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Bluetooth

The Bluetooth features of the Nuron worked exceptionally well. I had no problems pairing with pretty much every device in my office. Sound quality of phone calls through mono headsets was great, and music quality through stereo headsets was also very good. Out of the box, the Bluetooth menu is buried pretty deep. It's actually kind of a pain. If you use Bluetooth often, I'd recommend setting it as one of the home screen shortcuts.

Clock

The N97 is a frustrating watch replacement. There doesn't appear to be a way to get the time to show up nice and large when you want to. When the phone is locked, pressing any of the keys just generates the "you need to unlock the phone first" message. You can't see the time on this page. You have to go all the way and unlock the phone to read the clock on the home page. Lame. Once unlocked, the age-old analog clock is where it always is, in the upper-left corner of the home screen. That can be switched to digital if you wish.

GPS

The Nuron is the first Nokia device to be offered with free Ovi Maps. (Why TeleNav's software is also on board is a question I can't answer.) The newest version of Ovi Maps is robust and works quite well. It offers free point-to-point, voice-guided walking and driving directions. The GPS was the fastest I've experienced on a Nokia device. The Nuron was able to peg my location within a few meters in less than 20 seconds. Older Nokia phones would take a minute or more to lock onto GPS.

I was able to generate directions with no issues, and the phone was able to figure out if/when I got lost, and would re-route me if I did. The mapping software works fast, too. With many phone-based map systems, a network connection is required to obtain the mapping information. Ovi Maps caches map data so it can be accessed faster (and in areas where there's no signal or a weak signal). Ovi Maps easily beat Google Maps in simple walking directions around Las Vegas, if only because it was able to provide information in areas with questionable coverage.

Ovi Store

The Nuron comes pre-loaded with the Ovi Store. The Ovi Store is where users can choose to browse, buy and download applications. I haven't tested it in a while, and it is noticeably easier to use than when I last checked it out several months ago. Searching is easier, the categories make more sense, and it downloads apps fairly fast. It's also less crash-y. I'd say Apple and Google still have the apps edge — at least as far as their own storefronts are concerned, but the Ovi Store is usable, no doubt.

There's also a separate web2go apps store that is run and managed by T-Mobile. The web2go store is a little bit easier to navigate, especially for those used to using T-Mobile branded services.

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