Now comes the clever bit: sliding the screen downwards reveals the N95's third keypad: a set of media playback buttons. It's a gimmick of course - I found myself using the main control cluster more often than the dedicated media controls - but they're there if you prefer them.
The second slider flips the display into landscape mode and pops up the first of the N95's two menu screens: the Multimedia Menu. The other is the standard S60 screen. The Multimedia menu's an animated affair that, despite its name, can be customised to incorporate any app on the phone. And since it operates in portrait mode as well as landscape, and can be activated from the N95's main navigation pad, you can use it as an alternative to the standard menu.
The only flaw: it's intended to sport an animated background and fades out all the icons in favour of the animation. There's no way to disable this behaviour. And then there's the inevitable pregnant pause while the menu loads. Application load times remain slower than they should be, though apps already running switch quickly enough - certainly faster than recent Nokias I've looked at.
A quick note about the S60 menu: it now highlights the icons of open applications so you know what's running. And unlike earlier N series handsets, like the N70, pressing the call-break button in other apps takes you straight to the phone display without quitting the application you were just using, so you don't have to wait while they restart.
Music playback's well up to iPod standards. Yes, the Apple player has a neater interface, but the N95's Music Player app does more, building on basic playback with EQ pre-sets, all of them customisable, and a very nice stereo spacing feature, which works particularly well with earphones. Not that you'd play music back through the built-in speakers - unless you fancy that ye olde transistor radio sound...
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?
