Nokia N95
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Nokia N95 8GB Comes With Music black (Orange) Carphone Warehouse £35.00 |
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Nokia N95 8GB Comes With Music black (Orange) Carphone Warehouse £35.00 |
Pros
5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Fast Internet Access (HSDPA), GPS satellite navigation, Web browser.
Cons
Expensive, Battery life, A few bugs (upgrade the firmware), No QWERTY keyboard - slow text input, Navigation key, GPS - Can be slow to get position.
RATING:
Nokia N95 Prices
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PRICE |
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Nokia N95 black (O2) Carphone Warehouse |
£389.95 |
SUMMARY:
Very popular high-end slider multimedia phone. 5 MP camera, GPS navigation 3G, HSDPA, Tv-Out, Symbian OS and more. There is also an 8GB version.Nokia N95 Review
The Nokia N95 - lots of features, EDGE, fast 3G, HSDPA Internet access, Symbian Series 60 OS, an excellent 2.6-inch 240 x 320 pixel screen, 3.5 mm jack, mini USB port, GPS satellite navigation, a 5 megapixel camera with VGA video capture at 30 frames per second (fps).
Black Nokia N95 8 GB review - 2.8-inch screen, 8 GB memory.
The N95 is feature-packed - video and music players, FM radio (visual radio), push-to-talk (walkie-talkie style communication), office applications (Quick Office), lots of wireless connectivity options - bluetooth, infrared, Wi-Fi, Infrared, and there's also TV Out - view your video or images on your TV.
There are some bugs with the software - download the latest Nokia N95 firmware from the Nokia Web site (v12 or higher). The battery life is not great - expect daily recharges if you use many of the Nokia N95's power-hungry features throughout the day. It's best to close applications once you have finished with them - the N95's application manager shows you open applications.
You could also turn off services you don't need: 3G, bluetooth, WLAN etc - it saves the N95 scanning for them.
GPS connection problems? Doesn't work? - It can take many minutes to establish a GPS connection. Ensure you're in a wide open space, slide the front up to reveal the numeric keypad, and hold the phone at a 45 degree angle.
Be patient. We've read on numerous Web sites that it can take 20 minutes or more to get an initial GPS fix (cold acquisition). It takes time to figure out where you are on planet Earth. My Nokia N95 took just over 2 minutes to get a GPS location fix. This was on a sunny day with clear blue skies.
Subsequent connections are faster, but if you have not used GPS for several days, or are very far away from the last location you used it, it may take several minutes again to find a strong signal.
Go to Menu > Tools > GPS data > Position > Options > Satellite status
You will see empty rectangle outlines. You need at least 3 solid black rectangles (3 satellites) for triangulation. Once you have a GPS connection, the GPS icon at the bottom of the 'maps' screen will change - the red cross is replaced with signal lines.
There is good news: Nokia have released a N95 firmware update (v12) including Assisted GPS. This should speed up / improve GPS connection time. Nokia intends to equip all of its future devices that have built-in GPS with this service.
To update the N95 firmware, use the Nokia Software Updater (see useful links section). Select the N95 and follow the instructions.
Design
Text Input: Use the keypad. It's OK for text input, but we would prefer to use a full QWERTY keyboard or a virtual touchscreen keyboard. Predictive text helps speed things up. Note: The Nokia N95 does not have a touchscreen.
The screen is super-duper. You can view the screen in portrait or landscape mode. Internet browsing is best done in landscape mode.
The 3.5 mm jack on the left side of the phone lets you plug-in your own headphones. Insert a Nokia video connectivity cable to use the TV out mode.
Features
The 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics is good. Upgrade the Nokia N95 firmware (software) if your N95 hasn't got the latest release - there's supposed to be a photo sharpness big fix.
The 5 MP camera supports a resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. The camera produces .jpeg files. The camera goes into battery saving mode (standby mode) if there are no key presses for a while.
Activate the camera by opening the camera lens shutter on the back of the phone. The buttons on the right side of the phone now have a blue backlighting. Use the camera in landscape mode. The screen quality is very good.
To get focus, press the camera button half-way down - a green focus indicator appears on the screen. Press the button all the way down to take the photo.
The camera has lots of options - image quality, flash - automatic or red-eye reduction, white balance, exposure compensation, colour tone, light sensitivity (ISO setting), scenes, auto focus, sequence mode (take 6 pictures in a sequence in 'Burst' mode) and self-timer. The image quality is good. The LED flash is OK.
Reduce the image quality to 3 MP - you'll have room for more photos on the memory card.
Scroll through the menu options (on the right side of the display) using the navigation key - on selection a tool tip slides out telling you the name of the menu item - quite useful.
Video recording is also good. Again, lots of settings. Video clips are recorded in MPEG-4 (.mp4) or the 3GPP file format. You can set video quality, video stabilisation, audio recording and more.
