Nokia N95, after 1 yr: the verdict

[mschipperheyn]

Hi,

I´ve been using the Nokia N95 for a year now and travelled with it through South America extensively. I feel now is the time to write a verdict of my experiences with and thoughts on the phone.

BUILD QUALITY
The build quality of the N95 is average and below what you are used to from Nokia. The volume button broke down within just a few weeks of regular use. The sliding feature of the phone has lead to sound quality degredation presumably because dirt/sand/etc can enter into the phone through it. Most of the paint on the buttons comes off pretty quickly. I also lost the closing element of my memory card slot.

CAMERA
The camera is not as good as you would expect from a 5MP lens. Daytime pictures are quite good but due to the high compression to 500Kb filesizes, the end quality is not really high enough for prints. This is a shame, since the lens is actually very good.

In the evening, which is when you would use a camera like this the most, the N95 fails miserably. The flash is under powered leading to most evening photos severely underlit. A true shame and disappointment.

GPS
The GPS, as we all know, sucks. It just doesn´t work. You have to wait tens of minutes for it to hook up to a set of satellites. Navigating with it, if you´re willing to pay the ridiculous fee, is useless as well. In a city, it looses signal frequently and is late in calling left and rights. The software improvement that uses a data connection to improve connection quality costs money and simply doesnt work when you are abroad.

WIFI
Now here´s where the N95 really shines. The WIFI feature allows you to surf the internet at most coffee places you may visit and is a great way to sniff for connections. Its also very easy to turn WIFI scanning on and off.

SOUND
The built in speakers are exceptionally good for such a small phone.

SCREEN
Exceptional.

BATTERY
The battery life seems really good at first. I havent kept track, but if you dont use a lot of apps, it lasts for a few days. However, you were prob thinking of using this phone as a music player and camera as well. That´s why you bought it. Well, this kills the phone very quickly. To the point that it becomes ´shall I listen to music or do I need to make a phone call at the end of the day?´. This basically leads you to not use the music and video function when you know you are far away from a recharge. When are you far away from a recharge: when you are travelling. When do you want to use music and video: when you are travelling.

KEYBOARD
Yes, it should have had one.

SOFTWARE
GENERAL
In general a lot of the settings and configuration of the phone is hidden in way too many items. In some case, like wifi configuration, there are many entrances. Just plain confusing. It takes a while to get used to.

WEB BROWSER
The web browser is very very good. The landscape format allows you to surf easily and the way the mouse pointer works is quite intuitive. Small bads here are:
* ´Back´ requires a full reload. Very annoying
* When a page loads, it displays text first and switches to design view when the css has loaded. Nice, but it often leads to a white screen that lasts seconds, interrupting your reading.

IMAGE/VIDEO BROWSER
The Image/Video browser is very good and looks sexy. You can quickly navigate content on the phone. Small bads here are:
* The more content you have on your memory card, the slower the browser becomes

VIDEO PLAYER
Very good. Major bad:
* If u have a lot of content on your memory card, the video play starts stuttering

MUSIC PLAYER
Very good. The sound quality is better than that of my IPod.

CALENDAR
It´s ok. Major bad is:
* Alarm is off by default when you enter an appointment


FINAL VERDICT
Ok, this has not been an exhaustive review. Just some observations on the phone. All in all, I think many of the reasons I bought the phone: camera, GPS, music/video, suffer from minor and major shortcomings. The saving grace for me is the WIFI and webbrowsing features, which have been implemented very well. But given the choice, I would now buy a smaller phone and use the money saved, to buy a nice small camera. I would also take my Ipod with me again. All in all, the N95 is a disappointment to me. It´s a cool phone but much of the cool doesnt really work in everyday use.

Kind regards,

Marc

[Shaunfarris]

Hi,
My response to this, based on my N95 which is 8 months old now.

BUILD QUALITY:
Not bad at all, very sligthly loose slider, but nothing to worry about.

CAMERA:
Superb, fantastic macro shots, night / party shots with flash working superb, printing pics is not an issue at all and 7 x 5 prints perfectly acceptable.

GPS:
Brilliant, gets a lock within 2minutes everytime, no matter where i am.
Nokia Maps was better on V12 as it tracked your position, V20 not as impressive. I use the phone with TomTom 6 and the TomTom Bluetooth GPS, combination is just perfect.

WEB BROWSER:
Ive switched to Opera which appears to run significatly faster, which to me makes for a superb use.

