Value-Adding Phone Applications

Compass and Nokia Map

Top of my list, I have to say cheer to an internal compass.  I love the Nokia Map.  Saved me countless of times when we were overseas.  In case if you don’t know, Nokia Map is free.  You can download maps of your choice into your phone.  And to get the GPS position is free too, wherever you go.

With the compass, it is awesome.  Now not only do we know where we are, we know where we are heading as well.  Once you get the compass calibrated, the entire map rotates as your face different directions.  The image you see below, the “N” (north) icon is gray.  Hence, the compass is not calibrated.

To calibrate the compass requires some work.  I have yet to master the art and you have got to read the manual for this particular activity.  You need to rotate your phone to all axises in order to calibrate the compass.  All 3 axises?  From the manual, it doesn’t seem so.  But I managed to get it work by rotating the phone in 3D.  I wonder if people on the street will laugh at you if you keep rotating the phone trying to get the compass working.

OK, don’t laugh.  It works for me.

Music Player

N97 comes in two flavors (besides black and white) – with or without Comes With Music.  The price difference is only about S$100 to S$200 depending on mobile plans.   I would strongly recommend you to get the Comes With Music version.

N97 does not come with an Internet Radio that N96 has.  Why?!  I read that they are still porting the Internet Radio to the new N97 platform.  I really hope they will.  As I am a heavy user of Internet Radio – in the car and at work.  I listen to the channels in Spain.  And it is really cool to be able to do that.  Please, Nokia, if you are reading this, put Internet Radio back into Nseries.

N95 has a memory of your last played song, even after you have switched off your phone.  N96 does not have that memory (duh!) but the sound quality of the player has enhanced, with the volume adjustment at the incremental step of 5%.  As for N97, it too does not have memory of your last played song after you switched off the phone and the volume adjustment is back to a 10% step.  I happen to be the odd ball who listens to my music at 35%.  Now I have to go for 40% with the N97.  Strange things they do with the music player.

And it does show non-English characters – a feature that, believe me, should not be taken for granted.

What is new to the N97 Music Player is perhaps the FM Transmitter.  You can now transmit your music in a FM frequency.  So what’s the use of this?  Offhand I can think of two.  One is when you are inside a car – especially one that you rent and has no input jack – you can turn the car radio to the frequency of your phone broadcast.  That way, you can still listen to your music without any physically connection.  It may sound useless but when overseas and when no radio to tune at some remote locations, you would wish to have this.

Another use I can think of is to share music with someone.  Remember the days when you two have to connect to the Walkman with a headphone splitter?  Ya, those were the days.

I have tried the FM Transmitter function by the way.  You have to enter a frequency that has the least interference and the sound quality is so so.  Then again, this is not an everyday use.

Widgets

Nokia N97 comes with a quite a number of widgets for download.  Some are free, some are not.  Of the few I have used, below are my favorite ones.  There is one for our local paper The Straits Times.

I also come to like the weather forecast.

There is also a widget for movie booking at Golden Village in Singapore.  But since I prefer Cathay, I haven’t tried it yet.  And there is one for taxi booking.  Also, I haven’t tried.

Something’s Missing?

Besides the Internet Radio, I still cannot find the Sport Tracker.  I have visited the site and the Sport Track does not seem to provide for the N97 yet.  I guess we will have to wait for that to happen.

The last bit of this article is the conclusion thus far.

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TABLE OF CONTENT1. Main Page2. Look and Feel3. Standard Phone Applications4. Value-adding Phone Applications4. Conclusion