TecHopper

Sony Ericsson and Nokia are two of the biggest leaders in the cellphone market. Today we will compare two top of the line product from both the powerhouses to decide which one is better.  Its Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 vs Nokia N97.

Design

Design-wise, both the cellphones are a little bulky. But that’s pretty normal with the amount of features they are putting in these phones. Both of them weight around 150 grams and feature large displays. The Nokia N97 has the larger display at 3.5 inches but the Sony Ericsson is not far behind at 3 inches. N97 has 16 million colours compared to 65 K in Xperia but the Xperia has a higher resolution at 800 x 480 pixels which makes it look better in our opinion compared to 360 x 640 pixels in Nokia. Both of them have full QWERTY keyboard with the additional trackpad in Xperia.

Clarity and Talk Time

The basic need of a cellphone is to talk. Nothing is worse than having a cellphone with all the latest features but problems in terms of voice clarity.

Xperia Image by GSMarena

Thankfully, both the Nokia N97 and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 are amazing in in terms of voice clarity.

The Sony Ericsson has a standard Li-Po 1500 mAh battery and gives a talk time of 6 hours to 10 hours depending on the usage of 3G or 2G. Standby time is nearly 25 days or so. The Nokia N97 is also similar in terms of the talk time but the standby time is lower at about 18-20 days.

Connectivity and Internet

Both the cellphones have support for the general 2G bands GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900. In 3G, both Sony Ericsson and Nokia support HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100 bands. In the American version of Nokia N97 HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 bands are also supported.

N97 by Digitgeek

Sony Ericsson also included support for these bands with its Xperia X1a version. Do check the version of the Xperia X1 you are buying if you intend to have these 3G bands.

If you only have access to GPRS and EDGE, then the Nokia N97 beats its Sony Ericsson counterpart because of its class 32 GPRS and class 32 EDGE compared to class 10 ones in Xperia X1. The N97 also has HSCSD though it is not much important. In terms of 3G bands, the Sony Ericsson will give you the advantage with its HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA at 2 Mbps while the N97 lags behind at 3.6 Mbps HSDPA. The GPRS and EDGE facility in N97 will surely help if you remain in an area outside the 3G bands range.

Camera

The Nokia boasts a five megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus and LED flash. It can capture video at 30 fps in VGA mode and there is also a secondary camera which can capture at 15 fps VGA mode. The Sony Ericsson camera is lower at 3.15 MP with autofocus and LED flash. But it has an important feature in touch focus. You can touch anywhere on the screen to focus at that part on the image leading to better focusing and image quality. Like the Nokia, Xperia X1 also records video at 30 fps VGA and has a secondary videocall camera at 15 fps.

Applications

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is built on Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional with Internet Explorer for Web browsing and RSS application. It also comes with Pocket Office which is one of the best in the cellphone world. There is a MP3 and MP4 player providing superb audio and video playback. It also comes with the usual T9 and organiser and extensive support for Java applications.

The Nokia N97 is based on Symbian OS version 9.4. It also comes with its own version of web browser and RSS application. There is the document viewer (similar to pocket office), video and photo editor and T9. It also supports the voice Dial and has a wider music playback capability with support for WMA and WAV. The video player supports RealVideo and WMV in addition to MP4. It also comes preloaded with Adobe Flash Light 3, a lightweight version of Flash Player made for cellphones. N97 also has a digital compass application.

Other Features

Verdict

Both are world class cellphones. Both have some back draws like not so great still shots in Xperia and inability to edit Office documents in N97 without paid upgrade. But with the features they pack, they are surely great buys. We highly recommend both of these phones. Its for you to decide. It depends on which camp you are in. You may want to wait for Xperia X2 though which has a 8 MP camera and is stated to release soon. We will review it soon enough. You may want to subscribe to us to receive the updates.

The features mentioned above may vary upon local variants. Although we have taken full measures to provide you with most accurate information is but it is advised to cross check with the manufacturers website to be sure of it.