First off, let's get things straight. This is definitely a blokes phone. It's meant to be carried in a pocket with nothing else. It's size will surprise you. First, after reading countless reviews, the first time you hold the phone you'll find that the phone seems smaller than you expected. Then it will grow on you a bit. Until you flip the screen.
These days it's hard to find a phone that doesn't have a camera. Unfortunately, it's also become very hard to find a phone that has a camera worth more than a can of beans. Nokia has been producing great camera phones from the start, beginning with the Nokia 3650. More recently, it seems Nokia has been following the downward trend in camera quality, but with the recent E-Series and N-Series phones from Nokia, it became clear who was still able to make great camera phones.
The Nokia N93 is one that stands out even more. In addition to a beautiful 3.2 megapixel camera, it features a 3x optical zoom. This simply cannot be beat. I'm hearing you thinking in your head, "I just heard about another company who has made a 5 megapixel camera phone which has an optical zoom, too. What makes this so special?" Well, the Nokia N93 has the optical zoom mechanism internally. No worrying about lenses which fail to extend from the phone body with the N93.
Flip open the N93 in the traditional flip-phone mode, and make a phone call. I can almost guarantee you'll only be using the N93 for phone calls 25% of the times you use it. But how is the call quality? Perfect. All Nokia phones which have used the Symbian S60 operating system have flawless connection. You can turn on the loudspeaker and whoever is on the other side of the line won't be able to tell the difference. When I use other cell phones and do this, the other end usually starts complaining.
Where the N93 stumbles is here in the USA. Triband may sound good to you, as the last time you visited a cell phone retailer they told you the newest and greatest was triband technology. That would be a bunch of lies. Quadband is what you really want in a phone. That's because the USA uses two frequency bands, while Europe and Asia use two of their own frequencies. A quadband phone can connect to a network anywhere one of these frequencies is available. A triband phone, on the other hand, has a 75% chance of being in the right area with the right frequency. But here's the catch: a triband phone from Europe or Asia will have two European frequency bands as well as one USA frequency band. A USA handset will have two USA bands, and one European band. The N93 is a European handset, and can only connect to one frequency band (at the current time). While I have not run into any problems with having signal, it would have been nice to have a quadband handset. Because as Nokia proved with the E62, a S60 phone with quadband frequencies can operate where almost every other phone will go dead.
The phone has a beautiful 320x240 pixel LCD screen. Pictures and videos look stunning on the display. S60 phones have always had higher-resolution displays than their non-S60 counterparts. And even as some of Nokia's competitors begin putting these screens into their phones, Nokia's displays are still of much higher quality.
Moving on to more important matters, let's look at the big feature of the N93, it's camera. The N93 has all sorts of settings for this camera, ranging from Macro function to a barcode reader. The simple fact is, this is a true digital camera. Sure, it takes a bit longer to focus that most modern point-and-shoot cameras. But the shutter button has the two-click action, and the autofocus works great. The built-in LED flash, while nowhere near as good as a true xenon flash, gets the job done. And it doubles as a flashlight with a click of the flash button when the phone is closed.
Video is really worth mentioning. I typically take more videos with my digital camera than I take pictures, and for the simple reason that the 640x480 (VGA), 30fps video often tells a much better story than just a simple picture. Nokia has brought the magic of real video recording to the N93, and now I no longer need to take my digital camera with me. And for night shooting, you can turn on the flash like a flashlight... which makes for a very horror-movie like footage.
Time to get to playback. That screen is absolutely amazing, as described earlier. Viewing your recorded videos and pictures is a joy for the eyes. Plug the N93 into a TV and everyone around you will be in shock. Unlike an Apple, Nokia has been kind and included this TV-Out cable in the box. So what... you know of plenty of devices that plug into the TV. Do you have a networked media center? Then you can stream video wirelessly to that media center (and your TV) from the N93. Let's see those devices do that. Howabout streaming to your audio system? And browsing the web on your giant flat-panel TV? Nothing can do that. Except for Nokia's brand new N95, which I will compare the N93 to at the end of this review.
WiFi is bliss. Take a picture of something, and if you've got WiFi around you, you can have it posted to the internet within a minute. Same with your videos. I can already here you saying to me, "Well, my <insert device here> can do that." Does it have 802.11b/g? Sure, the box says it does. But does it actually surf the internet at the full "G" speed? The N93 does. And you'll notice the difference between an 802.11b network and an 802.11g network. The N93 can also stream audio and video from the internet. Too cool for words.
Bluetooth simply works, like every other Nokia device. We aren't dealing with the crippled bluetooth which many Verizon phones come with. No, this bluetooth is available for the using. Control your PC or media center, use a bluetooth headset (even a stereo bluetooth headset works), send/receive files, and synchronize. No problems here.
I have gotten this device used. So it may be a fluke, but my battery life does not last very long. It's true that I use my phone's features a lot more than the average user probably would, but compared to the Nokia E62, I have to never touch the N93 to obtain the same battery life. But whatever, this is a blokes phone. We charge out batteries every night. We're power users. If you charge every night, then you should get at least a half hour of WiFi, a half hour of camera usage, a half hour of talk-time, and 12 hours of standby before you'll start to wonder how long your battery will last. Just keep your phone charged, and everything will be fine. In my case, I believe my battery is worn down. So the battery life I'm getting is actually more what a user could expect from an N93i. I purchased the N93 over the N93i because I wished to have the better battery life. Now I know I need to purchase a new battery.
The N93 was recently "replaced" (outdone) by the Nokia N95. Most of you who read this are trying to figure out if the extra cash required to purchase the N95 is worth it over the N93. What you need to ask yourself is which form-factor you like better. Ignore all the features. Would you rather have a slider, or a flip-phone? I choose the flip-phone, because what I really wanted was a candybar. And while one might argue that the slider is closer to a candybar than a flip-phone, a dual-slider is just too over the top for me. The optical zoom made up for the N95's 5 megapixel camera, the unique flipping design added a cool factor to the N93 that just couldn't be beat. The N95 has a GPS built in, but I wouldn't ever use it... the battery would die too fast for me. The dual-slider, I've heard, loosens up a noticeable amount over time. That's just too much for me to handle... a really loose phone. I've got from a Motorola V180 to a Nokia 3650 to a Blackberry 7210 to a Sony Ericsson Z520a to a Sidekick 2 to a NEC L1 (e949) to a Nokia E62, and now my Nokia N93. The NEC L1 was a great phone, it felt super solid for it's size. It got looks everywhere. But it did not have expandeable memory, the reception was terrible, and the camera was always washed out. But a mere couple of months after I got it, Samsung made their new phones which were even thinner than the L1 (I purchased it when it had the title of the world's thinnest cell phone). So I decided I needed a Nokia again. That's where the E62 came in. I originally wanted the E61, because it would be unlocked and have WiFi, but the E62 surprised me. I finally managed to locate the N93, and jumped for it. I have yet to be sorry. Nearly every day I have someone ask something about it. And the people who think they know what my phone can do are always being surprised. 3D games absolutely captivate anyone looking over your shoulder. Have yet to use the video-conferencing feature, as it only works in Europe (as well as 3G, which also only works in Europe with the N93). That camera is good, but not very good. More of a toy to play around with when you have someone else you want a picture taken with, but nobody to take the picture.
The Nokia N93. The ultimate bloke's phone. When people need you to do something, the N93 is your modern, urban powertool. You'll never part with your phone, even for a few minutes, again.
