When it comes to cool Nokia cell phones and smartphones, we here in the United States are often left in the cold, as our friends in Europe and Asia have all products. Well, it seems that Nokia has heard our cries, the maker of mobile phones has opened two retail stores in the U.S. and began to sell more difficult to get their mobile phones from the company Web site. One model in particular has attracted much attention, and that would be the Nokia N95. An unlocked version, which we examined again in April, is now available, but demand for this sleek phone has been so great that Nokia decided to release americas Northern Finnish Nokia N95. For the most part, is very similar to the original version, but there are some important additions that make it a better buy, ie support 3G, more memory, and battery life and faster performance. The price remains dire in a version for $ 699 unlocked, but hopefully that a U.S. carrier collect up soon (Ahem, AT & T).
Design
For the most part, the Nokia N95 Editing americas North is very similar in design to the original N95, but there are some minor changes in color and camera that we will discuss throughout this section.
Taking into account all the features that are packed in the Nokia N95, you think it would be a phone quite high, but it does not, my friends. The N95 measures a compact 3.8 inches long by 2.1 inches wide by 0.8 inches thick and weighs only 4.2 ounces. It feels comfortable to maintain, and soft to the touch finish on the back of the device makes it easier to grab. Having said that, we could not help but think that the phone felt, well, kind of cheap. In particular, the front cover felt plasticky and rickety (more on this below). From an aesthetic point of view, the N95 certainly falls within the shortest-and-stocky category rather than Svelte and sexy, but I think it’s still a nice looking phone. The North americas version is available in black and silver or silver and bronze.
Of course, another attraction of the N95 is its innovative two-way slider design. Not only can slide the front cover to reveal the alphanumeric keypad, you can also slide down to reveal the player controls the media. The dual functionality is welcome, but we had a couple of concerns. First, cover, which houses the screen and navigation buttons, felt loose and rattled a bit. Just did not feel like it was securely locked into place, thus leading to our next complaint. If you put the phone into a pants pocket or even when thrown into a bag, it was too easy to slide open the phone. There is a keypad lock, but would prefer that the N95 just had a strong mechanism for locking the position of the front flap.
In turning to the screen, the Nokia N95 has a superb 2.6-inch TFT screen with a QVGA 16 million color output and 320×240 pixels resolution. Note, however, that this is not a touch screen. Images and text looked great, with great color saturation and sharp definition. You can change the theme of the home screen, backlighting time, and font size. There is also an ambient light detector to adjust the lighting depending on their environment, which helped keep the screen reading in different lighting conditions. However, we noticed the N95’s screen has a bad habit of holding stains and fingerprints, in order to maintain some sort of eliminate some material. We must also point out that when you slide open the phone to access the media player controls, the screen automatically changes to landscape mode, but once you close the phone, do not automatically change again. You have to open the dial pad to return to portrait mode, which is annoying.
Below the display are the N95 navigation controls, which consist of two soft keys, the Talk and End buttons, shortcuts to the main menu and the multimedia menu, a clear key, a key issue that lets you choose the type of text input, and a four-way toggle with a center select button. For the most part, controls are easy to use, although it is a bit slick and the toggle and outer ring of buttons (see image above) could have been larger. Even so, is an improvement over the Nokia E65 the tiny keys. The N95 keypad of roughly tactile buttons with bright backlight, and that is raised above the surface of the phone, so it’s easier to dial by feel. Unfortunately, the media player controls are less tactile and require a little more pressure to register the command.
Since the N95 is a multimedia device centered, elegantly equipped Nokia phone with a 3.5-millimeter headset jack so you can connect to your favorite pair of earphones or headphones for a better listening experience. It’s located on the left side, plus an infrared port and the microSD expansion slot. On the right side, is the volume rocker, a shortcut to your photo gallery, and the camera button is activated. The latter is in a position so that when you are holding the phone horizontally, actually mimics the look of a digital camera. The N95 is the camera lens itself (and flash) is located at the rear, but unlike the first version, the goal of protection has been removed. Now, you may be scratching their heads wondering why Nokia se han ido and made such a stupid thing, but it’s really a good reason. Believe it or not, by removing the lens, created more space to fit into a larger capacity battery, which promises a 30 percent longer battery life (see Performance for more). We do still worry about scratching the lens of the camera because there is no coverage, but Nokia includes a soft protective pouch for carrying the phone. Lastly, there is a power connector and mini-USB port on the bottom, and the power button at the top of the handset.
