My Nokia N95 review

One of the most highly anticipated phones of 2007 is finally here. The Nokia N95.

When it was first announced last year, there was quite a buzz going around here in Brunei. The big question everyone was asking, "WHEN will it arrive here on our shores?". Barely a week since its been here and already all (limited) units that have been brought here have been snapped up! That fact alone makes it so much more special for me to test this much acclaimed model for just a few days. Its hard to believe that I'm actually holding it in my hands now, finally "feeling" what I've only been reading about before, the ground breaking 2-way slider, the exquisite screen resolution and most importantly, the first Nokia-ever 5 mega pixel camera, amongst others. With a tag advertisement of "The Nokia N95. Its what computers have become.", its amazing to see so much being squeezed into such a relatively small device. So, is it all that fantastic? Is it worth parting your hard-earned cash for? Read on...

Inbox



1 x N95 unit
1 x Nokia BL-5F battery
1 x Travel Charger AC-5X
1 x Pop port USB cable
1 x Pop port video-out cable
1 x Stereo headset (3.5mm audio jack)
1 x N95 leather pouch
1 x 1GB Micro SD (with adapter)
1 x User guide and other reading material
1 x Nokia PC Suite software CD

First impressions
After admiring the box and its outward packaging, you can imagine how I just couldn't wait to open it up and see the N95 for myself. I was immediately greeted by the N95 unit peering out at me from its window in the centre. I just sat here, admiring it for a few seconds. Then, (slowly) taking it out of its prison, I had such a feeling of anticipation holding it in my hands for the first time. I carefully studied the unit, before putting in my SIM card and the battery after. Gently pressing the Power button, I half expected it to take forever to start up. (2 reasons for this expectation; The previous Symbian Nseries all took a good minute or two before fully starting, and of course, this being Nokia's latest all-powerful creation, surely it would take time to boot up right?). How wrong I was. I was actually quite surprised when it powered on quite fast, and seeing the characteristic Nokia start up theme with the two hands coming across the screen, and then hearing the all familiar Nokia standard start up sound. I thought to myself, "Finally, Nokia IS listening. No more lags". Already, I was impressed. It was a good start. Then, the full glory of the QVGA screen greeted me, in all its radiance and colour. Another good start.

Physical Aspects / Build quality

• Available in only Silver, the N95 is yet another slider phone, but with a twist, it slides both ways. Size wise, it is reminiscent of Nokia's first original Symbian phone, the Nokia 7650. (See provided photos comparing a Treo 680, N95, E65 and Nokia 6233)(And yes, it was the N95 which was used in the photos from my E65 review too). The top half of the N95 is totally brushed silver in colour, containing the beautiful 2.6 inch screen, a front facing camera and quite a nice layout design for 9 buttons; 2 function buttons, the Call / End buttons, the 5 way navi pad, a menu button, a multimedia shortcut button, a quick edit button and the "C" (Clear) button. (See provided photo above).
• The bottom half of the N95 is matt black-blue-grey in colour, sporting the 5mp Carl Zeiss camera lens and the battery cover at the back, and a whole array of other function buttons at the sides. The matt finishing is another nice touch from Nokia, as it gives an impression of a non-slip surface (similar to that of the E65, minus the leather touch). How it acts as one, practically speaking, I have my issues. More on that later.
  
• On the right side of the N95, you will see the speaker location (which is also on the left side. These are the stereo speakers from where you will hear the radio, mp3's and ringtones), the increase / decrease volume keys, a "Gallery" quick key and a dedicated camera button.
  
• On the left side of the N95 you will see, a 3.5mm audio jack (BRILLIANT inclusion by Nokia), the IRDA port location and the Micro-SD card port. I tested my iPod's earphones with the N95 and it worked great! (More on this later)
  
• I will quickly mention the bottom tip of the N95, which sports the charger location, and a mini USB connector. It is interesting that this has been included, instead of the standard Pop port connections. But you will see why this is useful, especially if you consider the inbox-packaged Video-out cable.
• Sliding up the N95, you will see the same brushed silver colour throughout all the keypad, that also lights up in a nice blue colour. I can't explain it, but this blue light gives the N95 a very nice classy look. Also similar to the E65, each key is raised with a ridge for comfortable feedback during use. I did not have any issues here, either with keying in my phone numbers or SMS-ing. Holding the N95 one handed for SMS-ing, on the other hand, felt a bit strange. More on this later.
  

