Stop comparing Pre, N97 & the iPhone
June 13th, 2009 by Annkur
This is a big month for smartphones, arguably three of the decades biggest smartpones have launched in the past 1 week. The Palm Pre, Apple iPhone 3GS and the Nokia N97! Whle the Pre promises to revive Palm and put new life into the once very innovative handheld maker, Apple unveils its fastest iTouch device ever with a major OS update and Nokia looks to make that punch in the touchscreen segment with its N97.
So which one of these are you buying? Waiting for reviews comparing them? Well IMO, its stupid comparing these 3 devices amongst themselves. Each one of them appeal to a different user and has its own strong points and ready buyers. N97, Pre and the iPhone; all three have a different structure, different OS and a different market. Lets have a look at each of them individually:
Palm Pre (Jack of all, master of some): Palm’s ‘Pre’ is a much better attempt at the smartphone market, than the original iPhone or the iPhone 3G. If only they had this launching 6 months back … anyways, the Pre for me appeals to Blackberry users who are in love with iPhone. iPhone has its own charisma as we have repeatedly said here, it attracts people, gets natural attention and is wonderful gizmo. But the iPhone fails in some very common things and that makes a switch for some Blackberry user, Treo fan (like me) or an ordinary cellphone user very difficult. The Pre packs in a physical QWERTY, brings in Multitasking and a great UI with multitouch. Its the best of both worlds. I bet there are millions who want a iPhone+Blackberry mash and Pre does it better than the Blackberry Storm. No I don’t mean to say Palm banks on that Blackberry users loving iPhone formula to buy Pre; but lets be frank – Touch devices are buzzing and its a wonderful way to use any technology. Pre gets the best of touch and physical with an amazing OS/UI. As I blogged before, Pre for me is like Superman Returns.
Nokia N97 (Communicator in the N-series): Nokia N97 though a Nseries, reminds me of the communicator. Certainly an attempt by Nokia to tap the touch market and indeed make this a iPhone killer. N97 packs in extreme features with a 32GB+16GB storage, 5MP camera with DVD quality video recording and live widgets on the homescreen to offer better web experience. At the same time a sideways sliding QWERTY resembles the E90 design once open (though the mechanism is as seen in SE Xperia). But as I said before – Features alone done make a good gadget. So not a very little phone, bulky, studded with features and a sideways opening keyboard that is much more inconvenient to use (on the go) than a Blackberry, Palm Pre, E71 or even an iPhone. This is a business phone made for media lovers. Basically trying to stop the touch devices from stealing Nokia users on their side. While the 5800 did extremely well on the price point, the N97 is Nokia’s attempt to serve the power users. All in all, the N97 retains the Nokia users … giving little competition to the iPhone.
N97: Though this doesn’t fit here, I must mention that Nokia makes the same error it made with the N7710. It was a full featured device in its time with FM, Touchscreen, handy design, nice camera etc etc. However the processor was so slow that the usability was horrible. With 128MB ram and 434Mhz processor on a king size smartphone like the N97 makes me wonder of the Symbian OS will handle the power users efficiently? See Nokia N97 and iPhone 3Gs comparision here.
iPhone 3GS (Its an iPhone!): Apple redefined the smartphones with 2 things. 1) Multitouch / full touch interface 2) The App Store. These were 2 masterstrokes in 2 years. Super hit, no doubt! We love the iPhone – amazing audio/video, mobile internet like never before, again a great swift OS+UI and the Apple touch in every corner. With Jailbreaking and App Store apps its hevan. Apple manages to offer a unique powerphone feel with the iPhone, its own charm, own followers! But here is where the iPhone goes down and down badly. Regular smartphone users would find it mighty difficult to adapt to Apple’s style. No Bluetooth transfer, no USB mass storage, no physical keypad/qwerty, no camera flash, proprietary chargers, cables etc. However with an amazing OS v3.0, superb games, hardware bump, video recording and even stronger web integration with wireless goodies, Apple manages to attract its media lovers. iPhone is a beautiful and fast phone. Business users would feel the iPhone as their girlfriend whereas the Blackberry as their wife!
All three of these that we just saw have their own targets nicely chalked out with little room for fighting with each other. I just can’t answer someone who comes and asks me which one of these is better. For one mans food is others poison!
I realise that I have left Android out of the above equation, however I feel as the Android OS develops we would see it as a competition in all segments of the market – with differnet manufacturers targetting different structures.
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Categories: Apple, Reviews, nokia | Tags: apple iphone 3gs, apple vs palm, n97 vs iphone vs pre, nokia n97, palm pre
One of the best reviews ive read, fantastic.
When it comes to mobile phones America is in a commercial war with Europe. The problem is that while every American carrier is making the incredible boycott on nokia, in Europe everybody is buying iphone. It’s time that we respond with the same aggressiveness. No more reviews on iphone on European press and European carriers should make a similar boycott.
thats the most sensible review iv’e read so far, and believe me iv’e read them all!
@h , @mike I am glad you like it
@sebastiao Nokia has a strategy that works best for Asia and other countries. Sony Ericsson does so well in UK, but not in India and US … Though I dont say that Carriers conspire to keep Nokia out of the equation, its just that the US manufacturers have a long standing relation with them. The E71x on AT&T is quite well received i feel. Things are changing, Apple is trying to make a entry in Asia where I feel it hasn’t made a great dent with the iPhone w.r.t Nokia’s market share and at the same time Nokia is pushing inside US. Lets see … We love gadgets and gizmos .. lets love them irrespective of origin
cheers
Nice review..but my ans is dat iphone wins the battle as it has the highest sales which n97 and palm-pre can only dream of… iPhone is very charismatic..you would find iphone fanatics easily but no palm-pre or an n97 one..one reason is that iPhone came much earlier than them as well..but all the defects mentioned here are cleared or would be cleared..for intance iphone now has ibluetooth and for a flash we have griffins accesories..
I dont think we would get a real iPhone killer in terms of sales for atleast two more years..
I wish I could get the Palm Pre in the UK. Its a shame they are only releasing in the USA atm. Ive got a BBStorm and its okay…just quite buggy. If they sort that out it will be a good phone, but looking at videos of the Palm Pre and its just an amazing phone that looks complete already!
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