Nokia N95 multimedia slider phone
Yes, it does everything - but is it any good?
2007's Top Products It's the Swiss Army Knife of mobile phones: a compact handset that does everything. Music, video, mobile and wireless broadand, photography, satnav, email, blogging, office work, web surfing, messaging - heck, it'll even help you talk to people over long distances. But is Nokia's top-of-the-range N95 trying too hard to be too many things?
Out of the box, charged up and in your hand, the N95 is a very nice size. The dimensions are 9.9 x 5.3 x 2.1cm, so it's thicker than many a mobile, but unless you've been living with a particularly skinny model for a while, the N95 isn't going to feel uncomfortable. Weighing in at 120g, it's no lightweight - solid, yes; heavy, no.
The phone's frontage is dominated by a glorious 2.6in, 240 x 320, 16m-colour screen, big enough for web browsing to work and with a sufficient colour depth to bring photos and movies to life - more on these features later.
The N95 is a 3G phone, so above the screen sits the customary videocall camera. Alongside that is a light sensor and the earpiece. Below the screen is a typical slider-phone control cluster: five-way navigation key surrounded by not one but two Menu keys, soft-menu buttons, call make and break buttons.
The N95 is silver-look plastic, set in a wraparound burgundy rubber-texture piece. The red sides are home to the two stereo speakers, camera controls, volume rocker switch, MicroSD slot - under, for once, a cover that's easy to open - infrared port and AV output. On the back is the autofocus camera and Carl Zeiss lens under a manually opened cover. You'll find the new, skinny style power socket and a mini USB port on the phone's base.
The numeric keypad is revealed by pushing the screen upwards in the usual slider phone fashion. The keys have a solid action and are raised slightly, making them easy to use one-handed. Entering a text is a quick process. Well, provided you don't make a mistake - the backspace C key is part of the upper key cluster, and I found it a little too easy to hit the call-break button instead, taking me out of the Messaging app back to the phone display.
COMMENTS
VIDEO - Flash player
is it possible to give us the list of files that the N95 can read ? above .flv ?
an install of flashlite is possible ?
what are the real performance (size of video , quality , encoding etc.) of the video player ?
the streaming proposed by nokia is it sufficient could
we talk about dvd -like ?
thx great job
NoKia N95 and Vodafone
On the way to a friend yesterday (7.5.07) I popped into my usual Vodafone retailer. This follows a 90 minute helpdesk call during the week regarding settings issues. I
left 2 hours later. Again a most helpful techno went through all settings
contacted vodafone twice by phone. They sent settings by email for wap
and email which he printed out to manually re input. He changed the sim
card in case by chance it was corrupted with vodafone settings. He got
vodafone to send all settings for sim. Re installed them. Got my
vodafone email password changed to try vodafone email in case yahoo settings
were not correct. Guess what ? No email ! Web works ok and vodafone
setting is Vf wap. Agreed my use of broadband would have proved it was not
vodafone settings. Advice given bring back with
box etc and they will send it off to engineers to check the phone
completely. Agreed another replacement would not solve issue. What to do ?
The camera is wonderful. Downloaded Yahoo Go works like a dream (using it
now with broadband when at home in bed ! ) can I live without phone email and gps -
yahoo maps good!
Basically I think it has been Vodafone-ised and who knows what that has left from the original Nokia intentions. So I have to decide whether to live with applications that don't work, wonder whether Nokia software upgrades will be 'allowed' by Vodafone, enjoy the convenience of having a good camera or, take it back and go back to my old Sharp and wait for the N96.....or whatever. Also, maybe I should save up and get a 'free of Vodafone' version. Views would be welcome from those with more knowledge than I.
2Gb limit
I believe the 2Gb limit is a software issue as the larger cards are FAT32 and not FAT16.
I did read a review that said the larger cards would/are supported and in fact SanDisk show the N95 is being a compatible phone for their 4Gb cards.
Firmware update
For the record (and if el reg allow this post ;) to update the firmware whilst on Voda / Orange etc, you use a tool called 'NSS', which allows you to change the product code.
Nokia uses the product code set to your phone to identify the network operator. With Vodafone, for instance, when Nokia release a firmware update, they send it to Voda for altering to suit their customisations.
So by changing your product code from say Vodafone to Plum Euro1, the N95 will update.
1. Back up phone to mem card, etc
2. NSS your product code to euro1 (or w/e)
3. Update the firmware
4. Change back to manufacturer code.
5. Restore backup
6. Change back to euro1.
Firmware??
Where can i find the latest firmware? i went on to http://europe.nokia.com/softwareupdate and it didnt find any software for my phone?
