Nokia N95
Now we dont normally expect to be writing about non-pc hardware on this website. But since this device is halfway towards being a PC anyway I thought I'd share my brief experiences.
The Nokia N95 is a multimedia phone based on the Symbian S60 Operating System and in all honesty, I've hated Nokia phones for a long time. My last Nokia was the N70, which I kept for about 2 hours and went back to Sony Ericsson, my personal favorite.
The biggest issues I've had with Nokia in the past in comparison to Sony Ericsson is that the battery life of Nokia is not as good as Sony, the call clarity and reception are nowhere as good and the phones are normally larger.
Sure, Nokia's have lots of features, most of them will never be used anyway, but my biggest complaint was that the software was slow and moving around the phone menus always lagged.
So based on the hype alone, I dropped around $1200 on a new Nokia N95 and I must say that my 2 days with the phone has been very good.
The issues I've just mentioned seem to be non-existent (yet I am looking for a reason to bash the Nokia - I just can't find one)
The call clarity reminds me of the Sony Ericsson, reception hasn't dropped out once. I wont comment on the battery as I've only had it 2 days, but no complaints so far in that department either.
The GPS worked great. I took the N95 with me to an event I was to attend, set the destination and off I went. It was accurate and easy to follow so I had no complaints there. The only downside is that I now have to shell out for the voice navigation function, but you cant have everything I guess.
I was talking with one of the technical guys over at Winstructor yesterday and he kindly sent me a prerelease .mp4 of one of their Computer Based Training Videos. So I bluetoothed it over to the N95 and watched it. I have to say both the training, and the phones display and audio was magnificent. Sure the display is a little small for this type of training, but it would be great as a travelling study resource. The N95 has 2 speakers and is far louder and clearer that any Sony Ericsson I have ever owned.
As far as the Nokia software goes, I did have some issues with editing my Contacts List using the provided Nokia PC Suite from the CD that came with the phone (I of course am using Windows Vista - the 32bit version), however the software detected there was an upgrade available, so I installed that and the software worked fine.
All in all, it looks like I might be sitting amongst the Nokia camp now. Since Sony dropped the Flashlight feature of their phones, it doesnt matter what phone I have now (hey, I really liked the flashlight) and since the Nokia seems to do pretty much everything and with such pizzaz, I just had to tell the world about it.
I handed it around the table at a family dinner yesterday and it was a big hit, even more so when I recorded about 20 seconds of video (about 7Mb), zapped it over to my notebook and the resulting file was better quality than my old DV video camera. The screen is also top notch, better than anything else on the market, as is the camera. 5 Megapixels in a phone? Cool!
If I have to drop a negative on this phone it would be the keypad on top of the phone. It feels a tad flimsy and may not go the distance, but since this is my 2nd day with the phone I cant say for sure whether it will stand the test of time.
Go and take a look at the phone though, I think you will be impressed.
