Video: Browser War – iPhone 3GS vs Nokia N97

TheReviveDone takes a look at the Nokia N97’s browser and compares it with the iPhone 3GS’ over WiFi.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9HmJgPRbW0]

I’ve been using the N97 on the go, predominantly over O2’s 3G and I’m moderately pleased with the browser. Flash hasn’t been too stable at the moment, with youtube forcing the browser to crash (less of a S60 issue as N95/N82 are ok), but what’s most annoying is that there hasn’t been much improvement from S60 with keypad to S60 with touch screen.

I don’t like that:

• If I’ve zoomed in on a particular website to a comfortable viewing level, opening a new link zooms me out again
• The side bar is extremely cumbersome. Just letting you get rid of it manually would have been a step in the right direction, but no. It lingers and goes away on its own accord.
• I can’t select text/images to copy/save them. It should be that if you long press on an area in the screen, a menu pops up that gives you additional options, such as select/copy text and images.
• The phone runs out of RAM easily. Music player in the background, Maps in the background, “boom” Web Browser turns off or worse, phone restarts.
• I can only have one browser window open at a time. (On Maemo, OS 2008, you could have several windows open at the same time).

Some positives:

• Most sites do load faithfully to how it appears on your desktop. Flash content included.
• OK, maybe flash deserves it’s own point – though flash content seems a tad choppy on the N97.
• Kinetic scrolling is nice. It’s a shame on occasions that due to the screen being resistive, that slight bit of additional pressure needed to register a “flick” to scroll instead inadvertently opens a link. As you get used to the resistive screen, this does become less frequent.

Suggestions:

Most websites I check are ones I view frequently. Even with bookmarks on the N97, it’s a few taps too many to get to my favourite sites.

What if, with a downward swipe from the top of the screen, a toolbar shows up, 10 icons of your most visited websites (perhaps 4/5 when in portrait) as defined by you (or maybe even the browser itself).

It’s how I use firefox, a bookmark toolbar with just icons of the sites I use a lot. BBC icon for iPlayer, YouTube icon for…well you get the point.

(One suggestion for now, got a gig to go to…more N97 low light tests)

Tags: 3GS, 5th Edition, Browser, iPhone, N97, Nokia, Nokia N97, S60, Test

Category: 5th Edition, Nokia, Nseries, S60, Symbian, Video