Nokia includes an adequate pair of 'phones in the box which can connect direct to the N95 or via the bundled remote control. The earphones have a 3.5mm jack, so you can swap them for another pair with ease. The N95's 3D Tones feature works best with 'phones too - it dynamically mixes a ringtone two swoop around from left to right and back round again. Cute, but impractical when the phone's in your pocket with no earphones attached.
The N95 supports Bluetooth's wireless stereo protocol, A2DP, and pairing a pair of Logitech wireless headphones was straightforward. And better than using wired 'phones. With the socket on the side of the handset, earphone plugs poke out an inch or so, getting in the way of sliding the handset into your pocket. The earphone socket really should have been on the top or bottom of the phone.
Transferring tracks is straightforward for PC users, less so for the rest of us. The N95 will sync with Windows Media Player via USB, but the phone will also operate as a USB Mass Storage device. Well, almost - it will if and only if it has a MicroSD card plugged. Instead, I sent a heap of songs over from my MacBook Pro by Bluetooth 2.0's Extended Data Rate technology, zapping the tracks through the ether at a very respectable 100Kbps on average.
The only thing I didn't like about the music playback was that, in landscape orientation, the volume buttons work the opposite way you expect them to: left for up, right for down, rather than the other way round. At least that's how I expect them to work...
Video playback impressed me almost as much as music did, with easy access to online content providers and fast downloads via my home 802.11g Wi-Fi network. Downloads were typical 320 x 240 MPEG 4s, so they can be played on the handset - nicely, I might add, thanks to that 16m colour screen - or Bluetoothed over to your computer, or sent the other way.
The N95's 3.5mm earphone socket is also capable of passing a composite video signal, and there's a suitable cable in the box to allow you to hook the phone up to your TV. The picture quality depends entirely on how the source material is encoded, but said 320 x 240 H.264 files were entirely watchable on my 28in widescreen CRT. Folk with fancy HD rigs may be less impressed, of course, but it is nice being able to view movies and photos on the big screen.
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?
