Nokia N91 Simply Brilliant

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For over a year I’d been lusting after the shiny new Nokia N91 which was the first of Nokia’s new “N” Series of high end phones to garner significant press. Here in the US the phone was advertised prior even to its receipt of FCC approval. Subsequent delays, ostensibly due to Nokia’s desire to comply with Microsoft’s DRM pushed the release of the phone back even further and as a result even though it was the first N Series phone announced, it was the third to reach the hands of select individuals such as the fortunate bloggers in Nokia’s Blogger Outreach Program that has been the enormously successful marketing innovation developed by Andy Abramson via his Comunicano Marketing Company.

Last week when Andy informed me that he’d finally received his alotment of these intensely coveted devices I nearly slept on his porch such was my excitement to get my hands on the new, shiny hardware. Finally on Thursday Andy and I met up and I’ve hardly slept since then having spent nearly every spare moment exploring this latest of Nokia’s technological marvels. Truly, this phone is a spectacular device but before I dive into the details i wanted to say a few words about the blogger outreach program because I feel strongly that what they’ve done has been a really important and visionary marketing initiative and an unqualified success.

For those of you that don’t know about this the premise is simple; rather than sending phones off to dozens of magazine editors for brief examination and cursory review, Andy convinced Nokia that a hand picked group of bloggers -some like Om Malik - already very well known and others much less so, would, given the chance to truly use the phones for an extended period, generate far more (and better quality) publicity and exposure of the devices than simply doing the magazine “spray and pray”. If you pay a visit to the Bloggercomm site you’ll see what I mean. The site is the reflection of the hundreds and hundreds of posts that have been made as people like your faithful author have used, abused and enjoyed a series of very advanced handsets.

Mind you, not every comment is positive as you well know, bloggers are an opinionated lot, but the truthfulness of the words gives Nokia amazing credibility as few people will test the limits of these devices the way phone fanatics such as myself tend to. In the end, Andy’s program has established a clear precedent for creating deep awareness among early adopters and allowing the general public to see unvarnished commentary on first generation technology as it is tried and tested in real world conditions. It has been a privilege to participate in the Blogger Outreach Program; as I said to Andy when I received the Nokia N70 which preceded the current phone: “every time you ship us a new device it’s like getting a small heavy box at Christmas - small heavy boxes were always the most exciting because they tended to be things like pocket knives, which, at least for me, were the most exciting and useful of gifts”.

Now on to the phone!
The Nokia N91 is also known as the “Music Phone”. The key defining characteristic of the phone is its 4 gig harddrive and a face that has dedicated music buttons instead of the usual keypad. The phone is clad in a thin sheet of stainless steel over about 75% of its body and as soon as you take it in your hands you can tell this phone isn’t ordinary. Substantial is the first word that comes to mind. If you like 2 ounce phones the N91 is NOT for you. If like me, however, the heft of a well made piece of equipment feels good in your hand then you’ll appreciate the N91 in all its glory.

Most of the specifications are known but a quick rundown can save you the trip to another site so here goes:

4-Gig Hardrive capable of storing up to 3000 songs (this of course depends upon the bitrate at which you record, audiophiles will see a reduction in the number of songs that can be stored)
Dedicated Music Keys (the front of the phone resembles an iPod however their is no click-wheel (although it looks like one to some degree)
320 x 240 display with 65,000+ colors
WiFi, GSM-GPRS, UMTS
Symbian S60 Third Edition (featuring Nokia’s new mobile web browser)
The usual cast of Visual Radio, Java, Real Player, and smart phone functionality including calendar, notes, etc
Support for MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, WAV M4A, Real and others
Support for USB 2.0 for fast data transfers
Bluetooth
3.5 Headset jack and wired remote control
XPressMusic Support for OTA Music Downloads (not available in US currently)

There’s probably more that I’m forgetting but you probably get the idea that this is really a very complete device.

