The Nokia N91 is the third N-Series phone to be released, and is designed to be a combined phone & music player.
The unique selling point of the N91 is that it is the first Nokia phone to be equipped with a hard drive. The hard drive offers 4 Gbytes of storage - enough to compete with the Ipod Nano and sufficient to store more than 1, 000 songs. This may really be the first phone that can rival an iPod for music capabilities.
Nokia have given careful thought to making the music player an integral part of the device, not just an add-on feature. The music player supports a wide range of formats, including MP3, AAC and AAC+. Playlist management is easy. There’s a dedicated music key for switching between the music player and other applications, and volume controls for the music player. Music pauses when a call is answered, then continues after the call. Audio quality, as you’d expect, is very high. Output is stereo of course, and the player is equipped with an 8-band equalizer. You can listen to music on the Nokia headset (supplied) or your own headphones via the 3.5mm audio jack, or connect the phone to external speakers. In addition to the music player, the N91 comes with an FM stereo radio with Visual Radio.
As well as being a superb music playing device, the N91 is an all-round multimedia wizard. The camera is state-of-the-art, with a 2 megapixel still camera plus a video recorder. The camera lacks the Carl-Zeiss lens features on the Nokia N90, so if photography is your priority, then the N90 is a better choice. The display is very high quality: 262, 000 colours and high-resolution (176 x 208 pixels). The N91 is a 3G smartphone, so is capable of video calls, streaming video and fast data transfer, and it supports a wide range of third-party Symbian and Java applications.
The connectivity of the device enables data (music, etc) to be transferred from a PC with ease. There’s a choice of Bluetooth, USB 2.0 and wireless LAN (Wi-Fi), so you can easily and quickly copy music onto your phone. Wi-Fi gives you free access to broadband internet, when used within a Wi-Fi home or hotspot. The phone comes with Microsoft Media Player 10 to help you manage your songs and playlists.
The physical appearance of the phone is very classy, with stainless steel used to protect the hard drive from shocks. The N91 should be highly durable, despite all the high-tech gadgetry.
There are a lot of positives here. The negatives are simply the size and weight of the device. At 164g it’s a lot heavier than the average mobile, although 3G and smartphone fans may well be used to this kind of weight. Still, it’s not much more than an iPod, and if you consider the fact that it replaces two devices (three if you include a digital camera!) then it may be worth it. We don’t have any other complaints - the N91 is highly recommended!