A Review Using the Nokia N95

by colbert low on September 26th, 2007

Phew. I finally sat down and took some pictures of the Nokia N95, provided to my by the Nokia PR in Malaysia. Instead of
boring you on the specs for the phone as there are thousands of sites out there that have it, here’s my review on the phone
after using it for more than a week.

Using the GPS in Singapore

I also recently took the phone down to Singapore last week but alas, I could not get the GPS working. Somehow the GPS
satellite status was somewhat unstable and the Navfone software on this S60 phone did not get a lock on a GPS satellite. I’m just wondering if its due to the fact that it won’t detect the embedded GPS chip (unlikely) or whether coz the software was ademo version. I also did not manage to load a Malaysia map on it since it said it was a demo version and I had to visit themain site to buy it. Well, that sure made a big blunder on things. The only good thing I had going for it was been able to
bookmark certain sites on the map using Navfone under the Favourites option and the 2D/3D look was quite cool.

Using Nokia Maps

Nokia Maps is the default GPS software on the Nokia N95. I could detect the satellites on certain occasions but kept on
wondering why it had to search the internet to get routes to certain places (bug?). So I scoured the internet and found out
that you had to load maps on the phone in order to kill that bug. The phone does not have all the data of the maps for
say..Singapore and it connects to the internet to calculate its routes. So common sense was to load maps of countries you
wanted on the phone and voila, it won’t connect to the internet. Darn. I wish Nokia would have thought of this. Its not like
the whole of Singapore has free wifi everywhere as even with its free 5000 hotspots, I could not get an internet connection
going. I guess everyone was using it and that caused a jam.

Taking Photos on the Nokia N95.

Sure the N95 has a Carl Zeiss 5 megapixel but I think it won’t beat a 2 megapixel camera on a Sony Ericsson phone anytime.I’ve compared it to my wife’s Sony Ericsson W880 and it pales a bit in colour and lighting. Taking pictures in the dark won’t be a goodthing as the flash is not strong enough. However, it looks better when taken in the daytime and here’s some shots I tookwhile in Singapore to prove things. The phone takes sometime to load when taking pictures.I had about 50 pictures on thephone in 2 megapixel resolution and on certain occasions during my stay in Singapore, it took about 7 seconds to load up before I could shoot a picture.

Conclusion:

Sure the Nokia N95 still turns head wherever it goes. I took it to office and a lot of people are still awed by it. In fact,
a lot of guys took a good look at it and tried out the functions. Taking a call in a crowded place is easy as the sound is
clear. All in all, this phone is still a good phone to have if you don’t mind the spotty GPS function and so so picture
quality.

(Update 1 Oct 2007) : It is recommended to download the Nokia Map Loader and install it on your PC to download the full map to your phone. With that done, your phone won’t have to connect to the internet to get routes or find landmarks.

Likes : Media player plays MP3s at decent quality, the phone call quality is good. Speakerphone functions well. Wifi
connectivity is stable and connects easily.

Dislikes: The keypad is a tad too small; taking pictures on the phone requires a slide on the backside and it can be slow
sometimes. Need to add headset to phone to hear radio on speakers

Below : Nokia N95 left side. Slides in a MicroSD at the bottom compartment.