Nokia N95 (8 GB) Cell Phone

Every now and then a product comes along that promises to revolutionise the market.

The N95 8GB is such a beast, combining satellite navigation, a cutting-edge 5-megapixel camera, a media player and PDA functions in a handset that somehow isn't the size of a brick.

Nokia knows how to put a phone together. Pick up the N95 and you simply won't believe that so much technology has been squeezed into such a light, palm-friendly device.

Nokia has embraced a two-way sliding design that lets you push the screen up and let your fingers roam over a nicely textured keypad, or slide it down to reveal a fashionably touch-sensitive suite of media-player controls.

In the realms of pure portability and ease of communication, the N95 is in a league of its own. It represents the very pinnacle of technological miniaturisation, without sacrificing usability, flexibility or style.

Excellent does not give this Phone Justice !!

"Perfection"

Great looking bit bulky but full of fun its one of the best phones out on the market. one thing that i really dont like which is the price tag . but it is worth every penny . if you have the money buy one you wont be let down by it

The Nokia N95 8GB mobile phone is an excellent choice for everyone. It has the usual Bluetooth, Infra-red and USB connections.

I like the fact that it has a decent 5 megapixel camera but also has a separate low resolution camera. The quality of the pictures by use of Carl Zeiss lens makes the pictures really sharp and clear like a digital camera and in video mode, it is DVD quality and can be connected directly to your tv or dvd recorder if you have the right connections on your appliances.

It has a fair amount of ringtones and alerts as standard and it has a "world clock" feature in which you can set the phone to any Country.

It has multiple alarms, in that you can set it to go off once, and/or set it for workday use, so that it goes off every Mon-Fri without the need for you to reset it and miss that important meeting or getting to work ontime.

The real clever thing about this phone is that if you have it in a vertical position and you rotate the phone to a horizontal position, the screen automatically rotates with you.

For people like myself who uses the internet a fair amount. You can either connect via 3G, WAP or by WLAN. Yes, WLAN. This phone has a built in Wireless modem, that can search for wireless connections if you're out and about. Or, if you have a network at home, you can connect to your router for a secure connection.

Another great thing about this phone, is that it has a built-in GPS receiver and by using the maps facility, you can use it as a SatNav system. Either monitoring your current location or by paying a small fee to subscribe to the Nokia "Voice Guidance" facility.

Now, the things I don't like are very minor but probably worth a mention.
The start-up screen cannot be turned off and therefore, you have the Nokia start-up sound in which I don't really like and the other thing is that in the calendar mode when you wish to add Anniversary entries, it doesn't have a facility to add a start year so that on the day of the anniversary, it will show the name of the person but doesn't show show age e.g. "Joe Bloggs 32" unless you actually type it in every year - if you remember that is. This is probably acceptable if your primary entries are for family members. But if like me and you have in excess of 50 entries for family, friends etc. Then it is not adequate enough.

So, to sum up. This is a great phone and I recommend that if anyone wants a truely great phone, with a large amount of applications and memory. Then, this is the one for you.

Thanks for reading my review.

As a big Nokia fan, I can honestly say this is pure advancement -- particularly with regards to battery life above the regular N95 (which I have also owned). The attention to detail and user-friendly-ness does it for me. Contact labels (e.g. fax, mobile, home...) are fully customizable so you can add your own label if a contact has several numbers (e.g. 2 business nos.). Everything is fully changeable and customizable on this phone (e.g. you can disable the prompt to upload your photo to Orange after looking at a preview of your photo -- I found this annoying and was easily able to disable it). The camera and settings are so advanced, and the quality amazingly crisp (even better when viewed on PC) -- so much so, that I don't have a separate digital camera anymore. The 8GB version also has the additional self-timer of 20secs. PC/Mobile synchronization is smoothly accurate and there are no software glitches, or additional alterations needed where words/numbers have been missed or mis-categorized. Standby screen options include being able to view upcoming calendar entries/to-dos, which I find handy. Although it is the same size as the original N95, the screen is slightly larger. No need for a micro-SD card; 8GB is ample. I rate having a normal button keypad highly above a touch screen -- I made a brief disloyal switch to LG, and something I found irritable about the touch screen on the Viewty was having no alpha display on the keypad during a call, which made automated password prompts difficult to enter -- by the time you have figured out which letter is on which number key, you have to start over again, as your password has been recognized as "invalid". Ergonomically fashioned and considerably light, with easy dual slide action -- for keypad/media controls -- this stylish technology-packed little gem sits neatly in the palm of your hand. This truly is a handset for the gadget-guru, photographer, and PERFECTIONIST ;oD

the phone i received does not even turn on properly, key stick, slide action is faulty,,,,, what more can i say. (no refunds by paypal either). cost me £184 and recieved phone 2 days ago. very bad seller (daffyduck3205) , stay away from people like this, (even a chinese phone would have worked).

