Lyte Byte

Its been a week since I got my Nokia N95 8GB, the north American edition (N95-4) with 3G. Before I begin, I should say I am Loving It!!! The fourth black edition of Nokia N95 was released last month (March 2008). I was waiting to get Sony Ericsson Xperia, but looks like I had to wait for a long time. Anyway I could not resist getting this phone as in most of the list of top phones I checked out, Nokia N95 was ahead of iPhone!

So far the experience was good. I have AT&T connection with unlimited MediaNet which has made the experience even better with 3G.

Price Range of Nokia N95 8GB US Edition

The price range is around $700 and the initial quoted price in Nokia webpage was $799. Dell had initial offer for $511 + Tax which comes to around $600 but it lasted only for first 250 customers and I missed it. Finally the next good deal I could get was from JR.Com and I got it for $650 with Tax.

Here is the review on my experience with Nokia N95-4 8GB

Initial setup with the Network (AT&T)

The initial setup was very simple. As soon as I put my 3G SIM card from AT&T and switched on, the setting wizard automatically setup the parameters for SMS, AT&T MMS, AT&T Media Net and AT&T Internet. Incase if one cancels to do the initial setup or change the service provider, you can access the Initial Setup Wizard from Menu -> Tools -> Utilities -> Setting Wizard. This will take care of the rest. This is very handy as otherwise you have to enter all the details manually and which is very tedious.

Data Networking.

One thing I liked about the Internet access from N95 through ATT is that it switched from 2G networks and 3G networks seamlessly. When the network is crowded or fluctuating, the data access moved seamlessly from GPRS (General Pocket Radio Service) to EGPRS (Enhanced GPRS) or EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) to 3G or 3.5G without deterring any user web experience.

2G Network - GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network - HSDPA 850 / 1900 - US version (High Speed Downlink Packet Access)

When I tested the speed using DSL Reports Mobile Speed Test, it gave 150 - 160 KBPS when I was browsing through EDGE. And an amazing speed of up to 723 KBPS while browsing through 3G or 3.5G.

At home, it easily connected to the Wireless LAN and the browsing speed was even better and good. I got around 1300 KBPS when browsing in my home wireless network. N95 comes with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g.

Other networking features like USB, UPnP and Bluetooth were also handy. I usually sent the downloaded applications to my phone through Bluetooth and it was stored in the message folder.

Call Quality

The incoming call quality was very good but it was too responsive to the surrounding noise. The receiver at the other end always complained about the surrounding noise.

camera

The 5 MP (2592 x 1944 pixels) camera in Nokia N95 with Carl Zeiss optics is one of the features that made to consider buying this phone and I was not disappointed. The Auto mode in the phone suited most of the photos I took but there were significant difference when I choose the category manually. Here are two pictures, one was taken in auto mode (Left Pic) and another one in Landscape mode (Right Pic).

The general categories that are available are Auto, User defined, Close-up mode, Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Night, Night Portrait.

Sports mode was also very good and accurate enough to capture fast moving objects for a 5MP camera.

Also other features like auto-focus, self timer, sequence mode makes this one of the best digital camera phone. If you are a professional photographer, features like Color Tone, View Finder Grid, White Balance, Exposure Compensation, Sharpness, Contrast, Light Sensitivity makes N95 Camera even better.

Leaf Close Up Shot by N95-4 8GB

One thing I found about the flash is, I had to turn off before taking pictures of glossy surface as the reflection of the flash was highly prominent.

Other pictures taken by my Nokia N95 in Flickr

The video capture is at the rate of 30fps which was good enough to capture even moving objects with good clarity.

Here is an example of the video of moving objects that I took with my Nokia N95 8GB. Obviously, the quality was much higher when I took and YouTube reduced the quality.

Video of Moving Objects Taken By Nokia N95-4 8GB

GPS

Another best feature in N95 8GB was the GPS which now comes with Assisted GPS (A-GPS). Also N95-4 8GB came with 6 months free voice turn by turn navigation. Nokia maps were good but it takes a little while to find and lock the initial position. I downloaded Google Maps with GPS and it was able to lock the initial position faster than Nokia Maps. The accuracy was also really great, when the car was over the railway track while crossing, it showed exactly that the car was over the track!

Audio

The audio quality was really good as well the radio receiving capability (though not all radio stations were received good). I believe the audio can be even better with a higher end headphones like Shure, Bose or Ultimate Ears which has noise canceling features. The headphone that came with N95 was really good indoors but in outdoors I had to keep the volume really high. But I should say that even when I kept the phone in full volume, it was not unpleasant.

Video

The replay of the video was good and even the streaming videos from YouTube and other sites were really good. Also the audio-video sync was perfect. The video playback in the landscape mode was amazing to watch long videos.

Applications

Since Nokia N95 has Symbian, it comes with the advantage of having lots of applications. Also the new field of applications that have started to come out are with the Accelerometer. To name a few accelerometer applications for N95, Nokmote, RotateMe, ShakeSMS, FlipSilent, Rock N Scroll.

Memory - Mass and Phone

Phone memory has 133 MB and Mass memory has 8 GB (Actual usable memory - 7.49 GB). For some applications like Yahoo! Go 3.0 requires that you install them on phone memory. When I first installed it in Mass Memory, it was very slow. So its better to install all the frequently used applications in phone memory.

Battery

Though N95 8GB has new 1200mAH Li-ion battery, it does not long last if you are using all through the day. It also consumes more if you are using applications like GPS, Accelerometer, or Camera. The first two days when I had the phone when I was literally using the phone the whole day (I was almost using all the features), the battery ran out before I could get back home. Now even when I use phone for couple of hours for calling along with music and other features, it longs till I go to sleep. But anyway one has to charge it everyday.

Keypad

The keys are very tightly packed and if you are looking forward to type long messages and mails through this phone then it may be little tough.

Slider

The two way slider is a different perspective from other phones but its still wobbly and little loose as pointed out by many earlier N95 users.

PC Suite, Sync & Firmware Update

Unfortunately, though Nokia PC suite works, Nokia software updater still doesn’t support N95-4 8GB version. The firmware versions of Europe edition and North American edition differs and there are no updates yet for North American editions.

Here is the firmware version for my Nokia N95-4 8GB

Use *#0000# to find the Nokia firmware version
V 1.2.011
28/01/08
RM-421
Nokia N95 (A6.01)

Since both the edition numbers totally vary there are no way to verify if the firmware for N95-4 8GB has the updated features from European edition. But the features like automatic rotation from Portrait to Landscape has been introduced in the new firmware update in European edition but its still not available in N95-4 American Edition.

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