Nokia N90

The Nokia N90 is loaded with features, including a 2-megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and an amazingly high-resolution screen, but it’s just too big and heavy for the average user. It weighs 6 ounces and doesn’t really fit into a pocket. Flipping it open reveals a decent-size flat keypad and a beautiful 352- by 416-pixel color screen. To activate the camera/camcorder the user must swivel the screen or the camera module. Using the N90 as a phone is not comfortable, and, although sound quality was acceptable, with a lot of treble and some volume fluctuations; reception was only so-so. The speakerphone was also somewhat fuzzy but had acceptable volume indoors. Speaker-independent voice dialing worked fine. Battery life was 6 hours, 43 minutes of talk time, which isn’t great for a GSM phone. The Opera browser and Class 10 EDGE modem make for a great Web experience. The phone comes with a USB cable, and there’s also a full Bluetooth 1.2 implementation supporting headsets, file transfer, dial-up networking, and connection to Nokia’s free PC Suite program for syncing the phone with Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes.

The N90’s best feature is a 2-megapixel camera with a professional Carl Zeiss lens that produces great quality 1600x1200 resolution pictures. The camera’s 0.4-second shutter lag and 3.7-second shot-to-shot time would be acceptable for a standalone camera. The flash is unusually bright—it can even illuminate a dim scene. However, focusing time is noticeable, and pictures weren’t particularly high-resolution..Video clips record to MPEG-4 format as a smooth 352 by 288 pixels at 15 frames per second, putting the N90 on a par with the best videophones. MP3 and unprotected AAC music files played on the N90 sound terrific through headphones but tinny through the single mono speaker, and the high-resolution screen can play sharp videos. Users can add more programs into the N90’s 27MB of internal memory or onto an RS-MMC (Reduced Size Multimedia Card) card that is inserted into a slot on the side. The Nokia N90 has impressive multimedia features, but its bulky, large size makes it impractical for everyday phone use.