CALENDER:
Ive switched to Handy Calendar which is brilliant


After having used endless WM5 phones various PDA's and numerous simple phones, I have to say this is easily the best alrounder I've ever used, its as simple or technical as you want it to be, due to the endless 3rd party softwares.
The only downside I have with it is the battery life.......however as I said using numerous WM5 devices that struggle to last 24hrs, you very quickly get used to charging overnight every night and having a car charger for when necessary.

All in SUPERB

[Speedbird800]

I've had a moment since 1989. ON Cellnet now 02, one2one which is now T-Mobile, Orange and Vodafone. I have had Motorola's, Ericsons, Nec's and Nokia's. I can tell you that although the N95 might have small Glitches here and there, it is bar far the best phone I have ever had.

After 8 months I can say that the MP3 Player has never let me down, not like my IPOD Colour 40 GB. £300 x 2 due to the fact I bought 1 for me and one for the Mrs they are both Bricks sitting in a draw at home. They kept on crashing. When the N95 Crashed it would restart itself automatically.

The wifi is great. The fact that I can connect several Voip accounts at the same time to one handset is a huge plus.

The fact that when I travel to another country I can use my VOIP account and save Thousands of pounds a year.

The fact that I can stream Radio and TV on my handset is more than a plus.

The N95 is just a great phone even with the minor Glitches

You can tell that I'm a fan.

[ez2remember]

Hi,

I´ve been using the Nokia N95 for a year now and travelled with it through South America extensively. I feel now is the time to write a verdict of my experiences with and thoughts on the phone.

BUILD QUALITY
The build quality of the N95 is average and below what you are used to from Nokia. The volume button broke down within just a few weeks of regular use. The sliding feature of the phone has lead to sound quality degredation presumably because dirt/sand/etc can enter into the phone through it. Most of the paint on the buttons comes off pretty quickly. I also lost the closing element of my memory card slot.

CAMERA
The camera is not as good as you would expect from a 5MP lens. Daytime pictures are quite good but due to the high compression to 500Kb filesizes, the end quality is not really high enough for prints. This is a shame, since the lens is actually very good.

In the evening, which is when you would use a camera like this the most, the N95 fails miserably. The flash is under powered leading to most evening photos severely underlit. A true shame and disappointment.

GPS
The GPS, as we all know, sucks. It just doesn´t work. You have to wait tens of minutes for it to hook up to a set of satellites. Navigating with it, if you´re willing to pay the ridiculous fee, is useless as well. In a city, it looses signal frequently and is late in calling left and rights. The software improvement that uses a data connection to improve connection quality costs money and simply doesnt work when you are abroad.

WIFI
Now here´s where the N95 really shines. The WIFI feature allows you to surf the internet at most coffee places you may visit and is a great way to sniff for connections. Its also very easy to turn WIFI scanning on and off.

SOUND
The built in speakers are exceptionally good for such a small phone.

SCREEN
Exceptional.

BATTERY
The battery life seems really good at first. I havent kept track, but if you dont use a lot of apps, it lasts for a few days. However, you were prob thinking of using this phone as a music player and camera as well. That´s why you bought it. Well, this kills the phone very quickly. To the point that it becomes ´shall I listen to music or do I need to make a phone call at the end of the day?´. This basically leads you to not use the music and video function when you know you are far away from a recharge. When are you far away from a recharge: when you are travelling. When do you want to use music and video: when you are travelling.

KEYBOARD
Yes, it should have had one.

SOFTWARE
GENERAL
In general a lot of the settings and configuration of the phone is hidden in way too many items. In some case, like wifi configuration, there are many entrances. Just plain confusing. It takes a while to get used to.

WEB BROWSER
The web browser is very very good. The landscape format allows you to surf easily and the way the mouse pointer works is quite intuitive. Small bads here are:
* ´Back´ requires a full reload. Very annoying
* When a page loads, it displays text first and switches to design view when the css has loaded. Nice, but it often leads to a white screen that lasts seconds, interrupting your reading.

IMAGE/VIDEO BROWSER
The Image/Video browser is very good and looks sexy. You can quickly navigate content on the phone. Small bads here are:
* The more content you have on your memory card, the slower the browser becomes

VIDEO PLAYER
Very good. Major bad:
* If u have a lot of content on your memory card, the video play starts stuttering

MUSIC PLAYER
Very good. The sound quality is better than that of my IPod.