I will not go into details about the feature list of this phone. I will just write about my personal experience. I am using this excellent phone for the following tasks (in decreasing order of importance):

1) Phone. This includes, calls, messaging, and alarm clock.

2) Satellite navigation. This is the feature, which made me buy this phone. Nokia's beautiful car charger DC-9 is now readily available for half price. Combine it with Garmin's excellent sat-nav software, and you have an extremely handy solution in your pocket. It is not only useful in the car, but also when you are on foot and looking for some place. Having a sat-nav device in your pocket is a big plus. I have to mention that the GPS reception of this phone is amazing. Using A-GPS it locks down the satellites very quickly, and the reception is quite robust. While travelling in my friend's car, who had TomTom sat-nav installed, this phone picked up the signals much faster than the dedicated navigator.

3) Internet via wifi or over the data network. At home, I really like browsing youtube using it. It is also quite good for checking emails, facebook and reading the news websites, if you like to do that kind of browsing.

4) Music.

5) Video recording. The quality of the clips is surprisingly good (640x480). I like recording shorter videos, of around 1 minute in length as they can be easily sent via email.

6) ScummVM. Playing old LucasArts adventures on this phone has some nostalgic value. Although without the touch screen, it is not ideal.

Overall, I am very pleased with this phone. It weighs very low, when you hold it in your hand. Buying on ebay was nice, as I could get the new phone for significantly less price. I would highly recommend it to anyone, who is looking for a single device for many tasks.

Ok, im not going to go through all the feature this phone has, as this info is easy to find. Im going to look at some pros and cons that may or may not effect you.

Pros:

This phone is built well, has a good sliding action with some nice nifty lights behind the media control buttons. The UI is well layed out and can be customized to fit your needs.

The screen size is quite big, yet the battery life is very fair while playing movies. Dont beleave some reviews that say your get hours appon hours of movie playback, its not the case, but still prety good for a few hours on full charge.

The Camera buttons are located well with a nice real camera feel about it. The focus is very fast, and quite accurate. 5MP camera is prety good for a phone athough its not always about size, its the CCD quality and lence, that counts more than mega pixels. The Carl Zeiss lence is found on the N95, N95 8GB plus the N82. Indoor shots apear faily noisy regardless of settings used for ISO levels. Out door shots are good quality and sharp. I wouldnt replace either the Cannon A70 or A620 for this camera, or do I think they should be compared, only I do have these two cameras. The older Cannon A70 which is rather cheap now produces much better indoor shots due to its better flash output.

For the size of the Phone its not a bad camera. The video footage is nice and smooth at 30fps. Again indoor lighting will show up alot of noise, its no fully fledged mini DV recorder, but its quick, handy to have, and not bad results if your out and about.

I found the UI a bit slow in responce as to other phones. This could be due to the shear number of features that can be installed, and lags things a little. A core player is avalible and Divx stand alone player can be installed which both play all major formats. The screen is very sharp and clear for video playback.

The sound is very good, better than my laptop. The built in Radio requires the headphones supplied to be pluged in to get a signal. The headphones act as a arial. Very cool feature. Mp3 player has all the sorting features you would expect from a high end phone.

The software avalible for this phone is plenty, and makes this phone much more than justa smart phone, its more like a mini computer. Added to the fact that you can use a Bluetooth keyboard as well.

The GPS iv had issues with. I find that I have to re lock the GPS satalite every time to get any connection. You need open sky above you, or a window you can stand by to get a signal. The Nokia maps supplied are cool, but dont expect to have a free sat nav on a phone, you still have to pay for a licence which realy makes this a very expensive Sat nav. You will get a trial if brught from new, but as soon as that ends your be requested to perchase a licence. I think its £6 per month and about £59 per year, you can buy a stand alone sat nav for about £69.

The wireless internet works well, which is easy to setup.

Cons:
Sat Nav is not free, the GPS function is, which dont include the unlimited software usage for voice navagation.

Camera pictures in doors are noisy, the flash could be better. There is no lence cover! why not add one, very odd?

This phone is not small, its quite chuncky, but feels comftable in pocket.

The UI feels slugish at times,make sure you close apps as they dont close when opening others. The sat nav has crashed and cause freezes which required the battery to be removed.

