Hi.
I thought i'd do a quick review on the N95 8Gb.
This is from the viewpoint of someone who generally prefers Sony Erricsons, but has used a variety of different phones.
First, a quick phone history:
Sagem Mars, Nokia 7110, Nokia 6110, Nokia 8310, SE T610i, Nokia 7610, SE W800,i SE K800i, HTC TyTn. And now the N95 8Gb.
Ive had the N95 8Gb since Tuesday.
First impressions
My first impression when i opened the box and had a look at it was how small & light it was. But i couldnt quite work out if it was small and light, or wether i was just used to my TyTn! lol.
Build quality
It seems reasonably sturdy, and doesnt seem to creak much like the Nokia's of old. The screen moves smoothly, however being as cynical as i am, i cant help thinking that the mechanism in it, as smooth as it is, will evantually break. We'll see though.
Screen
Brillient screen. Very bright, even at the default settings. Videos look great on it, and its a good size for the phone. Sharp text as well. Considering ive got the screen protector on it still, thats quite good! lol.
Camera
The camera app, in many ways, is similar to the one on my TyTn.
Takes a while to load compared to a K800, but is slightly faster than my TyTn.
Quality is good, but compared to a proper 5MP camera it isnt all that impressive. Better than most phones though. Video quality is excellent considering the norm for phones though.
I also like the fact that you can use the front camera as well.
GPS
Im 50/50 on this. It is impressive, when its working. But it doesnt work all that well. Maybe its because i have AGPS switched off so i dont use any data, or that ive only tryed when im walking down the street. But it takes AGEs to lock each time.
The Map app on the phone is also a little shakey, requiring me to enter my WEP key EVERY time it wants to connect to my WiFi. Other apps dont though?
Texting
Suprisingly good. Once T9 is on, its pretty durable. My only complaint is the lack of emoticons.
WiFi
Very good implementation. Compared to the faff with settings up WiFi properly on my TyTn, its brillient. Connects fast, and downloads fast.
Bluetooth
Only tryed it for a basic image transfer to my laptop, but it seems as good as any other phone at it imo. Not really a lot to say on that one.
Gallery
This is my big annoyance with the phone tbh.
It just lists every photo on either storage area in one big list. Even if they are ordered on storage area in folders. The only way around this is to manually create 'albums' to seperate them all on the phone. But even then, its not ideal.
The slideshow and general photo viewing features are impressive though.
Other Apps
Plenty of bundled apps came on mine. Havnt tryed them all, but the ones i have tryed ive liked. Once you've rid the phone of all the awful demos, the main apps are generally quite robust. The lack of a true 'task manager' is annoying though. I want to see memory usage at the very least. Not just a list of whats running.
Software/GUI
Cant say that ive once see the GUI slowdown at all. Ive had loads of things open on it before now and it hasnt chugged once. General menu operation is nippy. Not quite as fast as a SE, but very close.
Transfer Speeds
Awful.
Either in data tranfer mode or PC suite mode, it takes AGEs to transfer things.
##EDIT##
Turns out that if you have the phone in media player mode, and upload tracks via WMP11, that the transfer speeds increase significantely. Still not as fast as say an iPod, but easyily a 4-5x increase.
Sound Quality
Had a quick go with the music player on it.
A few random tracks, 192kbps and above. Nokia Remote+CX300s.
Very good quality considering. Better than my iPod tbh.
Absolutely no hiss whatsoever, or certainly none thats noticable. Its a little bass heavy, but that might be me, as im used to how my iPod sounds.
Battery Life
Suprisingly good. I run it at default brightness, BT & WiFi off, 3g off.
I did a full charge Tuesday night. And during Wednesday i hammered it. About an hour and bit of GPS, about 2 hours of WiFi, 3-4 20minutes calls, about 50 txt messages, an hour of Spiderman3, few hours of sorting the photos in the Gallery app, 3 videos at HQ, 10 pictures at 5MP, and some general playing around with the apps. It was still on 3 bars come Wednesday night.
Tuesday morning i did all i could to kill the battery as quick as possible, leaving WiFi & BT on, doing transfers using them, GPS usage, txts and about another hour of Spiderman. Then at around 12 (my day starts at 7 fyi), it finally give me a low battery warning. I got another 20mins of Spiderman3 out of it before i put it on charge.
Quite impressive on its first proper charge in my books. Very pleased with that.
Conclusion
Ask me that in a few weeks time. When ive had chance to really get to grips with it.
.
Any questions, advice or observations, ask away..
