I'm addicted to electronic gadgets, cameras and cars but I'm never keen to part with my money (ok I...
I'm addicted to electronic gadgets, cameras and cars but I'm never keen to part with my money (ok I'm tight!). I've found Ciao very handy when buying said items and when I get time am keen to put something back.
Member since:20.03.2007
Reviews:8
Members who trust:1
There are a lot of reviews on Nokia's N95 but having used one for a few months now I thought I could still add something useful.
The more I use it the more I've been impressed by its capabilities. I've had other phones that have claimed similar functionality, but they all fell down when it came to usability. Despite its wealth of features and therefore potential complexity, the N95 does everything it claims and does it well. Nokia have clearly put a lot of thought into the design of the menus and I get the feeling they might have even tried using the phone for a couple of days before putting them on the shelves!
The detailed specification and many functions and features are covered in some excellent reviews but I'd like to expand upon my experience with the phone and the areas where I found it excels and the few areas that could be better.
Its all in the box! For a start I was impressed with the kit supplied. As well as the phone the box contained: a mains charger a 12v car charger* usb cable (there is a standard mini usb port on the phone!) Headset & audio adaptor* (allows you to play music and manage calls and can even be used with your own stereo headphones) Audio and video out cable* More comprehensive than usual manual / quickstart guide
*With previous phones I've had to pay extra for all of these items!
My contract: I got my N95 on contract with 3. £31 per month gets me the phone (18 month contract) 500 minutes or texts and unlimited internet access (2Gb fair use limit). For what its worth it also includes 300 mins or texts and 90 video minutes to other 3 mobiles but since I don't know anybody else on 3 I don't find much use for these! This isn't a review of 3 but so far I've found them excellent and their coverage, particularly for 3G, better than Vodafone and Orange (this isn't a very scientific comparison as I've used different models of phone with each service provider so it may be down to the performance of the different phones but I doubt it). To get the most out of the N95 I'd recommend a package with internet access, more on this later.
Delight features: This phone has virtually everything, it's as if Nokia went through a very demanding user's wish list and then threw in a few additional features just to shut him up! i.e.: Large (2.6") screen (I believe the 8Gb model is 2.8") 5 megapixel camera with flash! And
red-eye reduction and auto-focus! 2nd VGA camera (primarily for video calls) also with flash! Stereo speakers - perfectly adequate for normal listening (I listen to mine in the shower - don't tell Nokia) 3.5mm headphone socket - no silly adaptors required Built in GPS (I thought they were joking) Music player - as good as any I've heard Video player - particularly good on the large screen FM radio Expandable memory (I bought a 4Gb µSD card for under £10) Every type of connectivity I could ask for: USB 2.0 (via mini USB connector and supplied cable!) IrDA - Infra-red (just in case?) Bluetooth (including A2DP) - I use this daily to connect to my car's hands free kit Wi-fi - this is one of the key features that sold it to me - I can browse the internet quickly and for free HSDPA (3.5G) nearly as fast as Wi-fi and with a flat rate internet tariff cheap to use, I It has also has WCDMA (3G) and quad-band GSM and EDGE
Software: Symbian S60 operating system enables great applications, the following are included: Office software; Quickoffice (enables reading of MS Word, Excel & Powerpoint files), PDF reader, Barcode reader (somewhat pointless and tricky to use), ZIP (you can do a lot of stuff you'd previously have needed a pc for!), LifeBlog (a nifty way of viewing messages, photos and videos in a diary), podcasting software, image sharing software, flash player (works with Youtube etc.), real player (even works with BBC listen again), Skype (for free calls over wi-fi) Other great software can be downloaded for free; so far I've found the following really useful: Internet radio is brilliant and works very well Nav4All - free navigation software Various games - I not a big gamer but for those who are you'll find old classics such as PACMAN and Space Invaders faithfully recreated (some are and some nifty tools that make use of the phone's built in accelerometer some useful e.g. tools to automatically rotate the screen depending on its orientation and a fancy step counter / sports monitoring tool, plus some daft but fun applications, my favourite being the star wars light sabre simulation!
With previous phones such as my old Nokia 6280, I'd hoped for a device that would bring together phone, camera, PDA, music player, radio etc. but I've always been a little disappointed (http://www.ciao.co.uk/Nokia_6280__Review_5637697). However, the N95 is much closer to delivering the converged device I was looking for. Day to day, I use the following features and find the multiple functions of the N95 adds more to the experience than the stand alone gadget would. Let me give some examples:
Phone: the phone works as well as any other I've owned. I synchronise mine with my Outlook address book and because of the phone's built in voice recognition I haven't had to laboriously record voice tags for each contact, the synthesiser makes a reasonable stab at understanding me and repeating back the contact name. This is great for hands-free use in the car. There are also a few bits of freeware which use the speech synthesiser to read text. The keypad has fairly large buttons and they have a pleasant enough feel when texting or dialing.