Americas Northern version of the Nokia N95 comes packaged with an AC adapter, a USB cable, a TV-out cable, a 2GB microSD card with an SD adapter, a pair of headphones EarBud, a headphone adapter with antenna and controls of audio playback, a desktop software CD (which includes the Nokia PC Suite), and reference material. For more add-ons for N95, please visit our cell phone accessories, ringtones, and help page.
Features
It is difficult to decide where to start with the feature-packed Nokia N95, but as a picture is one of its biggest draws, let’s start there. The N95 is equipped with an impressive 5-megapixel camera – unprecedented in cell phones and smartphones world – with a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar. (Carl Zeiss was an optician who started manufacturing lenses for microscopes and then used his experience to the cameras.) The breadth of customization and editing options available on this phone is astounding – almost like a real digital camera . You can choose from seven shooting modes, ranging from close-up portrait for the sport to night, and five quality settings. You can adjust the brightness, contrast, white balance, color tone, ISO sensitivity to light, and exposure value to get the best possible image. The flash even has a red-eye reduction option. In addition, there is also a self-timer and a sequence mode for multiple shots.
The N95 can record video at a maximum VGA resolution (640×480) at 30 frames per second, but you also have the option of four other quality settings. The N95 can record video with sound in MP4 or 3GP (for multimedia messages) format, and the duration is limited only by available memory. There is a handy timer that shows you how long video that have relied on memory and shaping the quality of (this feature is available in camera mode as well). Editing options are somewhat more limited in video mode, you only get two shooting modes (automatic and night) and white balance and color tone settings. There is also a function of stabilizing video to help reduce camera shake as you’re recording video.
We were impressed by the quality of photos and videos produced the N95, as one might expect with a 5-megapixel lens. Photos boasted vibrant colors and sharp lines and edges, although there was a slight hazy effect on our shooting. Unlike some smartphones, the N95 does not require you to have a supersteady hand to get a clear shot. The camera phone also did a decent job, with images of the night, although still quite weak. Video quality is also good. There was none of the grain that sometimes plagues videos shot by camera phones. I also wanted to talk about the interface of the camera, as we have found extremely easy to use and change camera settings, which can sometimes be difficult when you do not have a touchscreen.
Once you’ve finished, you can touch up your videos and photographs with the image of publishers included. For example, you can add clip art and reduce red eye on still images, or cut audio for videos. The phone’s memory capacity has been upped with about 160MB of internal memory (compared with the previous 150MB) to save your photos and videos to your phone, but we recommend saving them in a microSD card, especially since the N95 can handle up to 4 GB expandable media (usually 2 GB). And share their memories is also easy to see how the possibility of a slide show, print across Nokia Xpress Solutions, uploading to the Web or Nokia Lifeblog app, or transfer them to other devices. In addition, Nokia includes video-out cable so you can connect your N95 to your TV to see all their means on the big screen.
As a multimedia computer, the Nokia N95 is not limited to images and video. There is also an integrated music player that supports MP3, WMA, W4A, AAC, AAC +, eAAC + and archives, as well as OMA DRM 2.0 and protected by WMDRM songs. The library of music tracks ranks of artists, albums, genres, composers, and also can create playlists on the right phone and adjust the sound with built-in equalizer. The N95 also has an FM radio, although you’ll need to use the handset to access radio, and serving as the tuner. RealPlayer is also on board with 3GPP and MPEG-4 video streaming. Again, we applaud the decision to incorporate a headphone jack 3.5 mm, which represents a major step forward in making the multimedia experience that much better.
Above all that, Nokia has also packed a GPS receiver into the N95, along with a request for mapping. With him, you can get color maps, travel planning, and a healthy points of interest database. There is also a trip computer that shows you information on the total distance, time, average speed, and so on. However, to obtain any kind of step by step directions, you’ll have to download an update for the device. There are several options for the purchase, including one year license for $ 125.77 a month or $ 13.96 per license. The N95 GPS performance was satisfactory, although it took quite a while for the unit to get a satellite fix. Once connected, however, did a good job of tracking our position and gave accurate route calculations.
