Is the Nokia N97 a disappointment?

A very commonly occuring crash before update.

According to an excerpt given to Anssi Vanjoki (who happens to be a top honcho at Nokia) the N97 seems to be nothing short of a disaster. Read the excerpt given by him to AllAboutSymbian:

“So we’ll start with the N97 and I’ll give you some current stuff on what we are doing there. The N97 has been a tremendous success for us when it comes to how many we have shipped and how much money we did collect, but it has been a tremendous disappointment in terms of the experience quality for the consumers and something we did not anticipate. It happens every now and then in a big company, like Nokia, even if you have the most stringent quality control mechanisms. Something slips, and you notice one thing, [it] leads to another thing, you fix that, and actually you make things worse and so forth… and this has been an unbelievable cycle of things for us that has taken far too long to repair and mitigate.”

So what exactly was the problem Mr. Vanjoki?

“Because, you know, what we did in terms of the software that was there for N97, we stretched it for too long, something which should not have been stretched. And when you stretch from every single corner, the thing does not hold together any more. And therefore even the patching of this was much more laborious that what we ever thought…that was a surprise to us. It was not expected. When you are taken by surprise you usually say er… er… er… er…er. And now, painstakingly slowly, we are in position where we can both answer and remedy the problem.“

Nokia finally admitted to its critics laments about UI and stability ever since it’s S60 were released with the Nokia 5800XM. Hearing statements like these from a senior executive is pretty heartbreaking, because it all of a sudden adds more wight to the issue. But, there are also positives to this. When does a big company like Nokia become guilt conscience? The chances of God pardoning Satan on judgement day are greater than this. More than anything, it shows Nokia is willing to listen, because customer satisfaction ultimately decides how much money you’ll earn in the future.

Personally, I think the N97 is a solid device now after the updates. As an early buyer of this phone, I did face a lot of problems in terms of stability, but that seems to have been gone with recent firmware updates. But, what Nokia realized is that only a fraction of any phone users tend to update their phone software and would rather stick to the original firmware. So, for this reason it would be best to ship it problem-free out of the box. (Maybe, that’s the reason they introduced the N97 Mini?)

What do you think about the N97? Has it been a disappointment to you? Have the recent updates ‘patched’ up your device? Do you agree with Mr. Vanjoki?

Please chime in with your two cents.
-Salman, signing out!
[Via AllAboutSymbian]