I really love this phone, had it a while now thought was a little bulky at first but for all the features you get it is great the camera is really good and doesnt blur when taking the picture which i have experienced with other phones, you can also video for 28 seconds which are real good quality perfect to catch my children playing. the battery life is good and applications are very easy to use. definately great buy!!

HI THIS IS AGREAT MOBILE FOM NOKIA HAS EVERYTHING U REALY NEED ON THE GO.
BUILT IN 5MP CAMERA + VIDEO AND CAN USE IT AS A SAT NAV FOR THE CAR AND JUT WALKING AROUND GREATWHEN U GET LOST LOL.
AND USE THE PHONE AS A DVD PLAYER AND MP3 PLAYER THIS IS THE BEST PHONE NOKIA HAS SOLD I THINK NOKIA HAS COME A LONG WAY FROM THE OLD BRICK PHONE WE ALLUSED YEARS AGO 10/10 FOR THE NOKIA 95 AND THE NOKIA N95 8GB-NOKIA N96

a great phone full of features. looks great too. all round perfect phone for me. especially the 8gb memory, maps, wifi etc. absolutely amazing.

It's a good phone with soem great stuff on it. Camera is good and its much different to the old n95.
8 GB is a lot of space wchich i dont use a lot and the fone isn't that expensive
If u like it just buy

This phone in my personal opinion is excellent

With the symbian operating system there are many things you can do with this phones

You can download and install many games and other software including tomtom sat nav

You cant officially change he facias on these phones but you can buy new ones on ebay so you can have this phone in many colours and it is easy enough to do so if you have the knowledge.

With the 8GB of storage space is a great idea of nokia. You have the ability to store loads of games, software, mp3s films plus loads more.

This phone doesnt have the same problem as the early nokia nokia n95 which kept on restarting themselves

The 5mp camera on this phone is excellent

Would recommend visting sybianfreaks.com to make the most of this phone with many games and software which will make this phone even better and its all free

I would recommend this phone to anyone.

Being the MD of a large UK mobile phone and accessory company, it is my job to have the latest mobile phone. To be honest I rarely look away from Nokia as I have had one for the past 10 years so you could say I am a Nokia pro!

If you can handle the size of this mobile then you will be very happy with the phone itself. The size is not too bad but is a little bit deep, you can see it if it is in your jeans. The sound quality and battery life are brilliant. I use this phone heavily and also connect to my WLAN frequently as well as taking photos and videos and the battery needs charging about once every two days. You can use Nokia PC Suite to easily sync your calendar with Outlook and also automatically upload your photos and videos to your PC.

The N95 8GB is a brilliant mobile phone. I had the non 8GB version which is also very good. The advantage of this one is that the programmes seem to run a lot quicker and does not crash as much. The standard one used to suddenly decide you could not open any more programmes or take photos so you would have to restart the phone. No such problem with the 8GB version.

In Summary,
If you do not mind the thickness of this phone then buy it, you will not be disappointed.

jez

First impressions? It looks much nicer in person, very, very schmexy, shiiiiiiny piano black and gun metal soft keys. Keypad lights, as well as music keys are in a smart contrasting white.

Slide is very solid in either directions. Multimedia keys are raised and provide a much improved 'bounciness'.
The softkeys, although shrunk down a bit, are still comfortable. Multimedia and main menu keys are also raised, as opposed to being flat in the original.

Position of ports/speakers are all identical to the original N95, except for the lack of a memory card door and slot as there is none. Although more or less identical in shape, the N95 8GB can be placed on its side for timed photos much more easily, a feat the N95 could do only by sliding open the keypad.

Battery cover has lost that stupid flimsy catch that users have reported to snapping thus making the battery cover either less effective or useless. Now it uses these thick short stubs to keep the battery cover in place, less prone to snapping even if you attempted to break it.

Both original and 8GB version are listed as 21mm thick, with the N95 being marginally thicker overall as it's completely flat at 21mm whereas the original is mainly 20mm except for the protruding camera. The N95 8GB looks much thicker than it is because of the uniform black look. The original N95 is two tone and so the last 3.5mm are separated by the silver front, conversely making it appear slimmer than it is.

Most noticeable is the missing protrusion at the back of the N95 8GB. Nokia has done away with the protective sliding-star-trek-shutter-doors and now leaves it open for possible greasy finger prints, dirt, dust and pocket scratches (scratches that phone received when being in a pocked filled with other items, like keys/coins). Whether this helps with camera performance as speculated check out the Camera section of this 'article'.

