N97 and I used to find the N97 to be woefully inadequate in terms of handling things without giving me a warning on low memory or RAM.
V12 was pretty bad and did not really help the top of the line Nokia to remain up there. A beautifully designed product and very practical, there were a lot of things that went against this phone, so much so that many of us were prompted to believe that the N97 was launched before time.
Recently Nokia outed the much touted and talked about update for the N97. The new firmware was supposed to bring forth many changes to the N97 and bring it on par with the N97mini in terms of software. Kinetic scrolling and what not was promised… but did it deliver? Well the reactions have been mixed with some people having a harrowing time with the device afterwards. I was skeptical of what was beings said and decided to take the plunge. The first thing I did was to fire up FOTA, but there was nothing there. So then it was onto Nokia PC Suite and the Nokia Software Updater, but that did not work properly and the same was the case with Ovi Suite. Both of the suites did not allow the phone software updater application to update itself, which is kind of weird. I tried to get it to work on 3 different internet connections but faced the same error of the internet connection being lost and this would always happen at the last 1%.
Finally this is what I did to get the software updater and Nokia PC Suite to update themselves and pass on the update love to the N97 too and it worked. So if you are facing similar problems, I strongly advise you follow this process and you’ll have the updated software on your phone too.
So here are my first impressions of a long overdue firmware update. Kinetic scrolling is a life saviour and coupled with a better touch sensitive screen means that it is no longer a pain to use the touchscreen. In fact it is the other way round. I found the N97 to be more touch friendly in this firmware than in any other firmwares. After a long time I felt as if I was holding a touchscreen phone and this in many ways according to me is the first proper touchscreen phone Nokia has made.
That’s not all, the music player application has undergone a very pleasant and welcome change. The listing of songs and albums is much better and so is the search, at least visually it seems to be great! Each song is now represented with a big icon instead of a small one in the previous versions and there are changes all around in almost every nook and cranny of this OS. It seems that they have really pulled out on any stops to provide a user experience that should have been there in the first place.
Long press of keys on the QWERTY keypad has been implemented, this means that one does not have to hit the ‘blue arrow’ key to type anything printed in blue on the keys, you just have to long press that key and voila!
The calculator application seems to have undergone a change and is more user friendly than before. There seems to be more RAM free on the N97 now. I surely can feel that things are working more smoothly and quickly. The phone memory management has improved. Ovi store has received a new client and an icon to boot. These were all the changes I have noticed in the new firmware of the N97.
Just forgot to add that there is now a ‘Phone Setup’ on the N97 which allows you setup your phone and all the important things in it. There is also a new widget, Vlingo which has been added to the list of widgets. Vlingo basically is a software that allows you to ‘talk’ to your phone and tell it to do things which you would otherwise do with your fingers. This application needs an active data connection which is a bit of a downer in India.
I would suggest you all to give the new firmware a shot. It is really good. Finally it feels like the N97 has got a proper update and some attention from Nokia. Nokia on its part, has revived the resistive v/s capacitive debate with great touch sensitivity implemented on the ’97 through the firmware update. I haven’t tried the Maps yet, so will not comment on it yet, but I hear it has received an update too.
If there some additions or something that is different on the N97 after the firmware, please let us know. Leave your comments below! 