Blackberry tour vs Nokia N97: compare them in the process of making decision

This summer there are some very strong devices out there including Blackberry Tour, Nokia N97, HTC Magic, iPhone 3G S, Palm Pre. Some may prefer iPhone 3G S or Palm Pre, but at last I have narrowed down my choices to Blackberry Tour and Nokia N97, and I’ve had a really tough time choosing between the two:

Blackberry tour:
· Supports high-speed 3G EV-DO Rev
· Non-touchscreen, a large, highly tactile, full-QWERTY keyboard for fast and precise typing
· Advanced media player for videos, pictures and music, a 3.5 mm stereo headset jack and support for the Bluetooth Stereo Audio Profile (A2DP/AVCRP)
· 256MB Flash memory, support cards of up to 16GB
· Built-in GPS with support for geotagging, BlackBerry Maps
· Allowing users to edit Microsoft(R) Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the handset
· Easy mobile access to Facebook(R), MySpace and Flickr(R), as well as popular instant messaging services including BlackBerry Messenger, Yahoo! IM, AIM(R), Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger
· Support for BlackBerry App World, as well as third-party mobile applications
· BlackBerry Internet Service allows access to up to 10 supported personal and corporate email accounts
· No Wi-Fi, it is said to be added in the future.

Nokia N97:
· Sliding QWERTY keypad and touchscreen display
· Memory – 32GB Internal memory, 128 MB RAM, microSD up to 16GB
· Camera – 5 MP (Carl Zeiss optics)
· OS – Symbian
· Battery – 6.6 hours talk-time and 430 hours standby
· Radio – Stereo FM radio with RDS, Visual radio; FM transmitter
· Widescreen – 16:9, 3.5in TFT, 640 x 360 pixels
· 802.11b/g; USB; Bluetooth with A2DP; GPS with A-GPS
· 3.5mm audio jack
· Handwriting Recognition
· A little expensive, at about $650

That’s the simple information I have got about the two phones. Here I should explain my smartphone requirements. I’m looking for a device to serve as my personal telephone, media player, mini computer and business assistant. For personal telephone, it is used for daily contact, to make calls and receive calls. Both Blackberry tour and Nokia N97 were easy to use and very convenient to dial a number.

For multimedia, both of them are advanced media player for videos, music and pictures. Blackberry tour supports video formats including MPEG4, H.263, H.264 (encoding and decoding 30fps), WMV and audio format including MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA. Nokia N97 can play mp4 and 3gp videos with up to 640*360 pixels resolution. Personally I prefer to watch movies with Blackberry tour. In the meantime I go to Nidesoft Inc to get programs Nidesoft Blackberry Converter Suite, which rip DVDs and videos into Blackberry-friendly files. Just copy the converted file to memory card, pop it into phone’s card slot, and enjoy. Or use program Nidesoft Nokia video converter if you would like to choose N97 as media player.

As for connectivity, the Nokia N97 looks like a good all-rounder, with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and an Infrared port. The BlackBerry Tour features Bluetooth as well, (with A2DP) but is somehow lacking Wi-Fi (just like the much-derided BlackBerry Storm). Although the rumor said that the Blackberry Storm 2 will have Wi-Fi. N97 also features an FM radio, which the Tour doesn't.

If you always travel around for work then Blackberry can be a wonderful assistant. The BlackBerry Tour smartphone provides the industry's leading mobile solution for email, messaging (IM, SMS, MMS) and social networking together with built-in GPS. I like type emails and message with the full-QWERTY keyboards fast and easily. N97 also have GPS and can send emails, but the business-oriented Blackberry tour is better for business assistant.

In the end, I make up my decision. The Blackberry tour won out, it made the most sense to me as media player and business assistant. But as I’ve noted the Nokia N97 was also pretty impressive and could be a viable option for many others.