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/
Toronto 43° 39' 12.53" N, 79° 23' 2.16" W Arts Dance Person Asian Origin
Lata Pada is a Canadian choreographer and Bharatanatyam dancer of Indian descent. Pada is the Founder and Artistic Director of Sampradaya Dance Creations, a dance Company that performs South Asian dance. She is also the Founder and Director of Sampradaya Dance Academy, a leading professional dance training institution that is the only South Asian dance school in North America affiliated with the prestigious, UK-based Imperial Society for Teachers of Dancing.Pada founded the dance company in 1990 because she wanted to showcase Bharatantyam dance as an art form throughout the world.
Pada, who attended Elphinstone College in Mumbai, trained under the gurus Kalaimamani Kalyanasundaram and Padmabhushan Kalanidhi Narayanan.Pada lives in Mississauga, near Toronto. Pada married geologist Vishnu Pada when she was 17 years old.
In 1985 Lata Pada and her family decided to take an extended vacation to India. On June 23 of that year Vishnu Pada and daughters Arti and Brinda died in the bombing of Air India Flight 182. Lata Pada was not aboard since she left on an earlier date to tour India for Bharatanatyam recitals in Bangalore and across India; Lata was in Mumbai rehearsing for her tour, while her husband and daughters stayed behind in Sudbury, Ontario because Brinda was graduating from high school; afterwards the three flew on Air India 182. Lata Pada became a spokesperson for the families of the victims. After the crash she created the dance piece "Revealed By Fire" in remembrance of the incident. Pada received a master's degree in fine arts from York University in 1997.
Pada married Hari Venkatacharya in September, 2000. Venkatacharya is an entrepreneur and was Managing Director of Nytric Business Partners and is the Immediate Past President of TiE Toronto. He also serves on the Boards of the Ontario Science Centre and Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. They both met while founding the South Asian advisory committee at the Royal Ontario Museum in 1995, where they raised over $3 million Canadian dollars for Canada's first permanent South Asian Gallery.
In December 2008, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada for her contributions to the development of Bharatanatyam as a choreographer, teacher, dancer and artistic director, as well as for her commitment and support of the Indian community in Canada. Lata was also recently appointed as Adjunct Professor in the Graduate Faculty of Dance, York University, Toronto.