Nokia N97 Mini deals & review

The N97’s cosmetic downsizing also comes with a reduction in battery life and internal memory. You now get 8 GB down form the 32 GB on the N97 with the same 128 MB RAM. Not bad when you still enjoy microSD expandability for up to 32 GB. The slimmer 1200 mAh Li-Ion battery means a shorter life 2 hours short of the 9-hour talk time on the N97.

Its downsizing is not so significant when you consider it’s also cheaper by about €100. Apart from the differences, the Nokia N97 Mini is essentially an N97 in a smaller body. It has the same ARM 11 processor clocked at 434 MHz running the same Symbian S60 5.0 platform. 

The Mini remains the same quad band GSM on 2 with class 32 GPRS/EDGE data speeds and is also a tri band UMTS with HSDPA at 3.6 Mbps on 3G. You also get hotspot support with its WiFi 802.11b/g with UPnP technology as well as Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and microUSB 2.0 for local high speed data transfers. 

You get the same 5 megapixel autofocus snapper with Carl Zeiss optics, dual LED flash and video light for a VGS video rescoring at 30fps. On hand is the same geo tagging facility from its GPS receiver with A-GPS support, a digital compass and Nokia Maps. 

There’s the same set of media players supporting the same audio and video codecs with TV video out, stereo FM with RDS, a 3.5mm headphone jack and A2DP wireless stereo listening.

Mini-Me versions are not new in the mobile phone community minimizing features of high end handsets successful in upscale markets. The objective has always been to bring the price down to a wider market. With the continuing success of the upscale Nokia N97, it is not surprising that Nokia would come out with a minimized version. And the Nokia N97 Mini is precisely that. 

Dressing Down a Market Leader

Nokia’s flagship N97 gets minimized on the Mini which gets a smaller 113 x 52.5 x 14.2 mm QWERTY slider touchscreen body and 12g lighter at 138g. This gives the Mini better appeal to many who like the N97 features but not its intolerably bulky body. It also comes in various color schemes – gold, cherry black, garnet and white.

A smaller body means a smaller screen at 3.2 inches from the N97’s 3.5 inches. You still get the same resistive touchscreen technology and half-VGA resolution with 16 million colors. It still comes with a gravity accelerometer for auto rotate viewing convenience and a proximity sensor for auto turn off of its touchscreen sensitivity in a call.