Nokia N95 Review by erazer007

Positives
+5MP camera with autofocus
+30fps video recording at VGA resolution
+Built in GPS
+3.5mm audio jack
+TV-output
+microSD card slot
+Two way slider with music keys
+High quality 2.6” screen

Disadvantages
-Poor battery life
-Wobbly slider
-No USB charging

Size
The size of the handset is quite small measuring 99*53*21mm.It is quite tiny except for the thickness which is a lot thicker comparing today’s slimmer phones. However the features of the phone make you forget about the thickness.

Screen
Well the screen is one of the best things on the Nokia N95.The screen is 2.6” with a resolution of 240*320.It supports up to 16million colors. The screen is good in videos and picture quality. The screen size is even bigger than the IPod video and IPod classic by .1”.The quality of videos is comparable to the IPod sometimes even better.

Memory
Well the built in memory is 160MB.There is a microSD expansion slot which supports up to 4 GB easily. But it may even support 8 GB or more, but it is likely to function at a slow speed.

Connectivity
The N95 has all the connectivity features available in the market and you couldn’t ask for more. It has GPRS, HSCSD, EDGE, 3G(HSDPA), WLAN, Bluetooth, USB and even Infra red port which is not usually found on most new phones. Using HSDPA to surf the internet is really fast. But this network is not available in all countries.

Camera
The camera has a 5MP sensor and takes pictures at a max resolution of 2592*1944. The camera lens is Carl-Zeiss branded. The camera has autofocus, macro mode etc. There are extensive settings you can choose for taking a picture. The video captured is at VGA resolution and 30FPS max. There is an LED flash and red-eye reduction. However the main drawback of the N95’s camera is that it takes a lot of time to startup and also to process the image which results in missing the once in a lifetime moments. But the recent firmware update seems to speed up the camera startup and processing time. The camera does not perform up to expectations under dark conditions. The flash is not too powerful. There is a lens cover for camera protection too. Sliding he lens cover open automatically starts the camera application. There is also a front CIF camera for video calls.

Build Quality and Keys
The slider of the N95 is good in the beginning and with time it starts to wear out. It starts to wobble. However it is not too bad also. Nokia has sorted the problem of slider in the N95 8GB. The number keys are perfect in size. They have small ridges on them and are well spaced. The music keys are a new function, but, they are a bit difficult to press. There is a blue backlighting for the keys.

Music
The audio quality through speakers is quite good but not as good as N73 or N76. The quality through the headphones is good. There is an equalizer with some presets also. The music player is good and it displays’ album art as well as visualizations. The N95 supports MP3/AAC/AAC+/eAAC/eAAC+/WMA/M4A.

Battery Life
It is one of the most disappointing features of the N95. The battery lasts a day or two with moderate usage. But with heavy usage it lasts a day. However this is not a problem for the people who charge their phones every day.The recent firmware update for the N95 has increased the battery lfe a lot. Nokia has fixed this problem in the N95 8GB(N95-2) and the N95-3 by providing a battery with larger capacity of 1200mAH(BL-6F).There is no USB charging as well.

RAM
The RAM on the N95 is 64 MB however only about 18MB is available to the user. This is very less compared the N95 8GB which has 128MB of RAM. This results in the phone slowing down or getting stuck when multi tasking. However even this has been improved in the new firmware update.

Video
Videos are crisp n the N95. The supported video formats are MPEG-4, H.264, H.263/3GPP, and RealVideo. The screen is large enough to see a full length movie. But for some people it may not be the case.

Telephony-Ringtones, Messages, Phonebook
The signal reception is very good. The N95 supports a wide variety of formats as ringtones. Typing and sending messages is fast. The ringtones are loud and clear. Phonebook entries and messages that can be stored are practically unlimited. There are even 3D tones which the user can enable or disable.

Conclusion
This as I would say is one of the best phones available the market right now and Nokia has made it even better with the release of N95-2 and N95-3. This is a good all rounder phone. This is a phone which can make you feel proud and amazed. Another job well done by Nokia.

I also want to thank NSeries WOMWorld again for lending me this device for trialing.

thanks

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