vB Easy Archive - Nokia 9290 Review

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Nokia 9290 Review
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Posted by: Timsta

Here is my review on the 9290. It is kind of long.. So if you want pictures and all that stuff, you'll have to go actually go on the site to see it..

Tim's Nokia 9290 Review

This review may not be reproduced without the consent from me or TimSoft. Thanks.

So… you watched James Bond 007’s The World is not Enough and saw that fancy cellular phone that James Bond used to remotely control his brand new BMW and you thought to yourself, “what a cool looking phone”. Or your mind could have been wondering who the good looking girl that James was rescuing is.

Anyways, that phone that was used for the movie to showcase Nokia’s newest products about to be released. The first generation of that phone was the Nokia 9000. That phone has now evolved to be the Nokia 9290. This phone was just released two months ago in June, 2002.

The Nokia 9290 is a mutant phone of sorts. It combines the power of a portable pc (notebook) and a cellular phone into one. It comes loaded with a Windows-like operating system, which has tons of software for productivity, entertainment and communication.

For those of you who are looking for an all-in-one solution for your mobile needs, you may want to consider a device like this. If you already have a PDA, a cell phone, pager and a notebook, you probably know what a burden it is, to carry all these devices around. The 9290 is here to help solve most of these problems by providing all these functionalities into one device.

The 9290 is GSM-based, but is single band so it is only available to be used in North America, using the 1900 MHZ bandwidth frequency.

This phone houses a StrongARM9 CPU (32 bits), 16 MB of memory each for user data, execution memory and application use. The phone also comes with a 16 MB multimedia removable storage card. You can purchase bigger memory cards if you want.

The phone can be used to create word processing and spreadsheet documents such as with Word and Excel. You can also view images, videos and listen to music files such as MP3’s. One of the selling points to this phone is that it acts like a regular desktop PC. All the conveniences of a desktop computer can be found on this phone. Sending and receiving email, web browsing and SMS messaging are also some expected features for a phone like this. Like a PDA, you can synchronize the phone with your desktop PC using a data cable and the provided software.

This phone comes with the following accessories.

Travel Charger
Headset
Serial Data Cable (using Com Ports)
Memory Card

The cost of this phone is about $1100 Canadian, depending on where you go. I was not even able to find this phone for sale in BC at all, but on Ebay I was able to find the phone for sale from the Toronto area.

The Look:
The 9290 reminds me of the big walkie-talkie style phones from the mid-80s. I remember those quite fondly as my parents had one, and I also remember dropping that phone on several occasions without causing any damage to it. I guess there was no damage considering I was only a little guy and much shorter back then.

The phone measures 6.1 by 2.3 by 1 inches, and if the antenna is extended, the phone is 7.9 inches in height. So you are wondering what size is this when compared to a real life device. It is more the size of a TV remote control as you can see below. There is a big reason for why this phone is so big though, you get a lot from this size.

This phone is phone/computer/PDA. The phone is larger due the fact it has a large display screen and a miniature keyboard that features all the buttons you see on regular keyboards. The operating system that the phone uses is not a conventional operating system that you may be familiar with. It is a Symbian operating system similar to any Windows operating system, but it takes some getting used to.

The front of the phone looks like any other Nokia phone. It has the basic dialing keypad, on/off button and menu/directional buttons. There is also a box-shaped LCD display on the front that displays numbers you are calling, and any options you want. This screen is not coloured, but displays 6 lines.

If you flip the phone horizontally, and flip open the phone, inside, there is a 1.4 by 4.3 inch LCD display which displays information at a 640 x 200 resolution, which is pretty good considering this a phone. Inside, you will also find the keyboard.

At the back of the phone, there is the battery, sim card and memory card slots.

The Usage:

Out in Public:
After testing the Nokia 8390, I was a little reluctant to bring this phone around with me, considering it was so much bigger and heavier, but I was wrong. This phone was great and easy to use and was also a great attention grabber. Everywhere I went, people were curious about this phone. Strangers would come up to me and inquire where they could buy such a phone, and some didn’t even mind the price. I took this phone along with me for a week in Victoria. It worked very well, but not many people recognized the phone as in technology savvy Vancouver/Richmond, though, where cellular phones mean status; the newer the better.

Every where I went in Vancouver (restaurants, and malls), people recognized the phone and asked questions and you know what? The service was better too. I guess they thought I was an upper class university student. Hmm, I figure I should bring around a fancy cell phone all the time.

Phone Use:

Sending/Receiving Calls:
To make phone calls, there are actually three different ways. You can dial out or receive calls the traditional way where you hold the phone to your head and listen with its speaker and talk with the built-in microphone. You can also use the hands-free method with a wired microphone and earpiece. The last method is the coolest method of all, where you can open up the phone and use the speakerphone. That is my favourite method.

Menu Navigation:
The menu navigation on this phone is pretty basic. It is pretty much like all the other newer Nokia phones, and the functionality and menu system is like on the phones you find in most stores now, including the 3360, 3390, the 8390 and newer. If you are looking for games such as Snake and such, these games are not available on this phone. All games are located on the PC side of the phone, and the games for the PC are much more fun and sophisticated. You can download them off the web. From the phone menu, I am able to access Messages, Call Logs, Settings, Forwarding, and Infrared.

Reception:
The reception on this phone is really good. Indoors, outdoors, and in obscure places, this phone pretty much works in all conditions. This phone worked in areas that I never got a signal, such as on the BC Ferries. My signal was actually really strong in concrete buildings and underground.

Audio:
Listening and talking on the phone was really impressive too. I had no background feedback at all, and when I was outside in heavy traffic, I could actually hear what the person on the end was saying.

The person on the other end heard me very well as well. For best clarity, I found, that talking with the phone like a regular handset, is the best way, but if you like the speakerphone method, like I do, it takes some adjusting to know which way you should speak towards the phone, as well as which side you should listen from in order to hear the other person properly.

Carrying Around:
Carrying this phone around actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. It is not as heavy as it looks nor is it really that bulky. I was actually able to put the phone in my vest pocket and my jean pockets without any problems, and it didn’t obstruct me while I was moving around. Although, I could feel it the phone there, it didn’t bother me.

PC Use:

Keyboard Usage:
The keyboard is pretty easy to use although the keys were a bit cramped for my fingers. When typing I used the standard QWERTY style and I found it a bit hard to type properly. I always managed to type two keys instead of just one. I found that the best way to type was the “Hen and peck” style, as it was the most accurate and quickest way to send messages.

Along with the keyboard, there are 4 smart buttons located to the right side of the computer LCD screen. These buttons are for special functions, “open, close, send email, etc.” It is sort of like the right mouse button for desktop computers.

Software Use:
The PC suite of applications that the phone comes with allowed me to synchronize with my desktop PC’s MS Outlook. I was also able to upload software and such using the same software. Installation of the software on MS XP wasn’t too much of a problem either. It worked quite well for me and smoothly too. I had to download my software from the internet so I'm not sure what the version of the software comes with the phone is.

The Symbian Operating system reminded me of the Casio PDA I reviewed last year and its Windows CE operating system. When I first used the operating system, I thought the screen was touch screen, and I kept pressing and pressing the screen, till I finally figured out that it wasn’t a touch screen phone. To access the menus and applications displayed on the screen, I actually had to use the direction pad found on the keyboard and use the four smart buttons I talked about earlier.

For the rest of the review, click here