Nokia N93 review: Ringing camcorder

Power-hungry as ever

The battery is supposed to provide the smartphone with up to 3.7 hrs of talk time in WCDMA networks and up to 5.1 hrs of talk time in GSM networks. The expected stand-by time is up to 10 days. Since we had the chance to do a dedicated battery test it turned out that the handset lasted 58 hours when using it in a rather extensive way as follows:

• 3 min of video call
• 25 min of calls
• 20 min of web browsing via Wi-Fi
• 5 min checking email via Wi-Fi
• 15 min playing Snake 3D
• 10 min using the Gallery
• 20 min watching video clips
• 30 min listening to music via the headset
• 40 min listening to radio via the headset
• 5 min using the still camera
• 15 min capturing video
• 10 min connected to PC Suite
• The rest is stand-by

Having those figures in mind it seems that the smartphone is rather power hungry when put though its paces since even a large capacity battery like the BP-6M wouldn't keep it going for more than 60 hours. Anyway, when left on stand-by for the same time - 60 hours, the phone lost just one of the six battery indicator levels.

The little thing on top

The external display of N93 is an 1.1" one with 128 x 36 pixels resolution and 65K colors. It indicates the battery status and the signal reception bar as well as icons for missed calls and received messages. This small display has another extra line which is for the caller's name or number. It also serves surprisingly well as a music player indicator. Legibility in direct sunlight is not a problem once you've found the right looking perspective.

The external display

And the large one inside

The main display of the phone is a 2.4" in diagonal which makes it on of the biggest on the market. Nokia have decided to put a QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) resolution in this model instead of the 352 x 416 pixels resolution from N90. The phone's display is capable of displaying 262K colors and has a great sunlight protection glass. It also offers a very wide vieweing angle.

Nokia N93 main display • Nokia E50 and N93 display size comparison

Colors and images on N93 are vivid and clear and Nokia deserves compliments for the great job with this model's display. Pictures taken with the camera are viewed perfectly. The backlighting is also great and has no faults. Only when you browse the web you will notice the difference compared to the highest resolution displays of Nokia N90 and E70.

It does make calls, you know…

Nokia N93 signal reception is just what you would expect from a high-end smartphone - flawless. The loudspeaker of the phone is also good but is not the loudest we've seen. Ringtone volume, however, is sufficient enough and is audible even in crowded places. The vibration of the phone is also strong enough. The phone has brilliant speaker quality and the sound during conversations is very clear and without any interferences.

Dialing Dexter's number

But it doesn't end with that..

Nokia N93 user interface is identical to the interface used in all other current Symbian smartphone. That is why we are going to use several paragraphs from other reviews.

Nokia N93 runs on Series 60 user interface of third generation. The Symbian operating system works very well on the phone and is quite fast. The only exception is the starting of the camera application, which takes a couple of seconds to load. Generally, there is a nice performance increase in comparison to the previous 2nd generation S60 user interface. We are quite pleased with the response of the operating system and would recommend it sincerely if it wasn't the incompatibility with the applications written for the previous versions.

Currently, there aren't that many applications written for this version of Symbian and that seems to be a problem for the owners of any phone with that OS. We expect that this shortage of 3rd party software would be remedied by the end of the year. More and more applications come up every day since all new Nokia phones come with the new version of the OS.

The active display contains information about the network coverage, the battery status, date, time, operator name. If you change the graphic theme you may find different clocks to appear on the active display. There is also the stand-by display row which shows 6 applications you can set and the calendar's today's tasks and events. The next lines can be filled with information about missed calls, received messages or e-mails, or the song you're currently playing.

The phone has an Offline mode which works as an Airplane mode, switching off the phone functionality of Nokia N93 but allowing the user to use the other capabilities of the device. The Offline mode can also be used if you don't insert a SIM card in the phone. While in offline mode the phone can still provide WLAN and Bluetooth connectivity.

Active stand-by display while phone is in Offline mode

The phone's main menu can be viewed either in matrix grid of 4 x 3 icons or in list view. If you choose the list view you will be able to see 5 items at a time. Most of the submenus also allow changing the type of view. The same options are available when viewing the menu in landscape mode.

Main Menu icon view • Main Menu list view • Main Menu landscape mode

The Multimedia button brings up on the display a picture of the four ways of the navigation button and the appropriate applications assigned to the four directions plus the confirmation center button. The assigned applications are customizable, of course.

Multimedia menu

Nokia N93 has 50 MB internal memory and a miniSD memory card slot . The phone will come with 128 MB card enclosed in the package. Nokia's choice of the miniSD card type is very good for the users as those cards are cheap and reach up to 2 GB capacity.

Another great feature of N93 is the voice recognition system which can be used both for dialing contacts and starting applications. It doesn't need to have your commands pre-recorded, in fact it handles most of the voice commands you give it. The shortcut for starting the voice application is long press of the right soft key.

Voice recognition menu

There are several preinstalled themes on the phone but they don't seem to make significant changes to the user interface. They change the wallpaper and the color scheme only.

Some of the available themes

Nokia N93 has six default ringing profiles (including the Offline mode). The user can create custom profiles as easily as can modify the existing ones.

Available profiles

There is an interesting option in the settings menu called Reject Call with SMS. It means that after you reject a call, the phone automatically sends a SMS to the caller, explaining why you have rejected his call. This option can be very useful, indeed.