Nokia n95 review

First impressions stage.

Pluses

+3 Overall, phone is fast to use

+4 Very good cam quality

+2 Good audio routing, speaker continues for alerts when headphones plugged in

+2 Charger is miniscule and EnergyStar compliant (doens't draw energy when not charging)

Minuses

Fixables

-1 boot up is slow-ish.

-3 music player is clunky, have to move between screens for common functions, slow to respond

-5 whistling/chirping sounds during quiet passages in songs

- Start up sounds are annoying and can't be silenced. After the first boot, you'll only time you're likely to hear this is when the battery died or it had to be rebooted, so it should be more subtle.

- Hissing sound during audio sample playback

- Themes aren't well designed, they don't emphasize function and icons aren't refined. Very 90s.

- screen flickers when using cam

- silence recording (camera) sounds (have to switch to silent profile)

-2 no 'shoutcast' audio streaming

-4 international character set mangling in maps app

- have to unlock to change music volume (can use remote)

- sound level does not carry across apps

-2 charging bars on phone only show it is charging, not current amount

- (why do they use "bars" anyway when it's a pixel-addressable display?)

-3 phone beeps every time it's charging, leading to beeping all night long as it discharges/charges while plugged in

-4 Camera app stops working, have to reboot.

-3 can't associate contacts in organizer! cripes.

- it basically has three entirely different front ends, active standby, the media browser, and the matrix view

-2 no copy and paste!!

- Can't browse calendar view when creating event

-4 Ambiguous (at best) software upgrade policy. Apple (a standout here) is likely going to keep providing updates for the iphone (like their mac line) as long as the hardware supports them. Presumably Android phones would be the same. Nokia's policy is something like "s60 version 3.2 with feature pack 1 updates only." With three different versions of the n95 out there alone, it's total madness for app developers and consumers.

-3 can't access call log while in a call

-2 call log entries switch between named contact and base phone numbers

- clunky menus, too many require a submenu for a checkmark option (eg shuffle in music player)

-3 Browser quits consistently on a number of pages (especially g&m pages), also others

-3 Browser history only works for current "trail," lost when you quit

Software and web site issues

-2 Windows software (sync, etc) is badly designed, icons aren't marked, you have to guess

-4 converter software doesn't support basic functions like search and paste, prompts or even dies when converting so can't do unattended long operations.

- nokia web site is all flash with its drawback, no consistency or direction in n95 web sites

to be determined

-3 passive "shift" key to wake display up without affecting current mode

unfixables

- hsdpa isn't tri-band

-3 Really miss a touch screen. Using maps, browser, etc is less fun and intuitive with cursor keys.

-2 lack of usb charging (except from using a non standard cable that is not included and can't be used for usb functions)

- design is creaky and loose

- dual slider - meh. a slider alpha keyboard would have been much nicer.

- fingerprints galore all over the device

-2 should be a quick way to go into reduced power using mode - disable 3g, etc

-2 should be an indicator for gps in use

Other reviews I agree with

http://pigsonthewing.wordpress.com/2007/12/11/more-nokia-n95-and-opera-mini-wishes/

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Blikied on March 27, 2008