Display / User Interface

• Sporting a HUGE 2.6" QVGA (240 x 320) LCD screen with the latest S60 3.1 Edition Symbian OS 9.2, there are NO complaints here. Gone are the days with the original Series 60, like the 6600's, 6630's and 6680's with screen resolution of 244k colours. I actually like this latest S60 3rd edition release. It looks crisp, bright and very pleasant to the eyes. The included themes and wallpapers definitely compliment this screen resolution. And, camera photos taken also look quite good too.
  
• Unlike the E65, the N95's menu key is quite prominent and hard to miss on the keypad area. This is definitely easier to access.
  
• As with other S60 3rd edition models, you also have the options of choosing your menu layout to be grid or list format. This is a user preference. For me, I like the default grid look. So much more easier to navigate and move around. I'll say this again and again, new Nokia users will have no problem moving about without referring to the manuals and guides much.
  

Calls / Messaging

• Nokia's call quality is usually pretty good and faultless, so I won't go into the obvious here.
  
• The N95 supports Push Email services from Nokia (Intellisync), Microsoft (Exchange), Blackberry (Blackberry Connect), SMS, MMS and more. Messaging and email capabilities will not disappoint any N95 owners here. As mentioned earlier, the ridge-like buttons are a joy to use. Nice feedback and evenly spaced out. Perfect. I really had a good time using the N95. It was almost like I couldn't wait for friends to SMS me so I could reply them! I have to say though, with big hands like mine, holding the N95 to SMS one handed was a tad bit uncomfortable. But then, that could be from my fear of dropping the unit, so you may not feel the same.
  

Multimedia / Camera performance and quality

• The N95 should be renamed, as another reviewer mentioned here, a "Multimedia Beast". It retains and adds to the multimedia capabilities of previous Nseries devices. The new 2-way slider gives direct access with a multimedia key, and a redesigned menu, to all your music collections stored. The carousel-like launcher look is fully customisable - you can add or remove applications, bookmarks and radio presets. Music Player, Visual Radio and Real Player are used to playback music, listen to FM radio and watch video respectively. Utilising the two stereo speakers, you will have no problems listening to your mp3's, radio programs or ringtones. As I also mentioned earlier, I shoved in my iPod's earphones to test out the quality, and I have to say, I loved it. With maximum volume (which is sthg I do not condone usually) my friends nearby could even hear the song I was listening to. Bass and sharpness levels were of satisfactory quality. But then, the brand of earphone you use would be a significant factor here too.
  
• Camera wise, the N95 has a 5 Megapixel (2592 x 1944) autofocus camera with Carl Zeiss Tessar optics (f/2.8, 5.6 mm, 10 cm ~ infinity focusing range) and 1/1000th ~ 1/3rd s mechanical shutter provide the best quality you can get from a camera phone. What this also means is that is sufficient for even 28x36 cm (11x14") sized prints (That's HUGE). The mechanical shutter and Zeiss optics put the N95's camera on par with simpler standalone digicams and the only thing that's missing is an optical zoom. The flash is a white LED diode working within a range of about 3-4 meters. Throughout my time of testing, I was certainly enjoying snapping away everywhere I went, at everything I could see. It was indeed a joy having such a device at hand instead of my Fujifilm F10 digicam to lug around. Not that my Fuji's THAT big/bad, its just that an all in one device is handy sometimes. (See pictures below as samples. Click to enlarge. Note: They've been resized to 640 x 480 otherwise you'd have problems opening images sized 2592 x 1944!!)
  

• Overall I am quite happy with the camera performance. I DO have some issues though. Firstly, for some photos (not included), it did seem that after the shot was taken, my photo objects came out in an unnatural colour. But then, I am not an expert photographer here I must add. I'll just assume that the lighting conditions weren't ideal at those times. Secondly, there seemed to be a noticeable lag from auto-focusing to the actual "click" (shot) being taken by the N95. Its not a major problem, but just make sure your subject is not moving too much. Read here for more indepth review on the camera quality.
  
