2. sorry to hear you are on vodaphone as they do not update their rom very fast.

3. other than my bonehead antics loading incompatible software, it has been a VERY Good Phone. I have an unlocked N97. I am in the USA on T-Mobile. It is not known for good coverage or speed by any stretch.

4. Get unlock and unbrand is what I STRONGLY Suggest you do.

5. get a wifi program and use it to use wifi on the go. hands down fastest on this phone.

5. T-mobile is quick on my phone. faster than att in most places. not as fast as 4G but I will take what I can get.

I use sprint 4G for wireless on my laptop when i need to do heavy remote work.

good Luck.

beshides the 3rd rom update also consider a new handset as that one sounds like there is hardware tuning that is a problem.

(1) Internet connectivity- It does not have as fast as expected connectivity when compared with the iphone which my friend has, this wasn’t even the latest of them but the version of iphone before the most recent

(2) Signal- I have never experienced any Nokia phone with such poor signal strength, even at a spot its signal fluctuates as if you are in a vehicle on the motor way, this was surprising to me as i had previously, had N95 8GB and the N96, which is even far better than the N97, yes they did not have as much of the modern features, but all their applications worked properly without defects.

(3)Speaker- This is also extremely disappointing, the output is just too low for such an expensive handset, the N95 8GB speaker is 3 times more powerful than the N97, you cannot enjoy music on this phone, and this is why they had put in the “useless AAA battery powered speakers in the package”, I call it useless because (a) in this century why would Nokia include a speaker that cannot be powered by an inbuilt rechargeable battery.

(4)Tripping off- this phone sometimes trips off when it’s on charge by itself, what amazes me is that this is the phone Nokia calls its flagship model and secondly this phone has been in circulation in the US for almost year, since 2008 and it came to the UK with all these problems, I had gone online to see other reviews and I realised that there was none simply because it’s a new handset in the UK.

(5) There is also the issue of EXITING programs to save battery life whenever you finish using an application. This was an issue with the N95 8Gb, which I thought Nokia should have found a new way of EXITING programs once you click on the RED BOTTON or using a sort of TIMER MODE, but to my surprise this issue was never resolved and is now part of the way N97 is operated. You had to MANUALLY EXIT every application if not when you have about four applications ACTIVE, and you try to open a fifth one you get a message stating that your MAXIMUM application has been exceeded please exit applications, before you can continue with the new application.

(6) Freezing applications- At first I thought I was just a one-off event, that usually happens rarely with handsets, but this is not the case, the N97 from time to time freezes on its own, with the fourth replacement handset I have at the moment, within two weeks it has frozen its application three times especially with the FACEBOOK and ONLINE applications, you need to take out the battery then put it back in.

(7)Typing message in the calendar- when typing maybe a reminder of an event into the calendar, sometimes mistakenly you hand hits a button maybe, like the “RED end-call button” and the calendar closes, remember you had not finished typing, I expected whatever that was typed to be automatically stored into that calendar entry, so you just needs to open that date and continue with whatever you were typing but this is not the case, everything you where typing gets lost , you would need to star t all over again, to be frank this get one frustrated.

(8) Software- I think the software on the N97 is sort of defective, I can’t place my hands on what exactly is the issue but there is something not right with the way the software interacts with some applications.

Conclusion- (a) I am really disappointed with what Nokia had done with this phone, meanwhile they keep praising the phone and comparing it with the new iphone-S and the blackberry, really I have never used either the iphone or the blackberry so I cannot comment on there functionality, but what I can say is the phone is not as good as many people hoping to purchase it think.
(b) Nokia should have used the technology in the N95 8Gb and directly improved on it (like: Speed, certainly modern applications) without having to design an entirely new software.
(c) Nokia should have kept the existing speaker on the N95 8Gb in the N97, they might say the N97 is slimmer so it cannot accommodate that sort of speak on its side as with the N95 8Gb but it could have be placed at the back, with its existing speakers on the side.

To be fare, (1)The qwerty key board working in consonance with the full touch screen operation was a brilliant idea that was one of the reasons i actually purchased this phone and it proved very functional. (2) The external design(looks) is a brilliant idea and the slide effect is very innovative ant they used a solid raising mechanism which would be put to test over years.(3) The handwriting functionality for several operation is brilliant.

Finally: This is an expensive handset so price should not be an issue when designing a flag ship model; i would try to get this my finding into Nokia’s website so they know what their future users of this handset would face and the issues that would arise with time.
Henry.

Cheers!

Wathever, let’s just buy Nokia N97 and the Nokia N97 case, ToughGuard