And yes, the UI quirks of S60 5th Edition, representing the transition between a non-touch UI and a touch interface, are well known - and if people are going to dismiss the devices here on the strength of having a 'scroll and select' UI rather than a direct manipulation UI then that's fine - but the two phones on show here are pretty neat devices and shouldn't be discarded too quickly... Both are now reasonably mature and have settled down as products, so it's appropriate to see how they stack up against each other, to look at value for money, and to try to pick a winner.
Of course, with the N8 imminent and with (presumably) a number of other Symbian^3 phones just round the corner, by Christmas 2010 this article will be well and truly out of date, since both devices will be 'last year's OS'. For now, though, indulge me as a I put the Nokia X6 16GB and Nokia N97 mini head to head...
As usual, spec by spec, feature by feature, I've used my experiences with both devices to rate them, head to head. And as usual, where appropriate, I've tinted with blue the cells in each row that indicate a 'winner' for that attribute, for interest sake... Many attributes don't show a clear winner and in these cases I've left the cells untinted.
| Nokia X6 | Nokia N97 mini | |
| Price, SIM-free, including VAT in the UK | £277 (almost always including a Bluetooth headset or in-car holder and 12V power lead, depending on market) | £299 |
| Latest firmware, as at August 2010 | v21 (stable, but some functionality compromised, e.g. searching in Music player) | v12 (stable, just the usual caveats over running out of RAM if you push it too hard) |
| Form factor, materials | All plastic candybar design, capacitive touchscreen, peel-off back, 122g | Metal bezel around front face and metal battery cover, with plastic rear frame, resistive, plastic touchscreen and alloy-hinged keyboard mechanism, 138g |
| Text input mechanisms | On-screen T9 input in portrait mode [works very well] or virtual qwerty in landscape [not very usable because of small screen size and lack of writing aids]. | Physical QWERTY keyboard [works brilliantly - and you do get used to the space bar positioning very quickly - it's a fast layout once learned], plus virtual numeric and handwriting options. |
| Display | 3.2" TFT, great indoors, OK, but not brilliant in sunlight | 3.2" TFT, same as X6, hard to use in the sun |
| Interface | S60 5th Edition plus some Symbian^2 modules, including full kinetic scrolling in applications menu. Finger control only, but greatly helped by capacitive touch technology. | S60 5th Edition plus some Symbian^2 modules, including full kinetic scrolling in applications menu and homescreen widgets. Finger and stylus control but not pleasant due to resistive touchscreen. Keyboard/cursor key control sometimes helps. |
| Processor/Speed | ARM 11, 434MHz, 55MB free RAM after booting. Adequate for intended market, though still some RAM optimisation needed, in my opinion | ARM 11, 434MHz, 55MB free RAM after booting. Sometimes sluggish, even with latest RAM-friendly firmware. |
| Memory capacity (storage) | As with the N97 mini, 280MB of free flash memory on disk C: means never having to worry about installing updates and apps. 16GB of mass memory is your lot though, there's no microSD expansion and, more restrictingly, you can't swap media via card with other devices. | 280MB or so of system disk available at first turn on, enough for all applications and updates anyone could want, alleviating the problems of the N97 classic. 8GB of mass memory, plus microSD expansion. |
| Camera | Super 5 megapixel stills, with dual-LED flash and exposed camera glass. Video capture is good at VGA with great audio, but again there's no focussing or pre-focus (as on the N86, N95 and N82). | As with the X6, super 5 megapixel stills, with dual-LED flash and exposed camera glass, plus same video performance. |
| GPS and navigation | 'Good enough' GPS chip and antenna, plus the super Ovi Maps 3.3 with free voice guided navigation. And free traffic, guides, etc. And all worldwide. Forever.. | Same as on the X6. GPS works fine, Ovi Maps navigation is great and free. |
| Audio | Superlative stereo phone speakers, loud and of high quality, plus 3.5mm jack, good microphone for video capture. | Rather tinny stereo speakers, plus 3.5mm jack, good microphone for video capture. Comes with handy in-ear multimedia stereo headset. |
| Video | A YouTube client is available in the Ovi Store and works OK, but with lower grade streams. Local MP4, WMV and FLV (Flash) videos of modest frame size all work well, with 'good enough' frame rate.. | BBC iPlayer works well for streaming or downloading TV programmes in the UK. Plus, as with the X6, the YouTube client works OK, but with lower grade streams. Local MP4, WMV and FLV (Flash) videos of modest frame size all work well. |
| Web browsing | S60 Web (webkit-based), functional without ever really impressing, though there is Flash support if needed. Touch interface is clunky. | As with the X6, though browsing's helped slightly by having a QWERTY keyboard available for typing text when needed and for cursor key navigation. |
| Other application highlights out of the box | Quickoffice viewers, Dictionary, Zip manager, Converter, Mail for Exchange, Nokia Music store, Podcasting. | As for the X6, plus Facebook and another dozen or so utilities and widgets.. |
| Application store and ecosystem | Nokia's Ovi Store is now very usable, with a good choice and with some very high quality apps. There's no automatic checks for app updates though - individual apps have to 'call home' to check for themselves. Gaming is poor though, on the whole. | As for the X6. |
| Battery | 1320mAh, 2mm charging, most users will get two days on a charge with typical use. | 1200mAh, microUSB charging, nightly charging needed [7] |
| Ongoing firmware support and updates | Two or more updates are expected for the X6 before the end of 2010. | Updates Over the air and via Nokia Software Updater. At least one update is expected before the end of the year. |
So which of the two is the flagship product? Counting, that's five 'wins' for the N97 versus three for the X6, but in truth the phones are very similar in terms of spec and software and any buying decision will be made on form factor: a qwerty keyboard on one side and a capacitive screen and great speakers on the other. And yes, it would be nice to have the best of both worlds, but it seems that, at present anyway, we can't.
The pricing's a surprise still though, with very little between the two smartphones. Build quality is lower on the X6 and I'd have expected it to be down to below £250 inc VAT by now. I guess the way headsets and car kits are always bundled is Nokia's way of saying 'we want you to pay more, so that we can still make a decent profit'.
Hand me both and say I can keep one - and I'd go for the N97 mini, but then you all know I like my QWERTY...
You know, everything's relative... With the N8 on the way (honest!), with larger, brighter, capacitive screen, fast processor, graphics acceleration, more intuitive OS and far better camera/camcorder, and presumably with a QWERTY-equipped companion following, both the X6 and N97 mini (rightly) look just a little bit jaded. But, considering how depressed we all were at the height of the N97 saga - immature firmware, low RAM, low C disk space, faulty GPS, faulty camera cover, and so on - either of these products would have seemed a revelation. So I shouldn't be too hard on them now - and, indeed, still happily recommend them where appropriate.
(Thanks to Richard Dorman and Michael Hell for sending in photos for this article)
Steve Litchfield, AAS, 11th August 2010