I thought i'd do a quick review on the N95 8Gb.
This is from the viewpoint of someone who generally prefers Sony Erricsons, but has used a variety of different phones.
First, a quick phone history:
Sagem Mars, Nokia 7110, Nokia 6110, Nokia 8310, SE T610i, Nokia 7610, SE W800,i SE K800i, HTC TyTn. And now the N95 8Gb.
Ive had the N95 8Gb since Tuesday.
First impressions
My first impression when i opened the box and had a look at it was how small & light it was. But i couldnt quite work out if it was small and light, or wether i was just used to my TyTn! lol.
Build quality
It seems reasonably sturdy, and doesnt seem to creak much like the Nokia's of old. The screen moves smoothly, however being as cynical as i am, i cant help thinking that the mechanism in it, as smooth as it is, will evantually break. We'll see though.
Screen
Brillient screen. Very bright, even at the default settings. Videos look great on it, and its a good size for the phone. Sharp text as well. Considering ive got the screen protector on it still, thats quite good! lol.
Camera
The camera app, in many ways, is similar to the one on my TyTn.
Takes a while to load compared to a K800, but is slightly faster than my TyTn.
Quality is good, but compared to a proper 5MP camera it isnt all that impressive. Better than most phones though. Video quality is excellent considering the norm for phones though.
I also like the fact that you can use the front camera as well.
GPS
Im 50/50 on this. It is impressive, when its working. But it doesnt work all that well. Maybe its because i have AGPS switched off so i dont use any data, or that ive only tryed when im walking down the street. But it takes AGEs to lock each time.
The Map app on the phone is also a little shakey, requiring me to enter my WEP key EVERY time it wants to connect to my WiFi. Other apps dont though?
Texting
Suprisingly good. Once T9 is on, its pretty durable. My only complaint is the lack of emoticons.
WiFi
Very good implementation. Compared to the faff with settings up WiFi properly on my TyTn, its brillient. Connects fast, and downloads fast.
Bluetooth
Only tryed it for a basic image transfer to my laptop, but it seems as good as any other phone at it imo. Not really a lot to say on that one.
Gallery
This is my big annoyance with the phone tbh.
It just lists every photo on either storage area in one big list. Even if they are ordered on storage area in folders. The only way around this is to manually create 'albums' to seperate them all on the phone. But even then, its not ideal.
The slideshow and general photo viewing features are impressive though.
Other Apps
Plenty of bundled apps came on mine. Havnt tryed them all, but the ones i have tryed ive liked. Once you've rid the phone of all the awful demos, the main apps are generally quite robust. The lack of a true 'task manager' is annoying though. I want to see memory usage at the very least. Not just a list of whats running.
Software/GUI
Cant say that ive once see the GUI slowdown at all. Ive had loads of things open on it before now and it hasnt chugged once. General menu operation is nippy. Not quite as fast as a SE, but very close.
Transfer Speeds
Awful.
Either in data tranfer mode or PC suite mode, it takes AGEs to transfer things.
##EDIT##
Turns out that if you have the phone in media player mode, and upload tracks via WMP11, that the transfer speeds increase significantely. Still not as fast as say an iPod, but easyily a 4-5x increase.
Sound Quality
Had a quick go with the music player on it.
A few random tracks, 192kbps and above. Nokia Remote+CX300s.
Very good quality considering. Better than my iPod tbh.
Absolutely no hiss whatsoever, or certainly none thats noticable. Its a little bass heavy, but that might be me, as im used to how my iPod sounds.
Battery Life
Suprisingly good. I run it at default brightness, BT & WiFi off, 3g off.
I did a full charge Tuesday night. And during Wednesday i hammered it. About an hour and bit of GPS, about 2 hours of WiFi, 3-4 20minutes calls, about 50 txt messages, an hour of Spiderman3, few hours of sorting the photos in the Gallery app, 3 videos at HQ, 10 pictures at 5MP, and some general playing around with the apps. It was still on 3 bars come Wednesday night.
Tuesday morning i did all i could to kill the battery as quick as possible, leaving WiFi & BT on, doing transfers using them, GPS usage, txts and about another hour of Spiderman. Then at around 12 (my day starts at 7 fyi), it finally give me a low battery warning. I got another 20mins of Spiderman3 out of it before i put it on charge.
Quite impressive on its first proper charge in my books. Very pleased with that.
Conclusion
Ask me that in a few weeks time. When ive had chance to really get to grips with it.
.Any questions, advice or observations, ask away.
.
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