Camera: In general the 5 Mega-pixel camera takes great photos. The quality is as good as most low to mid-priced compact cameras though without optical zoom (an observation not a moan). I find the flash can give images a bit of a washed out look but still a massive improvement over most phone cameras. What I really like though is being able to upload images to my Flickr site directly from the phone using either wi-fi or 3G. Similarly the Nokia Lifeblog is a neat way of integrating images, video and messages into an electronic diary.
Update April08. At the time of writing I hadn't made much use of the camcorder function; something other reviews rave about. Earlier today our company photographer failed to show at a video shoot so I tried out the N95 and though my video technique is far from professional the quality of the recordings was excellent. The "TV high quality mode" produces 30fps 640x480 (VGA) mp4 files with impressive sound quality. Okay for professional footage it probably isn't the best solution but having seen the results I don't think I'll be carting my camcorder around on holiday anymore!. Its also worth noting here that although the N95 has a screen resolution of 320x240, storing the larger format videos is ideal for playback on TV using the supplied TV-out cable. I reckon a 4Gb card could hold over 3 hours of mp4 video possibly more using DivX!
Videophone: I made my first successful video call with my N95! I've had two other phones that claimed to be able to but I couldn't get the settings right. The cost of video calls to other networks is so prohibitive I probably won't do it again but I get some odd satisfaction from knowing the feature works. Similarly, being able to use the second camera for VGA quality stills isn't something I need to do often but I like the fact the N95 allows me to do it.
GPS: It really works and has helped me out a number of times. The GPS sensor is under the keyboard so the phone needs to be open and either outside or near a window before it can find enough satellites to function. It's a shame Nokia's live navigation element requires an additional subscription but there are work-rounds such as using the simulation mode or freeware like Nav4All which isn't as well developed but works okay. You can even use the GPS to automatically provide location data for photos (I don't because I guess it would run the battery down).
Music player: The music player and radio works well and having a standard 3.5mm headphone socket is a boon. Used in conjunction with the web browser it comes into its own. I've subscribed to podcasts and downloaded mp3s directly from the web - even zipped files - all without having to involve a pc! In fact my iPod is starting to feel a bit neglected!
Voice over IP (VOIP): Skype, iSkoot & Fring - I've just started to experiment with these and so far am impressed and starting to wonder if I could get away with a lower priced contract. The connections are not quite up to conventional mobile quality but acceptable and either free or very cheap; Skype to Skype calls are free, Skype UK to landline in Spain costs 1.4 pence per minute, Skype to Spanish Mobile costs 18 pence per minute. Data costs are extra so you really need to be paying a flatrate for internet use to use Skype to its full advantage.
Internet - Web and email: A lot of phones offer internet access but of those I've seen the N95 is one of the most usable. This is partly due to the large screen but also due to the well designed browser which has a cool mini-map feature enabling fast navigation around large web-pages. The mouse pointer is controlled using the joypad but intuitively hops to links and text input boxes. Text is auto-formatted into a column that fits the screen so browsing is not a chore.
Downloads are automatically filed away in sensible areas of the phone memory and open in relevant applications e.g. mp3s are filed in the music directory and open in the player. I've discussed some of the ways internet access enhances the other phone functions above but other surprises for me were being able to access BBC listen again and to subscribe to podcasts directly using the phone. It struggles with some multimedia and flash content but the fact that it works with some has encouraged me to experiment with alternative browsers and media players before giving up.
Push email is there if you want it from POP or IMAP accounts. The 3.5G connection and web browser is even good enough for me to use my web-mail accounts!
Negatives: Okay so far this has been a very positive review, I have got some concerns about the phone, there are some small software bugs such as applications closing unexpectedly and for a while I'd get a nag screen saying "insert sim" when the sim card was already inserted (the location method could be more positive) however the N95 is still receiving good support from Nokia so I'm hoping future software updates may resolve these issues.
The clever double slider feature (slide up for keypad, down for multimedia buttons) makes me worry about the robustness of the phone. I haven't dropped it yet but it's only a matter of time! When it happens I'll update this review with the results!
As you'd expect, with a feature packed phone like this, battery life is variable but generally not great. I guess this is why they throw in the car charger! I leave Bluetooth active and use my N95 fairly heavily for photos, internet, music, and even a few phone calls; it'll usually last a couple of days between charges although I've taken to charging it every night to be on the safe side. The biggest surprise candidate for draining the battery is connecting it to my pc via USB as unlike many other usb devices (e.g. iPod) the usb cable doesn't charge the phone.
Overall opinion: I'm a gadget nut and the N95 is the best phone I've owned; it continues to surprise me as I discover new features and capabilities. It is currently well supported by Nokia and there is a great online community for tips, software and support. As I've tried to illustrate in this review the excellent integration of the many features, phone, camera, camcorder, pc, web-browser, music centre etc. has created a device that is greater than the sum of its parts.
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Advantages: Good Music Player, Awesome Camera, Gadget packed Disadvantages: Crashes, hangs, poor battery life, internet browsing using Wifi is very slow
wzwukdotcom 19.12.2007 ·
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Review of Nokia N95
Apr 9th, 2008
(Apr 17th, 2008)
exceptional by (13%):
very helpful by (88%):
