Nokia N95 Review

Overall Rating

3G inc HSCDPA/GPRS connectivity
2.6" (6.6cm) Viewable TFT screen in portrait & landscape view ability
5MP Auto focus camera
Built in GPS
Video recording with MP4 30fps capture
3.5mm headphone jack
In-built stereo speakers
MP3, AAC, ACC+ playback
FM visual radio
WLAN B/G built in
Bluetooth/infrared
Full HTML/XML and Java internet browser
QuickOffice, Adobe PDF & Zip file reader software included

Abysmal battery life
Non-touch screen
Poor audio quality with Nokia HS-26W Bluetooth headset
No "true" Divx/Xvid playback (yet)
Difficult GPS operation

I'd been eagerly waiting for this phone to come out in the UK since September of last year when it was previewed at the CES in Las Vegas. Having already been using the Nokia 6280 on Three UK network I was surprised to find out that it will not feature on their forthcoming line up of new phones.
So off I went to Orange and sold my soul for 18 months in exchange for my new Nokia N95.

Contents

The Nokia N95 contains the phone, 3.5mm headphones and separate remote cord, a cable to connect to a monitor/TV, charger and disk with Nokia suite included. Plus the manual and other orange service stuff.
Charge the battery for 14hrs and switch on the phone and you're greeted by this 2.6" (6.6cm) rich TFT screen. The phone asks if you wish to transfer your old phone details/numbers across to the new phone which I did in a matter of a minute of two via Bluetooth. Onscreen wise the phone displays shortcuts to 6 items (which are changeable) with various other items below such as to do list and WLAN access status.

Slip 'n' Slide

Like the 6280 this phone has its keypad located under the screen which is accessible by sliding the screen up, but unlike the 6280 there's no "lip" for your thumb to press against to grip, the keys are easy to access and have a positive feel when depressed.

This phone doesn't just slide one way and when pushed down shows a number of keys including; play/pause, fast forward, rewind and stop. This also activates the multimedia menu displayed in landscape format. These can be customised to shortcut to want you want.

This phone packs a great deal of features which is why Nokia is billing this phone as on par with mobile computing. First of all it can play mp3 and AAC files (no WMA compatibility) via the built in stereo speakers which pack quite an audio punch or you can simply plug in a set of regular headphones via the 3.5mm socket which also doubles as the socket to connect to a monitor of TV to play back video. The headphones also act as aerial for the FM radio.

Still & Video capture

The phone has a 5 mega pixel auto focus Carl Zeiss lens under its lens cover and a bright LED flash located above the lens. This is activated when the lens cover is opened. The best way to take photos is to hold the phone in a landscape method; on the right hand side of the screen are a list of photo and video options including scene mode (portrait, landscape, sport and night mode), flash settings, timer, sequence and exposure compensation, white balance and colour tone, ISO/contrast/sharpness settings. It also has a smooth x8 digital zoom.

The video capture is also very impressive including video capture in a number of different formats including mp4 (?H.243 format) and 3gpp. You are only limited by the size of the microSD card which at the moment reaches 2gb (a Sandisk 4gb HC microSD card is available in the US and is reported to be compatible with the N95). Reading the technical information on the Nokia website made me believe that you could watch DivX/Xvid movies, but that isn't the case. The phone is bundled with RealOne player, but when I put an Xvid episode of Battlestar Galactica it refused to playback.

Start up and focusing is a little slower than I'm use too, taking about 3-4 seconds to take a shot (no flash) and even longer to write to card (Sandisk 2gb) about a further 5-6 seconds. Although the images produced are good and sharp enough to print to A5 size and the functions are as good as my first Pentax Optio 230. In fact, the video function is impressive with the image stabilisation and the mp4 format giving the best video capture on par with some dedicated SD mini-digital video cameras that I've used.

Mobile internet

I have never been a huge mobile internet fan finding the 6280 screen too small to view more than Three's "intranet", but I have to admit that surfing on the N95 is a breeze. At first I thought that the lack of a touch screen would be a problem, but in fact I found it even easier than using my Palm LifeDrive. Using Orange 3G is quick and painless to access with full HTML browsing with Flash and Java support. I had logged into ebay and bought a spare battery within 10 minutes.
This brings me neatly to one of the biggest problems with this phone, the battery. With all the power draining functions of this unit in use the battery will last anywhere up to 24 hours with 34 minute call and as little as 8 hours when using, for example 30 minutes of mobile (3G) internet. The battery is a BL-5F with a capacity of 970mah which is woefully poor. The spare battery off ebay is only 750mah unless you search for "extended" battery and even they are only rated at 1000mah. I strongly advise you carry a spare battery at all times especially if you use the GPS function.

GPS

Although the phone has GPS function it doesn't come preloaded with any maps so you'll have to download the maps from the Nokia website and upload to the phone's memory card via Nokia Suite.
I've never used a GPS system before so I found the whole experience a little frustrating. To date I haven't been able to get the GPS system to lock onto a satellite. I have even stood in the middle of a field with my phone for almost 20 minutes looking like a complete idiot trying to lock onto a satellite. That said I downloaded the UK map and was able to plot routes reasonably easily.

O/S

The phone operates using the Symbian S60 v3 and is bundled with a very useful QuickOffice, Adobe PDF reader and Zip, plus all the usual Nokia software like alarm clock, converter, calendar which can sync with Palm effortless and such. Being Symbian O/S means there are hundreds of available software that you can install including alternate mp3 players and TomTom navigation system, although there isn't any software yet that can playback full DivX/Xvid (keep an eye on TCPMP for any updates).

Conclusion

This is a great little phone packed with some great features. I especially like the standard 3.5mm headphone socket and the great web browsing the auto focus camera, but there is one thing that lets the whole package down...The battery.

I recently had a spare 750mah battery and was finding that even with this it wasn't enough during a 12hr shift at work. That if you really want to use ALL the functions of this phone you'll find you won't even have enough power to make a quick call at the end of the day and that is a clear factor when choosing a new mobile phone is its ability for a long standby and call time come high on the list.