If you do get snapping, downloading movies or copying over your music collection, you'll need to get a Micro SD memory card pronto. The N95's 160MB of on-board memory is undoubtedly generous as mobile phones go, but if you want to use the handset as an digital music player or PMP - and why else would you own one - then you'll want to start filling those cards.
It's such a shame then that Nokia has limited the N95 to 2GB MicroSDs and not future-proofed it for the higher capacity versions to come.
The N95 has telephony covered, though it's a tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE device, not a quad-band for total worldwide roaming. As I said, it's also a 3G phone and has HSDPA technology on board for fast, 1.8Mbps downloads and smoother surfing when you're away from a Wi-Fi hotspot. I like Nokia's Web app, here improved by the ability to operate in landscape orientation, though it's still a memory hog, and prevented me from opening some other apps when it was running.
The call quality is good - as loud and as clear as any phone I've tried in the past 14 years - and I always seemed to get top signal strength using an Orange SIM.
If you fear all this multimedia frippery will distract you from work, worry not: the N95 has an Microsoft Office-friendly reader app, though you'll have to pay £10.50 to enable editing files too. I Bluetoothed over an Excel spreadsheet full of motherboard benchmarks and it appeared quickly - but minus the charts. There's even a barcode reader app on board, though I couldn't get it to read anything.
The same goes for the N95's GPS receiver. Nokia warns agains indoor usage, but I tried it anyway, without joy. Moving outside - onto our Central London office's well exposed top-floor balcony - and still no joy. Back indoors, it got a fix then, as soon as I picked up the handset, it lost it. Despite knowing (once, at least) where you are Nokia's Maps app won't plot a route until it gets a GPS fix.
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?