Materials used are mainly plastic, but that doesn't make it feel cheap. In fact, the overall look delivers an outward appearance that reflects all that's going on inside it, and the price you'll have to pay in order to acquire one of these babies. Downside maybe is that it is more prone to finger print marks, so keep a lint-free cloth close. Held side by side, personally, I prefer the feel of the N95 8GB. Not least because of the extra features, but with the added weight of 8g combined with the new materials, my hands instinctively appreciated embracing more substantial and robust handset.

I was surprised by the display. The "smaller" screened N73/93 was slightly brighter than the larger N95 and was expecting the same again. Even more so because Nokia's other 2.8 incher from Eseries looked a shade above dull.

However, it was bright, vivid and crisp. Stefan of intomobile.com noted that it was actually brighter than the original N95. Like the 2.2" to 2.4" and 2.4" to 2.6", 2.6" to 2.8", although only 0.2" difference on paper, makes a world of difference when viewing a mobile phone screen. For one, it's a lot more comfortable for your eyes not having to focus on such small fonts and makes viewing pictures/videos a more pleasant experience. Despite the fact that the display is still QVGA, as opposed to the rumored VGA, it still looks darn good and there shouldn't be much complaint over the gained screen realty. I haven't done enough exhaustive testings on different applications to see if there has been any obvious.

This is a fantastic phone.

Has all the features that you can ever think off.
Also beinga seller who sells accessories, the accessories for the N95 8GB flew out the door.

Fantastc phone, and recommended to anyone.

In my opinion, Nokia N95 8GB, is the best multimedia device Nokia have made. It has a larger display than N80 but with less resolution. It has now standard mini USB and Jack hear phone connections, and Nokia has improved battery phone life. The Nokia N95 8GB is more than a slider phone. Sliding both ways shows either the numeric keypad or media playback buttons. The phone has also an integrated 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Best of all, it run Symbian OS 9.2, S60 rel. 3.1 which means you can install a vast range of applications.

On my point of view, Nokia would have improved N95 8GB display with more resolution, like on N80. This phone would deserve it.

You can see spec here http://www.nokia.co.uk/A4515026

8GB memory can be used for everything u can download games, movies, music and u will have still free space on your mobile, lovely design and 5Mpx camera, HSDPA and Wi-Fi,this mobile has all what u need

Somehow, my battery life is hardly 24 to 30 hours max. I donot use much of internet function as well. Use is mainly couple of phone calls and text message and the battery gets drained to zero.

I have to have charger with me at all the time...

i think this phone is one of the best nokias out there, you can do everything with this phone, watch films ect put music on play games surf thr net,

This person is not very truthful as the price of the phone was really 100 pounds but he sent me a message saying i had to pay 200 pound or more so i would call i a fraud or something close

not a good seller

i liked the phone but the description was misleading and once you buy you have it.there is no one to contact if the product is not what it seems like this one i bought the screen is faulty and the strip which connects to the display is faulty hence the display comes and goes.now who do i complain to.
what you should have is the funds should be with you and once a positive response is received then release the funds or else the buyer has the option to return the goods.
previously i lost £213 on the same phone where the person after receiving the funds did not send the phone and i even complained to ebay so far nothing.

I decided to buy this phone because at the moment I was stuck with a broken Sony Ericsson. I'd also seen this phone advertised over various sites and it looked really really cool, sat nav, 5mp cam, large screen, all looked really good. So I ordered the phone, it came, opened it I was rather pleased, the phone was nice to look at and touch and was very clean and neat.

One of my favourite features of this phone it most definately the camera, as it is so pristine and great quality for a phone from a mobile phone, definately a fun thing to bring to holidays etc. Another cool feature is the wireless internet application which allows you connect to wireless routers, this is great for if you just want to check your ebay, or your social networking site without turning the computer/laptop on, the phone also plays videos off of youtube this was also an ok feature but unfortunately the quality of the videos weren't that great.

One more good thing about this phone is that it has a normaL 9mm headphone jack unlike other mobile phones where you have to have a certain size jack or like the sony ericcson with no jack at all just a long sony cord which was rather annoying. The large 8gb of internal memory went down with me very also as the fact of all the other features plus this was a great bonus.

One thing that is a little bad with this phone is that it can crash over time to time which is rather annoying but tat only happens very rarely. Overall this phone is great for people who love great looking, nice to feel phones but for people who want just a basic phones, not very compatible.

This is the second N95 i've owned so apart from the comedy (short)battery life this is all you could ever want from a phone....I would go so far as to say that on short trips the N95 is a passable stand in for the humble laptop