Nokia N97, N97 mini’s Review of The OS, The Interface, The Apps
All About Symbian has posted a new review of the Nokia N97 and Nokia N97 mini, the part of the reviews include the OS,?Interface and Appliances?
As ever, S60’s interface revolves around the dual tenets of a homescreen, in this case one with five customisable slots for widgets (several of which have multiple actions and assignments), and a traditional application shortcuts grid. Both tenets deserve comment here, especially in the light of 2009 expectations.
Nokia’s widgetised homescreen, lifted (as far as I can gather) from Symbian^2 (along with much of the memory model, and another example of how S60 is going to fairly seamlessly meld into ‘Symbian’), has been widely praised and for good reason. It’s simple enough for everyone to understand, there’s little to go wrong and yet it’s relatively powerful. The slots available may look limited compared to the multiple scene, multiple page freeform system that HTC have envisioned for their Hero’s Sense skin (on top of Android), but they do the job nicely for most people.
As shown, I tend to run my N97 mini with two application shortcut widgets (i.e. 8 apps just one tap away), Music player (in the absence of hardware media controls, this is the best that can be done for the likes of the N97), Calendar (showing up to three upcoming appointments and/or to-dos), and my four ‘Favourite contacts’. With extra application shortcuts assigned automatically to the clock, to the Profile display and date, there’s a lot of accessibility on offer. The legacy ‘Options’ menu looks a little redundant, as does the assignment of a ‘right hand function key’, but at least this mimics what a user would find on an older S60 phone and provides a degree of familiarity.

































