• The N95 is also a great video recorder! Like other high-end models, it records MPEG-4 video with VGA (640x480) resolution at 30 frames per second. "DVD quality" is probably an exaggeration but it definitely offers quality of amateur single-sensor Mini-DV camcorders. If you noticed, I mentioned that a Pop port video-out cable is also included inbox with the N95. This intrigued me quite a bit. Although I was not able to test this feature fully, the review here gives quite a good indication of what it can do.
  

Other features
Among the MANY features that are included in the N95, I will just touch on a few.

• One of the KEY features of this N95 "computer" is the highly touted GPS function. This was definitely something which I was highly interested in checking out for myself. Loading the application "MAPS" I was greeted by some tips to read, and then this screen: VERY interesting, I thought. Of course, I tested it with the built-in WIFI (it doesn't work on GPRS) and began attempting to perform searches on Brunei, just for the heck of it. I half expected it to work, and half expected it not to. And obviously it didn't. Brunei doesn't support this feature yet (our country's not even LISTED in the names of cities in the N95), unlike Singapore and Kuala Lumpur where you can pretty much navigate around with GPS. So, out the window went my GPS testing. Well, you can read more about this feature here, purely for information purposes.
  
• Unlike other Nseries models, the N95 also comes with automatic keyguard lock! Finally Nokia!
  
• As a 2-way slider phone, once you access the multimedia side of the N95, and subsequently close it, the display screen remains in the landscape mode. Quite useful for viewing any web pages on the built-in new 2.0 version of the Nokia OSS web browser. It's now faster and less memory hungry. This web browser now supports both WWW and WAP, so it is now the only browser preinstalled in the phone. New features in the 2.0 version also include auto-completion for form data fields, video plug-in, RSS and Atom feeds with automatic update, password manager, toolbar, background sounds, saving images and whole pages for offline browsing, operator cache, visual windows manager and user agent profile. This should satisfy even the ardent of surfers, especially with the 2.6" screen.
  
• The Quickoffice also looks great on the N95's screen, with files being both readable / editable for those who need this feature on-the-go.
  
• Battery life. I will touch briefly on this area, as it seemed to be quite a concern for many potential N95 owners out there. During my time of testing, I started out in the morning with a fully charged battery. Throughout the day, I snapped dozens of photos, made a couple of calls, a few SMS's, took a couple of videos, surfed my blog (obviously) with the WIFI, went through each menu option one by one AND listened to a few mp3's I stored. At the end of the night, the battery had about one bar left. I tried to be as accurate as possible, logging what I'd normally do with my Treo 680, and at the end, it fared about the same. You'd still need to at least charge it overnight everyday. C'mon, with such a feature packed device, with EVERYTHING you could possibly need in your phone, surely the battery would be the one taking the most beating from what you would put it through. And, just to prove its not just my personal observation, read here for more details. Due to this, I will not note this as a problem.
  

Problems / Issues

• Being a 2-way slider, although revolutionary, there was nothing to prevent it from sliding and/or unlocking itself in your pockets. Although I was very careful with the N95, there will be others out there who will find this an issue. Or, carry it in a bag.
  
• The build quality could have been more "solid".
  
• SMS-ing one handed, as many people have mastered, could be a bit uncomfortable. But as I mentioned, it could be from my fear of dropping the unit.
  
• The camera lag between auto-focus and snapping the photo. Its not a major issue, but it could be for those intending on snapping at movable objects/subjects.
  
• To nit-pick, another issue I had was, to manually (key)lock the N95, aside from setting it to lock each time you close the slider, the only way to lock it is by pressing the "Power" button at the top to select "Lock keypad". This could be annoying for some.
  

d3xlabs recommendations
I have indeed had the pleasure of absorbing everything the N95 had to offer, and I truly believe in Nokia's tag line, "The Nokia N95. Its what computers have become". Capable of handling everything that I threw at it, and more, I was most impressed with its camera / video camera abilities. All squeezed into this one small and light device. Unbelieveable when I actually held it in my hands. Everything else, you would find typical in the previous Nseries models, with just a few minor improvements.

So would I recommend the N95?
In a word, Yes, but only if you have extra cash to buy it. Afterall, it IS a premium product, with everything you'd ever need.

Selling Price (now) - BND1,288-00 (Use your DST Privilege card for better discounts)
From - Incomm, Gadong.