Nokia N91
Nick Ross
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Oct 25, 2006 4:55 PM
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Nokia | http://www.nokia.com.au
RRP: $895 (time of review)
Performance: 
Features & Design: 
Value for money: 
Overall Rating:
User Rating: No user ratings.
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Big and heavy but the features this 3G phone sports are phenomenal.
It’s good to see phones appear which break the mould instead of changing it slightly and, whereas onboard cameras were once the industry’s shouting point, now the emphasis seems to be on music. Nokia’s N91 is the first phone we’ve seen with an onboard 3.5mm audio jack. It’s amazing that it’s taken so long. Other manufacturers will point to proprietary connectors and adapters but it’s just not the same. Nokia also offers a remote control which, at the expense of extra wire, offers full music control, hands free functions and a 3.5mm to RCA connector for connecting to a stereo.
But the piece de resistance is the massive 4GB internal hard disk making it a direct competitor for the 4GB iPod nano though this uses flash storage. Unlike the nano (and Sony Ericsson’s excellent W810i Walkman phone format support is excellent, including MP3, AAC, WMA and WAV – so, for once, most of your songs will play without transcoding. We also like how you can transfer media by dragging and dropping with Windows Explorer over a USB connection – no drivers needed. The next time you access the phone’s music directory it will update the track, title and artist listings automatically. Usefully, you can also transfer music by syncing with Windows Media Player or using Nokia’s own Nokia’s PC Suite software. It played music in our tests for a respectable eight hours – good for a phone but six behind the nano. Making calls will reduce this further.
Add to the mix an FM radio, Macromedia Flash and Real Player compatibility and you’re still not close to covering the N91’s features. There’s also BlueTooth and, impressively, 802.11g WiFi which supports both WEP and WPA security. Push To Talk is available, which is a rather awkward VoIP service which allows only one person to talk at a time, but does allow conference calling. Finally there’s a two megapixel camera. However, quality is grainy and poor compared with that of the W810i. All that’s missing is gaming.
Staggeringly, the N91 also makes phone calls. It’s a 3G phone and so offers all of the video messaging that you’d expect – although there isn’t a front-facing camera for direct video calls. Our only real gripes are that it’s not the most intuitive phone and navigating isn’t as slick as with Sony Ericsson, but these foibles you can get used to. At over 11cm long and 162g it’s undeniably big, but if you want the features, and can find a suitable price cap, it’s a feature-packed marvel.