The Nokia N97 Mini Garnet is a colour variant of the mini range from Nokia. It is already a popular handset with a wealth of appeal, however adding this touch of colour makes it even more appealing. It is a compact handset as the name suggests and measures only 113 mm x 52 mm wide and 14 mm thick whilst weighing 138 grams. It is packed full of features and is simple and user friendly to use.

The phone is one of a recent spate of smart phones which comes with processing capabilities and an operating system. This particular unit uses the ARM 11 434 MHz processor as its main processor whilst utilising the Symbian v9.4 operating system which happens to be Series 60 release 5 version of the software. These two elements are the backbone of the unit and its functionality. There responsive and offer excellent reliability.

The phone provides a 3.2 inch TFT touch screen that is able to display 16 million colours at a pixel screen size of 360 x 640. Colour reproduction is impressive to say the least with stunning vibrant images of stark clarity. An accelerometer is included as well as a proximity sensor which automates certain tasks. One of the key elements of this handset is the full QWERTY keyboard which is an excellent addition.

The phone comes with a 5.0 megapixel camera that operates at a resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. The quality of imagery produced by this camera is very good in part due to the use of Carl Zeiss optics. Other aids include auto focus and a dual LED flash whilst the increasingly popular geo tagging is also included. Video recording and playback has become a popular feature on many phones and this one offers excellent quality video capture at VGA quality and at 30 frames per second. A secondary camera is also included.

Entertainment is provided by the MP3/MP4 player and built in radio. 8 Gb of memory storage is included within the unit with the opportunity to double it to 16 Gb by using the microSD slot provided. Other features include a digital compass, document viewer and flash lite 3.

Connectivity is provided by the GPRS, EDGE, Blue tooth and USB connections. These offer a multitude of connections. For internet access the HSDPA and Wi-Fi connections provide fast web browsing capabilities. The GPS with A-GPS function is the satellite navigation function and is bundled with the popular Nokia maps.

The Nokia N97 Mini Garnet, which is obviously a derivation of the N97 Mini is a useful and extremely well designed unit. To pack all that level of functionality into a compact unit takes some doing but Nokia have managed it with aplomb.