Nokia N97: A camera with GPS (makes calls too!)

[Romy Ocon]

I've long been planning to get a GPS unit to establish the locations of my captures. Seeing that it has become more reasonably priced (and my Nokia 9300 is about to fall apart already), I got a Nokia N97 yesterday. I'm amazed at the smart phone's functions and features. The Nokia maps and GPS work great, and the 5 MP camera is not too bad either.

I'm not connected with Nokia in any manner, but if one intends to buy a dedicated GPS receiver, I'd recommend a GPS smart phone instead for not much more.

Here's a full frame snapshot from the N97's 5 MP camera (Carl Zeiss lens), resized to 1000x750 with some mild PP enhancement:




Screen shot of EXIF and GPS data (I blurred out one coordinate for privacy):



Unprocessed 100% crop:




The camera phone has a flash too, some degree of exposure control and adjustment of image parameters. There's the mandatory video, of course. On the whole, the N97 feels like a mini-netbook in functionality.

[ppaaoolloo]

Some questions Romy

How long does the battery last with GPS turned ON?
Is your GPS 'GPS' or 'A-GPS'?

Since the 'Places' feature of Aperture 3 became available recently I started using the Garmin more often. It is pretty awesome to see how inaccurate the road maps are in Google Earth vs those of an actual track.

[Romy Ocon]

Mar 25, 2010 1:44:34 GMT @ppaaoolloo said:

Some questions Romy

How long does the battery last with GPS turned ON?
Is your GPS 'GPS' or 'A-GPS'?

Since the 'Places' feature of Aperture 3 became available recently I started using the Garmin more often. It is pretty awesome to see how inaccurate the road maps are in Google Earth vs those of an actual track.

Not yet sure how long the battery lasts with GPS always on, Pao. If one intends to run it continuously, I reckon a spare battery is needed. I pasted the full specs below - yes, it's A-GPS.


General 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100
HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 - American version
Announced 2008, November
Status Available. Released 2009, June
Size Dimensions 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm, 88 cc
Weight 150 g
Display Type TFT resistive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size 360 x 640 pixels, 3.5 inches
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
- Full QWERTY keyboard
- Handwriting recognition
Sound Alert types Vibration; MP3 ringtones
Speakerphone Yes, with stereo speakers
- 3.5 mm audio jack
Memory Phonebook Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records Detailed, max 30 days
Internal 32 GB storage, 128 MB RAM
Card slot microSD, up to 16GB, buy memory
Data GPRS Class 32
EDGE Class 32
3G HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology
Bluetooth Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, v2.0 microUSB
Camera Primary 5 MP, 2592x1944 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, LED flash, video light
Features Geo-tagging
Video Yes, VGA@30fps
Secondary Yes, VGA@15fps
Features OS Symbian OS v9.4, Series 60 rel. 5
CPU ARM 11 434 MHz processor
Messaging SMS, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds
Radio Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual radio; FM transmitter
Games Yes, N-gage + downloadable
Colors White, Black
GPS Yes, with A-GPS support; Nokia Maps
Java Yes, MIDP 2.1
- Digital compass
- MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ music player
- WMV/RealVideo/MP4 video player
- TV-out
- Voice command/dial
- Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
- Video and photo editor
- Flash Lite 3
- T9
Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion 1500 mAh (BP-4L)
Stand-by Up to 432 h (2G) / 408 h (3G)
Talk time Up to 9 h 30 min (2G) / Up to 6 h (3G)
Music play Up to 40 h
Misc SAR US 0.90 W/kg (head) 1.25 W/kg (body)
SAR EU 0.67 W/kg (head)
Price group

[ppaaoolloo]

How updated are the maps in terms of provincial roads and such?

[Romy Ocon]

Mar 25, 2010 1:58:25 GMT @ppaaoolloo said:

How updated are the maps in terms of provincial roads and such?

Haven't checked out the remote roads yet, but the maps show each small street (with names) in our area at Don Bosco, Paranaque.