Keypad / Keys:The Nokia N95 has a nifty 2-way slide design. Slide the front up to reveal the keypad, slide the front down to reveal the multimedia keys. The multimedia keys are flat - they require a bit of effort to click down.
The central navigation key on the front of the phone is a little cramped. We occasionally accidentally exited applications by hitting one of the big menu keys either side of the navigation key.
Wi-Fi: Easily search for and access local Wi-Fi (WLAN) networks. Insert your encryption key (WEP, WAP etc) if required. You can use your Nokia N95 for VoIP calls if you wish - and your provider allows you to.
Web browsing: The N95 Web browser displays Web pages as originally designed. You can zoom in and out, use "Mini map" and a page overview feature to view the pages. The browser has all the main options in the 'options' menu.
Combined with 3G or HSDPA (3.5G), Internet browsing is quite good. The N95 just needs a better text input method - we find it very slow to use the keypad to enter Web addresses. The Nokia N95 would be better if it had a QWERTY keyboard (virtual or hardware) - text input would be much faster. For me, the lack of a QWERTY keyboard is a big minus.
The Nokia N95 does support the use of a wireless keyboard - very handy for quick text input.
Loudspeaker: Not as loud as some of the other phones we've recently tested - including the Sony Ericsson W850i and W880i phones. Not as loud as the Nokia 6233 either.
Earphones: Not great. For the best audio experience, use your own high-quality earphones / headphones.
GPS: The GPS receiver is located in the bottom of the device. The instruction manual says "slide the numeric keypad open and hold the device upright in your hand at an angle of about 45 degrees, with a clear view of the sky".
Again, from the manual: "Establishing a GPS connection may take from a couple of seconds to several minutes. Establishing a GPS connection in the car may take longer".
Using the GPS receiver drains the battery very quickly. Select 'Maps' to see your current location on the map.
How much does the GPS cost? Maps are downloaded from the Internet as you request them. It's best to download country maps from the Nokia Web site. Use a home broadband connection to download maps of the UK onto the N95.
Download maps from the Nokia Web site using your home broadband connection beforehand, and you won't have to pay your mobile network's data rates each time you request a map over their expensive network.
It's far cheaper and quicker that way - use your home broadband connection. Nokia Maps Web site - download the MapLoader application. The Nokia Maps PDF user guide has lots of useful information.
When you open 'Maps' you get an overview of the globe - as you do with Google Earth. You zoom in with the * key, zoom out with the # key.
When the N95 finds the satellite signal, the map zooms to your current location and at the same time, downloads the map of your current location from the Internet.
Other GPS options include - 'search for locations' near to your current location and 'plan a route' from one location to another.
You can pay money to get extra services - city guides for different cities. We don't know why you would want to do this - just visit Google instead.
You can also pay extra for a voice navigation service, where you'll get the obligatory lovely-toned woman giving you voice directions. Access the 'extra services' menu, select 'add navigation' and select the region you want voice navigation for.
You purchase a voice navigation license per area. Example areas: Alps, Benelux, France, Germany, Italy, UK and Ireland. You can buy a 7-day license (£4.42), 30-day license (£5.44), 1-year license (£40.87) or a 3-year license (£47.68).
You get the option of adding the license fee to your phone bill (with 30-day or 7-day license - it makes your phone send premium rate text messages) or you can pay by VISA, Mastercard or American Express.
'GPS Data' provides 'route guidance' - think in-car satellite navigation. It provides position information about your current location, approx. distance to the destination and duration of travel. There's also a 'trip meter' - yep, you've guessed it, it calculates the distance you have travelled.
External GPS Receiver: The Nokia N95 has an internal GPS receiver - located beneath the # key. You could use an external bluetooth receiver - connect to it using Bluetooth.
3D Tones: 3D sound effects - trajectory speed, reverberation, doppler effect
Personalization: You can change backgrounds, themes, ring tones, set profiles - each profile can have different ring tones, backgrounds etc.
The instruction manual: Nice and thorough - 140 pages.
Voice commands: The N95 creates a voice tag for the entries in contacts and compares the spoken voice tag to it.
Office Application: Some useful office applications: QuickOffice (QuickWord, QuickSheet, QuickPoint and QuickManager), notes, recorder, Adobe Reader, calculator, converter, zip manager (compress files), barcode reader, and a wireless keyboard option.
Messaging: SMS, MMS, Email. All very straightforward stuff.
Other applications: Realplayer, Flash player, Nokia Lifeblog (keeps track of multimedia items), Radio DJ, Tools (lots of them - file manager, application manager, connection manager, WLAN wizard, modem, sync, device manager and more).
Wireless keyboard: The keyboard must support the Bluetooth Interface Devices (HID) profile.
Barcode reader: Use the main camera to scan a barcode.
Summary
Tons of features including GPS and Wi-Fi. Newer and more feature-packed Nokia N95 alternatives include the Nokia N95 8 GB and Nokia N82.
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TAGS: 3g, hsdpa, music, gps, wi-fi, smartphone, 5.0 MP camera, slider phones
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