CALENDAR
It´s ok. Major bad is:
* Alarm is off by default when you enter an appointment


FINAL VERDICT
Ok, this has not been an exhaustive review. Just some observations on the phone. All in all, I think many of the reasons I bought the phone: camera, GPS, music/video, suffer from minor and major shortcomings. The saving grace for me is the WIFI and webbrowsing features, which have been implemented very well. But given the choice, I would now buy a smaller phone and use the money saved, to buy a nice small camera. I would also take my Ipod with me again. All in all, the N95 is a disappointment to me. It´s a cool phone but much of the cool doesnt really work in everyday use.

Kind regards,

Marc

You must be a rough user... I've had no problems on my n95. I had one tiny scratch on the front but that was it. No wear issues, broken buttons, things falling off etc. The slider on the n95-1 is wobbly though.

The GPS doesn't suck. With AGPS in v12 and v20 firmware I can get a fix in less than 30secs sometimes as quick as 5secs!!! It maintains fixes well too and this is in London. I have both BT SirfIII receiver (which are suppose to have one of the highest sensitivities) and don't use it now because the internal GPS receiver is just as good. Did you know AGPS doesn't actually use any data from your network? I've use it all the time and with the new Nokia maps it shows you how much data is being downloaded and is always on 0. You need just to point it to your network server though for some reason.

Have you upgraded to the latest firmware? A lot of these issues sounds like you have an older firmware. Even photos are no longer 500k... They are more like 500k-1.5MB depending on the photo itself.

[randomfan]

Another point - how have you managed to use the N95 for one year...? It's only been out for 8 months...

[mschipperheyn]

Hi,
My response to this, based on my N95 which is 8 months old now.

BUILD QUALITY:
Not bad at all, very sligthly loose slider, but nothing to worry about.

CAMERA:
Superb, fantastic macro shots, night / party shots with flash working superb, printing pics is not an issue at all and 7 x 5 prints perfectly acceptable.

>Makes me wonder if there´s something wrong with my flash. Since most photos are horribly under lit.

GPS:
Brilliant, gets a lock within 2minutes everytime, no matter where i am.
Nokia Maps was better on V12 as it tracked your position, V20 not as impressive. I use the phone with TomTom 6 and the TomTom Bluetooth GPS, combination is just perfect.

>Ok, but Im talking about the built in GPS.


All in SUPERB

Cheers,

Marc

[mschipperheyn]

You must be a rough user... I've had no problems on my n95. I had one tiny scratch on the front but that was it. No wear issues, broken buttons, things falling off etc. The slider on the n95-1 is wobbly though.


>Im always exceptionally careful with my electronics although I wasnt able to buy a protective pack for it at the time of purchase.


The GPS doesn't suck. With AGPS in v12 and v20 firmware I can get a fix in less than 30secs sometimes as quick as 5secs!!! It maintains fixes well too and this is in London. I have both BT SirfIII receiver (which are suppose to have one of the highest sensitivities) and don't use it now because the internal GPS receiver is just as good. Did you know AGPS doesn't actually use any data from your network? I've use it all the time and with the new Nokia maps it shows you how much data is being downloaded and is always on 0. You need just to point it to your network server though for some reason.

Have you upgraded to the latest firmware? A lot of these issues sounds like you have an older firmware. Even photos are no longer 500k... They are more like 500k-1.5MB depending on the photo itself.

>Since Ive been travelling the last 6 months I havent been able to upgrade the firmware unfortunately.


Cheers,

Marc

[mschipperheyn]

Ok, fair enough. 8 months. I got it when it came out. I should have said ´about a year´.

[2-D]

Another point - how have you managed to use the N95 for one year...? It's only been out for 8 months...

Hmmm... the man may have a point.

[mschipperheyn]

Interesting that my replies are not becoming visible.

Cheers,

Marc

[acoolwelshbloke]

Test pilot for Nokia

[colpac]

BUILD QUALITY
I would call this poor, gaps around the edges that lights show through, slider gradually getting loose. wear on keys and case etc quite excessive.

CAMERA
Very Good, has always given me acceptable results for what i have wanted it for.

GPS
I give up using it for several reasons. It takes too long to get a lock, this varies from 30 seconds to more than 10 minutes. Apart from that it is fiddly to put the route details in etc and it is far easier to use my seperate tom tom which i would certainly not consider getting rid of and change to using the N95.

WIFI
Excellent, connects straight away everytime to any wireless network i have tried it on.

SOUND
Good

SCREEN
Exceptional.

BATTERY
Hopeless

SOFTWARE
GENERAL
Fine once you are used to it.

