It took ages to boot up. By the time it was ready for use it had been at least a 3 minutes. At first i thought "it's broken already?" as it seemed to be stuck on the white nokia logo screen. It did eventually spring into life and a nice welcome screen asking me about tutorials and would i like to watch some video of how to operate then handset. I noticed at this point that the light omitted from the screen was visable through the side of the handset, the screen it self is sandwiched between an upper and lower plate of plastic, the gap between them both was where the light was escaping. This to me looked terrible and further added to my disappointment of the N95, cheap and tacky build quality which for the price of handset is really unacceptable. The screen itself is really nice, it's clear, has plenty of colour range and is nice and bright. The software, this is where the N95 excels over normal handsets, it runs a OS system called Symbian. Being a smartphone it falls into the same category as other handsets like HTC which use Windows Mobile as the prefered OS. Symbian is very different to the Windows based OS, having used both my opinion is that the Windows based OS is better and more useable. Windows mobile is more "fully" functional and will truely integrate into your PC windows based OS. Making contacts/e-mails/music & files more interchangeable and the connection between your PC and the device is almost seamless. You can install applications/games etc on the N95 too which is a nice feature. I installed Tom Tom Satellite navigation software on my N95 and it worked very very well, the Nokia maps software i found was really not up to the job. It took around 10 minutes to sync with an orbiting Satellite to locate and give you your GPS position.
Nokia Maps software (preloaded on the N95) comes with a three-day free trial licence for Nokia's navigation service, allowing user not only to plan routes ahead of time, as they can with the free version, but also to try out the app's turn-by-turn guidance, which usually costs extra. Nokia said it would increase the number of downloadable maps to 150 during the second half of the year. That said, only around 50 of them can be used for navigation. If you want audible instructions there is an additional cost attached and prices start from £5 for a 5-day trial to £50 for 3-years. With no Point of Interest data installed, city guides are also an optional extra. I connected my handset and installed/downloaded UK/Ireland map data via my PC. The installer then transfered the maps to my handset pretty simple i thought. The opening sequence of Nokia Maps is just like google earth, with a large 3D image of earth which then continues to zoom in until you reach your GPS position. Showing you very detailed maps of your area, points of interest, fuel stations, banks, hotels, internet enabled areas, golf courses, libraries just to name a few. A very good application even if it does literally suck the battery life from the phone. The menu system of the N95 is colourful and themes can be changed to your liking, you can also download and install (with great ease) addition themes from the web or creat one yourself using nokia's theme creator which is available via the web. It's a fairly easy to use handset although those people scared of technology would have a hard time using this handset due to it's complexity and features
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: Looks Good, Screen Colour/Sharpness Great, Camera Good, GPS Great. Disadvantages: No Touchscreen Or Qwerty Keypad, Internet Browser Could Be Better.
Claire_DC 31.03.2007 (03.05.2007)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Nokia N95
Advantages: Lots of features, carl zeiss camera lense, robust and durable, big screen Disadvantages: inconsistent software, music software a bit annoying
mumsie79 17.02.2009 (17.02.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Nokia N95
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
Feb 19th, 2009
very helpful by (83%):
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