The screen is very decent at 640x360 (16.7 M colors). I've started to like this aspect ratio for images, as it's the same ratio as full HD (1920:1080). I've resized some of my bird pics to 640x360 and these surprisingly look quite good at the N97's screen even without the benefit of LCD calibration!

The FM transmitter is cool - you can store many MP3s in the 32 GB internal memory (expandable via micro-SD if 32 GB is not enough) and when you get in your car, you can tune the car's stereo to any unused FM frequency. The N97 can "broadcast" the music to such frequency. Of course, you can always listen to FM radio or stored music via the phone's tiny speakers (sound like a netbook's) or the supplied earphones (great sound, especially the bass).

[Toto Gamboa]

My Nokia E71 have a garmin software add-on where I can load the maps I used on my Garmin GPS device. From my experience though, comparing the accuracy between Nokia E71 and my Garmin device, the difference between the two are significant. Performance are far apart too. My Nokia E71 is a bit slow in engaging GPS sattelites.

I am hoping the newer Nokia models have improved on GPS.

[Romy Ocon]

Mar 25, 2010 3:36:00 GMT Toto Gamboa said:

My Nokia E71 have a garmin software add-on where I can load the maps I used on my Garmin GPS device. From my experience though, comparing the accuracy between Nokia E71 and my Garmin device, the difference between the two are significant. Performance are far apart too. My Nokia E71 is a bit slow in engaging GPS sattelites.

I am hoping the newer Nokia models have improved on GPS.

The N97's GPS tracking is indeed slower (and perhaps less accurate) than the Garmin models I've seen. So if the GPS need is for critical application (like navigation or trekking), a dedicated unit is better and much more reliable. For fixing the location and altitude of bird captures, the N97 is accurate and fast enough.

[Toto Gamboa]

Further GPS experience here.

I used to check and compare both my nokia gps and my garmin during one of our trips. The altitude reading difference between the two is like 350+meters, where the garmin has the higher number and the nokia is lower. In another occasion it gave me two different readings where nokia registers a higher altitude.

As for the coordinates, the two are usually 50-100 meters apart.

I am not sure which of the two are more accurate or correct. I guess neither of the two or both were correct in these occasions since these are just approximates.

I wonder all the factors that are causing these.

[Romy Ocon]

Field Use Update, April 13, 2010

I've used the N97's GPS function at Candaba wetlands and at Caliraya Lake. When outdoors, the position is fixed fairly fast - within 6 to 10 sec. Also, accuracy of location and altitude is between 10 - 80 m mostly, depending upon the number of GPS satellites available and the strength of the signal. It works well inside a vehicle at rest or on the move, but it has difficulty acquiring GPS signal inside buildings.

The OVI maps are amazing too. While travelling, one can see his position moving on the map. Trip info between two points can be generated too, including real time speed and location/altitude, trip distance, trip duration, etc.

The battery won't last very long if many widgets including the GPS are always on. Rather than buy a spare battery and always open the casing to replace a depleted one, I opted to buy a car charger (less than PHP 900 for the genuine Nokia charge). Most continuous GPS work is done inside a vehicle while travelling anyway. The car charger ensures that the battery charge is always nearly full even with continuous GPS work, and simultaneous web surfing via HSDPA.

In summary, after 3 weeks of mixed urban and field use, I can confidently recommend the N97 to birdnuts who wish to have a device that can make calls, fix position via GPS, surf the web on the move, and generally serve as a mini-netbook. Now that it's priced at sub-PHP 25K for the local warrantied units (from PHP 45K when introduced), it has become a great value for money.

[Edu Lorenzo Jr]

Question sir. Since this is a Phone feature.. doesn't matter what cellular company I am tied up with yes?

[Romy Ocon]

Apr 13, 2010 1:48:05 GMT Edu Lorenzo Jr said:

Question sir. Since this is a Phone feature.. doesn't matter what cellular company I am tied up with yes?

The phone is an open line, and everything works at least with Globe and Smart. Haven't tried it with other providers though.