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For those of you who saw the movies
Transformers, you'd remember the scene where a Nokia phone got transformed into
a miniature Transformer. Ironically enough that phone was the N93i, if there
was any phone that came close to a Transformer from Nokia that would be it. The
first thing you'd notice about the N93i would be its sheer size. The phone is
by no means small measuring at a good 108 x 58 x 25mm. At 25 mm thick, the N93i
is also one of the thickest phones I have reviewed.
Now the N93i though sharing the same model
prefix as the N93, is ages away from its predecessor. The N93 was a great
attempt by Nokia in producing a phone with multiple functionalities; WiFi, 3G,
camcorder, camera with 3X optical zoom to boot. Unfortunately with all that
functionality, the N93 became a big, boxy phone. Nokia has taken the elements
that made the N93i great and improved upon it in the N93i. How successful they
were we'll see further on in the review.
Now one major difference between the N93i
from its predecessor is its styling. The N93 was a dull grey but still
innovative design (though it still looked boxy, camcorder styling aside). The
N93i on the other hand attempts to bring style and classiness to the N93
design. Gone are the dull plasticky chassis of the N93 to be replaced with
chrome details and a very fashionable, albeit finger print magnet of and
exterior. Unfortunately, they couldn't do anything to the size and its still is
a rather big and hefty phone to be lugging around. It is however not as heavy
as its predecessor weighing in at a nice 163g, not exactly light, but the
weight gives it a solid feel at the least.
The first thing you'd notice about the N93i
is the sheer mirror finish its exterior has, and when I mean mirror, it really
can work as a mirror. The biggest delight some of you style junkies might find
on the phone is its exterior LED display. One minute all you see is the mirror
like surface of the phone and when the phone is activated, pop appears the LED and
OLED display from beneath the mirror finish.
Flip open the phone and you will be greeted
by the 61mm, 320 x 240 resolution screen. Nokia has improved the upon the N93
similar screen and this time the N93i can display up to 16million shades
allowing the N93i to fit into it market positioning of a phone cum, camera cum
camcorder. Based on my test of playing videos and viewing pictures on the
phone, I found that the screen display quality was great with sharp video
playing (depending on the videos resolution) and crisp quality pictures.
Of course viewing videos and pictures are
not the only thing that the N93i does well. The huge lens that is by the side
of the camera is the reason the Nokia is touting the N93i as great phone cum
camcorder. All you do is flip the phone open, and twist the LCD screen up
(don't forget to open the lens cap as well) and voila, you got yourself a mini
camcorder. Of course looking like a camcorder and performing like one are two
totally different matters. In video mode, the N93i is easy and intuitive to
use. The big red record button on the phones side makes no mistake to what its
function is. Video capture quality is relatively good. It had better be since
the N93i has a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar. However, don't expect the N93i to
function like a full camcorder. Its features are rather light only allowing
some exposure changes and an Auto and Night mode.
Video is not the only thing that the N93i
does as well. The phone functions as a 3.2 megapixel camera to and does so
quite well. Picture quality was more than passable with the phone giving quite
a bit of settings like macro mode and night portrait shots. However, beyond
some of the basic tweaks, you won't get anything else like burst shots. The LED
beneath the lens allows for night photography but at very close distances.
Now once you're done with your video
shooting or picture taking, you can either view the results as is or you can
also transform the phone to a mini TV. Just flip the LCD sideways down and rest it
on the keyboard like shown and you have yourself a small mini computer with a
widescreen.
Of course if the screen is still too small
for you, there is the option of patching the N93i directly to a television with
the cables that Nokia provided. I like this function as it allowed me to edit
the videos on the phone itself with the editing software provided, without
having to squint.
Now video and camera functions aside, the
N93i also performs rather well in web browsing. You can either use a 3G line or
connect via WiFi and the Nokia web browser will get u on your way to the web.
What I like about the web browser is that it goes into full HTML pages and not
the WAP allowing for full content view. You might have some problems with
certain pages though.
Battery wise, the N93i is rather good to. At minimum usage the phone could
last around 3 days without charging. However, once the WiFi is turned on,
battery life decreases substabtially faster. However, I found that video and
photo taking didn't have much affect on the N93i's battery life.
Overall, the N93i is a rather cool phone to
play around it. However, actually wanting to own one is another matter. It is
not cheap. Its price was around RM2800 even above RM3000 when it was first
launched but now prices has dropped, though still not that substantially. You
could still get the N93i at around RM2500 plus and with that price you'd get
the phone, a phone to TV adapter, 1GB MiniSD card, handsfree set and a whole
lot of fun. Sometimes fun does not come cheap.
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