Nokia N95 - The AllAboutSymbian Video Review

[slitchfield]

Hold tight - It's the very first video review of the ultra-converged Nokia N95. Rafe Blandford delivers almost ten minutes of detailed demos, opinions and screenshots in AllAboutSymbian video podcast number 8. Warning: probably a good idea to get someone else to hide your credit card before you watch...

Read on in the full article.

[LosOutlandos]

thanks alot, very well done review!

[jah]

WOW! OMG! What else can I say? Psion's vision from as early as 1999 unfolds

only one mistake in your video review: HSDPA is only an enhancement for download speed, not for upload

but anyway, great video

[Rafe]

Thanks for the feedback.

Good catch on HSDPA. For those that don't know HSUPA is the upload bit of 3.5G and is generally being rolled out 12 months to 18 months after HSDPA (according to most operator roadmaps). I'm not sure whether the N95 supports HSUPA or not.

Hi Rafe,

Nice Review, I wanted to ask more about battery life.
You mentioned that a power user will need to charge daily...

What type of usage would you define the 'power user'?
I've heard from SymbianFreak, that Apoc he charges twice a day.

[Rafe]

Battery life - well I would say once a day should be OK. However if you spend 4+ hours using the device non-stop then yes it probably will need charging. Thats no different to making 2 hours of phone calls on say a N73. The thing is about the N95 is it has more things that run its battery down.

This is still proto software, a recent upgrade seem to have improved battery life.

Hi rafe, i would like to ask you if the gps device will show any information (at least positioning) if the map is not available. I am from Malta and 99.99% no maps will be available for here.

Thanks in advance.

about battery life: put it that way:
rafe is an expert user, and needs to charge it daily
apoc is a geek, he needs to charge twice a day

so if you still have other problems than your cellphone, you'll probably be ok with n95

Put it that way: Nokia hasn't learned from the N80, they put a crap battery into their most feature packed phone. This phone is not for grandmas for just call and some texting, GPS/3G/WiFI/music will eat the battery in no time.

[fig7]

they put a crap battery into their most feature packed phone

I wonder if this is the same problem as the lack of free memory (RAM) in these things. Inevitably Nokia are not going to make the phone cost more money simply to keep us happy. They are only going to put more memory and more battery power in them it they think they can get a return on their investment.

I don't know if the batteries they put in the phones could be made higher capacity for the same volume. If it's possible the best we could hope for is for Nokia to start making a higher capacity (but more expensive) battery for people who need more battery life. In other words they could give us the option of having a standard battery or a long-life battery. Of course, if this isn't possible the only solution might simply be to buy more batteries and carry them around with you. Unless you are actually asking them to make a bigger and heavier phone (not for me thanks).

I don't actually think they put crap batteries in their phones. I thought these Lithium-ion things were state of the art technolgy, unless you know where to get hold of Dilithium crystals that is

This is technically an amazing phone - and with all of these features, I wouldn't expect it to last MORE than a day running GPRS / Wifi / GPS / Games / Recording videos etc..

It's funny how many of you forget how long your average laptop lasts without a power supply.

To be honest, when I read about this device lasting just over 2hrs with EDGE grabbing Maps and GPS running full time - it didn't surprise me. Especially taking into consideration how many applications this device serves now.

Take into consideration that the machine itself is no longer touted as a phone.

I personally love the SIP concept behind this device.

I'll be purchasing it plus a spare battery.

Would love more information from the team at AllAbout Symbian on:

1. Software interface and its responsiveness. Does it slow down? ie. if you receive a txt, what is the average wait time for you to access that text message and read it. I suffer extremely long waits on my N93 sometimes!

2. Video quality - can you take some videos with the camera during the night in lit, well lit, fluorescent... bar environments too if possible.

3. Are you able to confirm if the final version will have stereo recording? I thought that feature was absolutely STUPID to leave out with such a decent recording facility.

if crap battery then it should come standard with 2 batterys like the crappy 8800.
Also with a desktop charger...

when is the review,

im dying to see some reviews....

[cabbageshop]

The short battery life while annoying is something you get used to.

I've had an N80 for 6 months and hardly ever run out of juice anymore, mainly due to having a charger at work and a spare battery.

The main thing that I wish nokia would now do is add a camera flash accessory. The camera on the N95 looks great but if it's anything like the other N phones I've used it will be next to useless in low light. I think if it had this one accessory we would really start to see people leaving their compact digital cameras at home permanently.