Having had the N70 and the N90 previously I’d already expected that the N91 would sound good and I wasn’t disappointed. With high grade headphones such as those made by Shure I am confident that the sound would be on par with just about any mobile device (using the same headphones) however I don’t have the ability to do any exhaustive sound testing beyond my personal opinion.

What I do like quite a bit are the dedicated function keys for accessing music and playing, skipping forward or back to navigate through your collection. Though not as convenient as the iPod’s click wheel, the joystick does a reasonable job of getting you where you want to go fast enough and the display which includes album art if available is just beautiful.

Like the other N Series phones battery life is surprisingly good for devices that do so much - particularly when you examine the battery - they’re rather small all things considered but I guess that’s just a design constraint as there’s really not much room for anything bigger without altering the form factor of the phone.

Speaking of phones, it is abundantly clear that music - not telephony was the raison d’etre for this device. The phone keypad is hidden beneath the principal display by a face that slides down with a satisfying “snick” to expose an illuminated set of typical phone keys with a layout similar to the other Nokia N Series Devices. One word of caution here. If you have huge hands or stubby fingers this phone will frustrate you. Besides being recessed, the keys are very small and fairly close together - this is not the SMS addicts dream keypad. Although serviceable for normal use (and even for my excessive SMS and Mobile Email usage) it is a far cry from the broad open N90 keys which are at the upper end of great as far as ease of texting is concerned.

The web browser - the first time I’ve had access to Nokia’s new S60 Open Source application is very good. You’ll immediately notice a familiar pointer that switches to a hand when above clickable text - whoa? what’s this? Yes indeed; the joystick doubles as a mouse when the browser is active. This is a big deal for mobile browsing and that coupled with the native zooming and page-view for navigation functions will quickly convince you that there are always ways to improve user experience and Nokia has implemented quite a few here.

While still a far cry from browsing on a PC the improvement is substantial and takes some of the pain from trying to navigate a website with a tiny screen. The WiFi (which is 802.11G) helps as well speeding up page rendering dramatically. However, I did find staying connected using the WiFi to be a bit trying and it was hit or miss attempting to connect with my own WPA2 secured AP’s - perhaps because this level of security isn’t totally supported in the N91.

The device comes beautifully packaged (as do all N Series phones) an includes the phone, battery, desktop charging stand and travel charger, wired remote, headphones, the Nokia PC Suite on CD Rom, and an instructional manual. It lacks the soft lens cleaning cloth and wrist lanyard that came with both the N70 and N90 however.

Personally I wish there was some kind of protective case for this baby. It’s high luster finish is beautiful and I’d prefer to keep it that way, plus the extra weight and lack of a lanyard connection on the phone make it even more likely to take a tumble. We’ll see how tough the tiny hard drive is the day that misfortune occurs. My only other gripe is with the camera. Having grown spoiled with the N70 and more so the N90 camera’s the inability to focus the N91 manually was frustrating as I’ve become quite the photographer since starting to deal with these Nokia phones. Other than that though I have little to complain about so far.

The Verdict

So here’s the $10,000 question; would I get one of these if I was buying? To be totally honest that is a tough one. For that to make sense music has to be a really important focus for your life and you also have to want to carry only a single device. For me, a guy that carries multiple devices the N91 saves me from having to drag an iPod around that I only rarely use and it does basically everything that the N70 does except take photos so perfectly. Plus it does a better job web browsing..

…so for me I would give a qualified yes. Here are thee qualifiers: I use white noise to nap and so I MUST have some digital music player when I travel, this does that job perfectly and reduces the requirement to carry an iPod as a result, it also does everything else a smartphone does so I can eliminate the N70 from the bag - however if I was going somewhere really picturesque I think the N90 would be the call. It simply takes the best photos and that is something I’ve come to really enjoy. Of course the N70 is clean and light and a great phone - in fact, it has become my principal phone for many reasons, particularly its battery life and versatility so for traveling, I’d probably drag all three, but hey, that’s me and you have to be a bit phone obsessed to write MobileCrunch, right?

Tags: MobileMusic,, smartphone,, review,, iPod,, musicphone,, Nokia-N91,,
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