Mobile-Geeks

Nokia N97 vs iPhone 3GS : Which is better?

Posted on 04. Jul, 2009 by geek in News, iPhone | 2 comments

A fight between Nokia N97 vs iPhone is going on across the globe and still no one has been announced as a winner. Of course the criteria of win will be on sales and this month will be decisive to rank anyone on top position.

Here we decided to give a little comparison of both phones and you can also view the video of comparison of these two phones.

Touchscreen and Display

The displays are similar 3.5 inch in size but Nokia N97’s display looks clearer as it has higher resolution of 640 X 360 than iPhone’s 320 X 480 pixels display. The touchscreen technology used by the two devices are vastly different. The iPhone’s capacitive touchscreen has very good sensitivity than Nokia N97’s pressure sensitive resistive touchscreen which needs a little more pressure to ensure the touch action.

Storage Capacity

The Nokia N97 has the largest storage capacity for any mobile phone. It has internal storage of 32 GB and which is expandable by 16 GB more with additional micro SDHC card making a total of 48 GB. The iPhone 3GS is available in two varieties of 16GB and 32 GB internal memory.

Processor, RAM

The GPU used in both the devices are the same PowerVR SGX graphics supporting OPENGL ES 2.0. However N97 uses ARM 11 CPU which clocks at 434 MHz and 128 MB RAM compared to iPhone 3G S has ARM Cortex A8 processor clocking at 600 MHz and 256 MB RAM. This clearly states that iPhone 3G S packs more speed than N97.

Operating System

Nokia N97 runs the Symbian v9.4 Series 60 rel 5 OS whereas iPhone OS 3.0 is available for iPhone 3GS. The iPhone OS apart from being a stable multitasking platform with ease of software development, is more internet ready than the N97 which hasn’t even got a decent browser. Every aspect of the iPhone OS is designed keeping in mind that today people live on internet. Configuring a new e-mail account, e-mailing pictures and general web surfing is a breeze on iPhone. The N97 is also claimed to be internet ready but doing things is not that pleasurable experience as the iPhone. To defend for Nokia I would only say that N97 supports Java but the Apple iPhone 3G S does not. Also iPhone 3G S still lacks the support of Flash.

App Store / Ovi Store

Apple’s iPhone is known for its App Store. I know many people who bought iPhone because it has great apps to go with. On the other hand, the Nokia N97 comes with preloaded Ovi Store to easily pick up any apps. Also you can pick your programs from wherever you like online. So it is not like the beautiful walled garden of apps from iPhone where you cannot get access to apps outside the Apple garden! Thanks Nokia for providing the openness.

Keyboard

The Full QWERTY hardware keyboard is the winning feature of N97 over the iPhone. Anyone who have to type a lot for mailing or other purpose in their phone, simply hate the virtual keyboard of iPhone. Typing using a hardware keyboard is much more fast, accurate and easy.

Connectivity

Both devices are Quad Band units capable of operating worldwide at GSM 850/900/1800/1900 bands. The 3G Bands are slightly different. iPhone uses HSDPA 850/1900/2100 bands whreas N97 uses 900/1900/2100 bands although there is an American version available which has 850/1900/2100 bands. The iPhone 3 G S also supports 7.2 Mbps whereas N97 supports 3.6 Mbps speed. Both devices support Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP but not infrared. EDGE, 3G and GPRS is supported and both devices are compatible with Wi-Fi 802.11b/g networks. The other connectivity

Camera

Apple have improved their crappy 2MP camera module of the old version to incorporate autofocus and a higher 3 MP resolution but still N97’s camera with 5MP resolution and Carl Zeiss optics is a far better option. N97 can also shoot at low light using its LED flash but there is none for the iPhone. The DVD quality video captured by N97 looks far better than iPhone 3G S. Also the video and the photo editor is already available in N97.

GPS

Both devices have built-in GPS receivers but the Apple iPhone 3G S uses a Google Map application while the Nokia N97 uses its own Nokia Maps 2.0 application with satnav turn-by-turn ready to go out of the box.

Battery

The Nokia N97 is slated to have an 1500 mAh battery but there was no information on the battery of the Apple iPhone 3GS.

Size and Weight

The devices are similar by volume, though N97 is thicker by a few mm than the iPhone 3GS and slides open to look a bit more thicker. The N97 is slightly heavier at 150g whereas iPhone 3GS weighs only 135g.

Other Features

Both devices have the digital compass and TV Out port as well as a 3.5 mm headphone jack. But Nokia N97 has Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual radio; FM transmitter which the iPhone 3GS lacks.

Where iPhone 3G S beats Nokia N97

• Processor : Faster 600 MHz Cortex A8 processor than 434 MHz ARM 11 processor
• RAM : 256 MB over 128 MB
• Touchscreen : Better response and multitouch capabilities
• HSDPA : Higher 7.2 Mbps speed
• Thousands of App Store Apps
• Light weight 135g over 150g of N97

Where Nokia N97 beats iPhone 3G S

• Camera : 5 MP over 3 MP, High Res Video, Flash Light
• Memory : 32 + 16 GB is maximum for a mobile
• Wide Connectivity : – MicroSD, MicroUSB, Usb Mass Storage, Bluetooth File Transfer
• FM Radio
• Handwriting recognition

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Tags: iPhone, N97, review