Nokia releases 8GB N95 smartphone
Apple who?
The 8GB version of Nokia's N95 3G phone - sorry, "multimedia computer" - has begun making its way out of the Finnish phone giant's factories and onto store shelves, the company claimed today.
Nokia's N95 8GB: back in black
The new model represents not only the addition of four more gigabytes of storage to the 'Swiss Army Knife' handset, but also all the software tweaks Nokia has made available for the phone since it was released back in April this year. A case in point: the new N95 incorporates Nokia's Assisted GPS technology, which sends the handset location hints over the network to compensate for weak satellite signals.
Assisted GPS to beat weak satnav signals?
The N95 8GB, like the earlier model, packs in not only quad-band GSM/GPRS/Edge and 3G 3.6Mbps HSDPA connectivity, but also 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 - the latter with A2DP wireless stereo support. The main screen is a 2.8in, 240 x 320, 16m-colour panel and there's a five-megapixel digital camera with a Carl Zeiss lens on the back.
N-Gage Gaming Service on board
The handset also includes Nokia's N-Gage gaming system, which will provide online gaming community and game download service when it goes live at some point between now and the end of the year - Nokia wouldn't narrow the launch schedule any further than that. Nokia's Nokia Music Store will go live sometime during Q4 too, it said. Again, the service will be accessible via the N95 8GB.
Buyers in Europe will get a free copy of Spider-man 3 pre-loaded onto the handset.
Register Hardware reviewed the original, 4GB N95 here.
Expect to pay around €560 ($794/£390) pre-tax for the SIM-free N95 8GB - less if you buy one tethered to a specific network.
COMMENTS
Symbian just looks silly & Apple & UIs
Ever tried UIQ? A family of Symbian! Give it a try! Somehow I find it a whole lot easier than the various Symbian phones that I have had!
uhh...what is so wrong about WM anyway?
Now, if you are strictly into Java handsets, please stick to it!
Battery life
It has a new battery which is 30% stronger.
Apple & UIs
Apple UIs are generally always good. I agree that the Apple UI on the iPhone makes Symbian and Windows Mobile look antiquated, however the UI doesn't really have to do much on the iPhone given that it's so crippled both in hardware and software.
Symbian just looks silly
I'm afraid the iPhone makes the N95 and Symbian look silly. Symbian have created the most unpleasant development platform known to man (NewLC anybody), all in the name of efficiency, but the iPhone, which just runs a (not even particularly efficient) version of UNIX blows it out of the water running on essentially similar hardware.
Using the N95 is painful - everything is just so slow to respond - whereas on the iPhone, even with it's sophisticated NeXT derived Display Postscript display technology, manages to feel completely smooth. It's not clear to me whether Apple are doing something very clever, or Symbian are doing something very wrong, but either way, they're not just in a different league, they're not even playing the same game.
I just wish Apple would open up the iPhone up to third party developers - then we could finally consign Symbian to the bit-bucket of history where it belongs.
Battery Life
If you turn off the dual mode and stick to GPRS as default the battery lasts a whole load longer,,,,