WEB BROWSER
Easy enough to use

IMAGE/VIDEO BROWSER
Very slow if you use a memory card, would be better if the main display was the albums folders instead of all pictures

VIDEO PLAYER
not exactly DVD quality like stated

MUSIC PLAYER
Fine

CALENDAR
It´s ok. Major bad is:
* Alarm is off by default when you enter an appointment


FINAL VERDICT
Too be honest i cant wait for the contract to finish and to try something else. The battery life is the big downfall and as im quite a heavy user during the day i have to carry 2 batteries just to get through the day. And this is after i have given up using the music player or playing games as i would then need another battery! Im not even sure if my next phone will be a Nokia as after this experience the N95 8GB does not appeal at all and i dont really want to go down in specification

[seaniboy]

after 14 years of mulitple contracts with diff networks running in conjunction at the same time and all them handsets over that time, i can honestly say after 8 months ( & for the first time in my life ) I DONT want to upgrade! there is still nothing better on the market - including the N95 8GB

this is the mobile I waited and waited over 10 years for, one that has everything, I always/no longer have to compromise on features between phones, i got it all in the N95


only gripe:

WEB BROWSER
The web browser is very very good. The landscape format allows you to surf easily and the way the mouse pointer works is quite intuitive. Small bads here are:
* ´Back´ requires a full reload. Very annoying
* When a page loads, it displays text first and switches to design view when the css has loaded. Nice, but it often leads to a white screen that lasts seconds, interrupting your reading

WORRIES:

us lot on 12 month contracts Nokia need a upgrade in 4 months....whats coming ?

[e1000er]

My 2 cents

BUILD QUALITY
Good. If you have the phone tucked in with your keys is likely that the paint comes off, I have had such probem with the N70 so I have been really careful this time and no probs at all. My slider is actually quite good the wobble is minimal, but I have to say I am not a fan of the dual slider.

CAMERA
Great camera not excellent in poor light conditions the flash on board is not powerful enough to light-up longer distances than a portrait picture

GPS
The GPS is fine somethimes was really slow and not sure how and why, however since firmware 20.x the thing is go! BTW I switched to google maps is way too good for POI searches.

WIFI
Perfect

SOUND
Great

SCREEN
Really nice I wish it was big as the 8gb version XD

BATTERY
I have a charger at work and I therefore charge it everyday however since firmware 20.x is much better amd if I wasnt on 3, I am sure, it would have been even better

SOFTWARE
GENERAL
All round fantastic, I am always trying some new crap from the mobile Mosh site :)

WEB BROWSER
Great I wish it has more Opera like features but at least doesnt error.

IMAGE/VIDEO BROWSER
Sliding throug pics used to be slow and painful but since the upgrade sweet..

VIDEO PLAYER
Nice quality indeed, I have Famili Guy Season 5 on it it runs perfectly and beautifully.

MUSIC PLAYER
Nce

CALENDAR
I use it all the time it does warn me on events, not sure if I had to so something to make it work


FINAL VERDICT
Great phone honestely there is no much I cannot do on this thing. I just wish I could have upgraded to firmware 20.x earlier as that has changed radically the phone performance as a whole.
Anyways the gadget hunt must go on I am waiting for a Nokia 1005!

[seaniboy]

Nokia X - the ultimate HSDPA powerful laptop/UMPC/mobile combo - where you slide your mobile in the " N-slot " and the Nokia PC suite auto loads -automatically your calls route over bluetooth, texts come to your Nokia text message center & your internet connection is active as soon as you slide your phone in - all you need to do is open your browser

:D


NOKIA X FEATURES & COPYRIGHT OWNED BY SEANIBOY/BEANZSTOP LTD & LICENCED EXCLUSIVELY TO www.3G.co.uk for general publication

[fone-freak]

I'm with sean - I am perfectly happy and for once in my life I do not wish to upgrade, although I'm hoping that there'll be something even better by the time I can.

[Peter321]

I don't understand why people say the sound quality is great and better than iPod.

I have both an N95 and a 80GB iPod and the iPod has much cleaner sound.

The N95 has a notorious background hiss whenever the audio circuits are active, it's really annoying when you are listening to music at low volume or in quiet passages.

Are you all listening to hard rock at full volume??

Besides that, most of the negative points in the original post has been fixed with the latest firmware updates, with V20 bringing it to the phone it was supposed to be.

I has a wobbly slider, but got it replaced on warranty with a new model that NOKIA has made and since then, it's been solid for several months.