Apart from the GPS radio, other wireless options in the Nokia N95 americas Northern Edition 2.0 include integrated Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, an infrared port, and the best news of all, 3G. Specifically, the device supports the HSDPA 850/1900MHz bands, ie only get the benefit of 3G (data speeds of around 400Kbps to 700Kbps with the potential for success until 2Mbps) if you use AT & T network. The smartphone supports a number of Bluetooth profiles, including wireless headsets, hands-free kits, wireless keyboards, and Bluetooth A2DP for stereo headphones. As far as Wi-Fi, the N95 is compatible with 802.11b / g standards, as well as the support of Universal Plug and Play, which lets you use a Wi-Fi to connect with a compatible PC, printer, or home entertainment system, but the number of UPnP devices is limited at this time. The N95 is able to find and connect to our test access point, and we were able to surf the net in minutes, using Nokia’s excellent Web browser.
While all the aforementioned features are great, we can not forget that the Nokia N95 is first and foremost a phone. The N95 includes a speakerphone, speed dialing, conference calling, voice command support, a vibrate mode, and text and multimedia messages. The phone address book is limited only by available memory, and the SIM card holds an additional 250 contacts. There’s room in each entry for multiple phone numbers, and work addresses, email addresses, date of birth, and more vital. For Caller ID, you can assign each contact a photo, one of 44 ring tones, or a group ID.
Last but not least, the N95 runs the third edition of the S60 platform on the Symbian operating system for their needs for productivity. An application called Quickoffice allows you to view Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, and that optimizes the pages of the phone screen, so you do not have to travel all over the place to read a text. There are some nice shortcuts to jump to the top or bottom of the page to reduce the top downwards and displacement, and there is also a search function. However, if you want any editing capabilities, you need to update the advance copy of Quickoffice. For messaging, the N95 supports IMAP4, POP3, SMTP and e-mail accounts and comes with a complete viewer attachment. The N95 supports a series of push e-mail solutions, as well as Microsoft Exchange Server synchronization, but this depends on your service provider and enterprise e-mail solution, so check with your IT department if you have any questions.
There is a handy wizard when you first switch the device to help you configure your e-mail, and used it to easily create our SBC Global account. Other productivity applications and PIM tools include Adobe Reader, Zip Manager, a calculator, a notebook, a measurement converter, a clock, and a voice recorder.
Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900;) Nokia N95 in San Francisco using AT & T service and call quality was excellent. We have heard a slight background hiss when talking with friends, but still enjoy much volume and clarity to continue the talks and interact with our bank’s voice-automated response system. Our partners said they were impressed by how well it sounded the phone and there was no complaints. Speaker quality is not as good as the whistling fund rose slightly to us and makes us sounded muffled at the other end; yet, is that nothing prevented us from continuing with the call. We had no problems synchronizing with the Logitech Mobile N95 or Traveller Bluetooth headset Nokia BH-604 Bluetooth stereo headphones.
When we reviewed the original Nokia N95, we were quite disappointed with the poor performance of the smartphone. The device is jam-packed with features, so understandably, this may bog in the processor, but even so, the number of delays we experienced was frustrating – Imagine if you had actually paid $ 700 per that. Fortunately, we had a much better time with those of americas Northern edition of the N95. There are still times when the phone has acted belatedly – for example, when opening a Word document – but it is much better. Navigation on the Web also was swift, if we were cruising through Wi-Fi or 3G.
Playing music through loudspeakers phone was better than anything we have heard from recent smart phones. It still lacks depth low, but we are impressed, however. Playing video was too soft with a good synchronization between sound and image.
The Nokia N95 is designed to 4 hours of talk time and up to 9 days of standby time. In our battery of flight tests, we were able to reach 8.5 hours of continuous talk time on a single charge. According to FCC radiation tests, the Nokia N95 has a digital SAR rating of 0.42 watts per kilogram.
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