Nokia N91 Review

It took an age between announcement to final release of the Nokia N91, with rival phones stepping up to try and steal the title of top multimedia mobile phone in the interim.  Now the N91 is sitting on the shelves waiting for technophiles to get their digits on them is it really worth the hype and is it a contender for the heavy weight multimedia phone title?

Using the term Heavy-Weight is more than apt for the Nokia N91, its a monster of a phone – weighing in at 164g which is cutting it close to its PDA/smartphone cousins and it does have a hefty feel when you carry it in your pocket. It features a 4GB Hitachi microdrive built in which no doubt added to some of the 32x24mm dimensions, however....all those comments about size and weight must be combined with the fact that you are buying a mobile phone that offers a music and communication symphony that can let you cut back on carrying 2/3 gadgets into one tidy package.  It will purely depend on your own taste and style (and how many trouser pockets you have) if this is a way you want to go.

The Nokia N91 is a Symbian smartphone that packs a punch.  For such a high profile and hyped phone however, it does have some flaws that Nokia seem to show a complacency on. The display  is 176x208-pixel resolution, and is poor when seen side by side to other Nseries members such as the Nokia N80 (see Nokia N80 Review) or the N90.  The colour is clear and vibrant however which is obviously a boon for photographs and videos.

On the handset is a menu and volume button, while right on top is a key lock latch and the standard 3.5mm headphone jack.  With the Nokia N91 offering Symbian OS you have the option of a delightful amount of applications like the Setting Wizard, that can configure GPRS, MMS and email with no hassle and set up your and Nokia’s Lifeblog. There is also support for Visual Radio, Push-To-Talk and instant messagin functions.

There is a 2 megapixel camera but unfortunatly it does not include a autofocus, macro mode or even a flash.  It does not compare to the N90, which has a Carl Zeiss lens, but the pictures produced we found to be clear with good colour. The N91 strong point is video. Able to provide sixty minutes of footage in MP4 format at a healthy resolution of 352x288 pixels. The results were some of the best we’ve seen from a mobile phone, with smooth movement and little or no pixelation noise, while the sound capture was strong.

There are a multitude of multimedia capabilities built into the phone but the N91 is obviously built as a music player/phone primarily, so far it is the closest mobile so far to compete with the simplicity and features of the Apple iPod.  You can store up to 3000 songs on the hard drive, Nokia based that number on 3.45-minute songs at 48Kbps eAAC+ encoding. However you’re not likely to listen to songs recorded at that bit rate because the sound will be so poor.  With the vast majority of songs being encoded at 128Kbps in AAC format you will get around 1000 songs stored, keeping in mind you don’t load up on other files like photos and videos. While the player supports a variety of file formats including WMA, M4A, MP3, AAC, eAAC and eAAC+ -- it can not play DRM encrypted WMA files or indeed songs from the iTunes Store. Nokia promises however that it will release a software patch that will add support for WMA soon.

The Nokia N91 has great connectivity choices, the phone supports GSM 900/1800/1900, WCDMA 2100, Bluetooth 1.2 and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, making it one of the best phones for connectivity.

Nokia N91 Specifications

• Operating System
  • Symbian Series 60
• Size
  • 113 x 55 x 22mm
• Weight
  • 164g
• Display
  • 262,000 colours,
• Display resolution
  • 176x208 pixels
• Camera
  • Two megapixels
• Video recording / playback
  • Yes/Yes
• Audio playback
  • MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, M4A, WMA
• Connectivity
  • Bluetooth, USB, Wi-Fi
• Internal memory
  • 4GB hard drive
• Memory card slot
  • No
• Messaging
  • SMS, EMS, MMS
• Email client
  • POP3, SMTP, IMAP4
• Ringtones
  • Polyphonic, MP3, AAC
• WAP browser
  • xHTML, HTML
• Frequency
  • Tri-band + 3G
• GPRS
  • Yes
• Java
  • Yes
• Games
  • No
• Talktime
  • 150 mins
• Standby
  • 190 hours

In conclusion, the N91 we feel is offering too little too late...it sounded promising a year ago but with tech moving on a fast pace there are several other phones coming out in the near future that promise to surpass the N91 quickly.  The sheer bulk of this phone also made it a pain carrying it about, for sure they should have made the storage mechanism use flash cards rather than a built in drive which adds to the bulk, and makes upgrades a problem.