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Review: Nokia N97

Form Basics Extras Video Wrap Up Comments 16

Music Camera Pictures/Video Browse/Customize Extras

The N97 comes with 32GB of on-board storage and supports microSD cards up to 16GB. That makes for a whopping 48GB of potential storage. You're not going to have any problems stuffing the N97 with music, video and photo content, that's for sure. Music can be synced directly to the N97's storage or via Nokia's PC Suite software. It can also be sideloaded into a microSD card.

The basic music player is, once again, the same that Nokia uses on its other S60 handsets. That are no new features that I can find, and, heck, some features available on $100 Series 40 phones (user-adjustable graphic equalizer) have been removed. For such a media-centric device, I was holding out hope that Nokia would pay some extra attention to the music app. It didn't.

Playback works fine and all the controls make sense. It is easy to use and adjust, set play lists and save songs as ringtones, but I was expecting more pizazz. The N97 has an FM transmitter, so you can broadcast via FM and then pick up the signal with any regular FM radio.

The N97 itself has stereo speakers, but music playback through them is downright atrocious. If you set the volume above the 40% mark, the sound will get all distorted and garbled. Stick to headphones.

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Nokia N97

3.5" display 360 x 640 pixels
ARM 11 processor
1,500 mAh battery
Memory Card Slot, Hardware Text Keyboard, Headphone Jack (3.5mm)