Tech Review: Nokia N95
The Nokia N95, part of Nokia’s Nseries, is the company’s way to say that the future is clearly in mobility. This little quad-band device has everything and it’s neither at cell phone quality or smartphone quality, but it’s at computer quality. It features everything: music player, video player, camera for photos (5 megapixels) and videos (VGA 640×480 at 30 fps) with a Carl Zeiss lens, editing for photos and videos, GPS, FM Radio, expandable memory, stereo speakers, bluetooth, wifi and infrared connectivity, and possibility to add third-party softwares. Everything in bold is what wouldn’t be typically found on any other phone or smartphones.
Design
The size of the Nokia N95 is 99×53x21 mm. It’s comfortable no matter how it’s held. It’s a dual slider, so slide it up to reveal the keypad and slide it down to reveal the media playback buttons.
On the front of the phone, below the 2.6 inch screen, there’s the main and navigation buttons. My only complaint about that is the location of the navigation keys and the Edit key. Holding the Edit button and pressing right or left allows to select texts. When doing that, the fingers are very close to each other which makes things uncomfortable. Above the screen, there the light sensor and the front camera which can be used for video calls.
On the left, there’s the left speaker, a standard 3.5 mm jack for any standard headphones, the infrared sensor, and the microSD expansion slot.
On the right, there’s the right speaker, the volume buttons or zooming buttons if you’re in camera mode, and two buttons other buttons used in camera mode.
On the top, there’s the Power button.
On the bottom, there’s that hole to plug in the charger, and the mini USB port to connect the phone to a computer.
On the back, there’s the Carl Zeiss Optics lens with autofocus. The slider above the lens allow to open/close it. There’s also the cover for the battery and SIM card.
Music
The Nokia N95 has a standard 3.5mm jack. That’s right, standard. That means you can use any headphones to plug in there. Bluetooth headphones can also used for wireless listening.
The music player supports a wide range of formats which includes MP3, WMA, RealAudio, SP-MIDI, ACC+, eAAC+, MIDI, AMR, M4A and True Tones. And playing music is a breeze; access the playback buttons by sliding the cover down, press play twice and start listening.
Photos
There are two cameras, a 0.3 megapixels camera in front for video calls and a 5 megapixels camera in the back with a flash and a Carl Zeiss Optics lens with autofocus and a 20x digital zoom. Yes, 20x. I’ve never seen that normal cameras, but it’s digital a.k.a. useless.
“The N95 won the prestigious ‘Best Mobile Imaging Device in Europe 2007′ award by TIPA (Technical Image Press Association), the largest photo and imaging press association in Europe.” (Wikipedia)
When photos are taken outdoors on a sunny day, they’re incredibly clear. It’s definitely no longer a phone and this can actually replace your camera, but night shots or shots under poor lighting conditions are awful. The time to turn on the camera is a few seconds too long which can make you unable to capture that one-time moment that just passed. Processing is also long and the photos are saved as JPGs.
Basically, although the quality is very good for a phone, the shots should be planned since capturing instantaneously can be challenging.
Videos
VGA 640×480 at 30 fps is what’s called near DVD quality, but again like shooting photos, night videos aren’t very good, even with night mode on. In daylight on the other hand, this can definitely replace your camera. The files are saved as MP4s in high quality and in 3GP in the lowest quality. MP4s can be played using Quicktime and 3GP is mostly for usage on mobile phones. That was only recording.
I never thought I was capable of watching videos on a little screen, but I watch quite a few video blogs and it’s nice to watch something when you have nothing else to do, like on a bus, a train, a subway, or on the way to the market or wherever. It’s cool to watch videos and you know it. I don’t know what processor the N95 is using, but it should be better. There’s the occasional lag time when opening a video, but the rest of it plays fine. Watch the battery meter though.
GPS
A GPS is something that’s usually never found in phones. There are probably other phones with this feature, but so far, I have only heard about the Blackberry Curve having GPS. It’s definitely a nice feature, but it’s slow and difficult to connect to satellites. You might find yourself off a few meters when you look at your position on the map, but it’s very useful when you go somewhere without much knowledge about how to get there.
There are a few ways to get maps on the Nokia N95. One of them is on the go, when you need them. This can become expensive because of data charges. The other way is to download maps on the phone using Nokia’s MapLoader which very slow due to the fact that it downloads a lot of small files, but it’s completely free.
The maps can also be used to search for locations whether the device is connected to satellites or not. City guides and voice navigation are also available at a fee. The GPS on the N95 is better than the first time a camera appeared on a phone. It’s far from perfect, but it’s still useful when you’re lost.
Connectivity
The Nokia N95 has infrared which I never used. It also has bluetooth 2.0 capabilities which can be nice for using bluetooth headphones, file transfers and synchronising with your computer. The built-in WiFi can access the Internet through a 802.11b/g wireless network with a browser that displays full web pages. This will allow you to find a hotspot and save on data charges. Finally, there’s the wired way to connect, with a USB cable. It’s useful if your computer doesn’t have bluetooth.
Softwares
The phone comes with softwares including Radio, Lifeblog, RealPlayer, Adobe PDF, Quickoffice and a game, Snake. On top of that, you can install more. I only added Gmail, Google Maps and fring, for email, maps and IM.
The softwares that are worth noticing are Adobe PDF and Quickoffice. The versions that come with the phone only allow to view documents, but that’s good enough. You never know when you might need that word or excel document. A little piece of information in those files could save your life.
Memory
Having many features is useless if there isn’t enough memory to support it all. The Nokia N95 has an internal memory of 160 MB which is a lot more than other phones. It also has a slot to insert a microSD memory card for up to 2 GB of memory, although I’ve read that the 4 GB microSDHC from SanDisk is also compatible with the N95.
Photos are a little below 1 MB each at the highest quality. Nokia’s Music Manager can make your music files smaller by about 70% without quality loss, for example, I have a 4-minute music file that is only 1.42 MB which is great. On the other hand, a 1-minute video at the highest quality will require about 25 MB. Maps can also take up a significant amount of space, but you have the option to set a percentage of your memory card to allocate for maps.
Phone
Finally, let’s not forget that this gadget can be used as a phone even though it can do so much so well. There’s nothing to say about making calls, it’s like every other phones out there. Answering calls is just as trivial. If you happen do be doing something when a call comes in, it’s just going to be interrupted. I did received while I was shooting a video. The recording stopped, it saved itself and I answered the call. I was very surprised that it saved itself.
Call reception is good. I never had difficulties to listen to someone nor has anyone complained about not hearing me. The loudspeaker is good as well. Vibration mode should be stronger, I have missed calls because of that.
Battery Life
The battery life is about the same like every other Nokia phones I know of. Typical usage for me allows it to last a few days. Typical means phone calls, browsing and snapping a few pictures. Intensive usage of the GPS and video camera can quickly drain the battery within a few hours. This makes sense since that type of usage requires you to keep everything on, including the screen, all the time.
Conclusion
There are no carriers selling the Nokia N95, so the price is high at $774.95 through Amazon.com or £399.99 through Amazon.co.uk. With so many features, high quality features, it’s worth every penny, and it can replace your iPod, point-and-shoot camera, PDA and whichever phone you carry. It still can’t replace a real GPS, but the only thing stopping it from getting there is satellite reception.
The Nokia N95 might be, so far, the best example of technology convergence in a mobile device (I can’t call it a phone).
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