Name: Jeff Gates
Location: Seattle, Wa
Date: 2008-01-31
Customer Rating: - 
Summary: Great phone...
Comment: The capabilities of this phone are amazing. It will do just about anything you want it to. I recently upgraded to a nokia 8gb n95 from a blackberry pearl. I was worried at first because I was used to the versatility and functionality of the pearl but the nokia did not disappoint.
Strengths:
1 Camera (if you are used to a bit slower image processing speed)
2 Video capture
3 Menu organization and capability- they are well organized and after a bit of getting use to are easy to navigate. Also the option tabs actually allow you do things, justifying its "multimedia computer" title.
4 wireless lan- made very very simple
5 Video player (real player)- can easily put multiple movies on the phone after they are properly encoded (hand break works very well, especially the mac version. 3gp converter and DVDfab platinum work well also. you just need to use the presets for Ipod not pda or phone as you would imagine)
6 battery life- is much better than I expected. can easily go all day with heavy use. after reading some reviews I was worried that it would not last long enough, but as long as you are not using the wifi connection and bluetooth all day long you should be ok.
7 radio! -I did not think I would be impressed with this feature but it works well and is easy to use. The only problem is that you cannot play the radio through the speakers of the phone unless you have head phones plugged in??? that didn't make sense to me but i guess its a small price to pay.
8 speakers- the sound that this phone can make is amazing considering the size. much better than any other phone I have heard.
9 NES and SNES emulation!!! I like to show this off to dorks like myslef . took a bit of reading but vnes works well. Vsun was a bit more challenging to get working and it also does not emulate sound=( but oh well.
10 screen- is very large and crisp. video and pictures look great.
11 Ngade games look good for a phone, but they do not play too well. If you want to play games on your phone, you should get something else.
12 TV output- comes with the cable, just plug it in and it works no matter what menu you are in on the phone and looks decent on a standard definition television, HDTV...watchable, but not really.
13 no touch screen!!! touch screens are a joke for anyone who types a lot on their phone. I had an Iphone, and i went back to my blackberry in a 3 days. buttons and functionality are much more useful. The internet did work well on, ill give it that.
mediocre:
1 The web browser- is not as good as other devices i have used. Does not scale the page to fit the screen, so to read some pages you are constantly jerking the cursor from right to left in order to read a sentence, making it very difficult to read a respectable amount of material. The multiple page system is cool though. The history saves the whole page to memory so as long as you don't exit out of the program you can quickly jump back to pages past with a birds eye view of the whole page.
2 Speaker phone- is great when you can turn it on. the problem is that when you get a call and press the answer key there is a 3-5 second delay to when it gives you the option of turning on speaker phone. This poses a problem because every time you use it (I use it a lot) the conversation starts out awkward because the other person says hello (wondering if someone is there) before you. I guess you could just answer it normally every time then turn on speaker, its just that talking on the phone while driving is illegal in my state, so its more of a problem for me.
Weaknesses:
1 camera lens in not protected
2 operating system seems buggy and somewhat unstable. The phone freezes at times when connecting to a computer, with the only way to fix it being to remove the battery. Randomly you are kicked out of menus and sent back to the home screen, although this does not happen often. Also it can be rather sluggish. browsing through image/video gallery can be very annoying because it slows way down, and skips around a bit. Transition from one screen to another is not very smooth, for example when the phone is idling and the screen is black it tells the time, but in landscape mode for some reason. When you open up the phone or get a call it will flash around a bit before showing you the main screen. I feel that the opperating system is the phones biggest drawback. Its just not very solid (crashed on me 3 times in the first day).
3 included nokia software- is garbage. difficult and cumbersome to use and dont even bother trying to encode video with it. It made updating the firmware fairly difficult. Even something as easy as plugging the phone into the computer via usb cable can be frustrating using the connect software. you have to deal with it though if you want to update the software or install any third party apps.
4 data transfer speed- is agonizingly slow. takes upwards of 15-20 minutes to transfer a 700 MB file, even longer if you use a mac.
5 GPS- is slow, does not work very well and not as intuitive as other GPS devices. It helps to be outside but it can be difficult to get a lock on at times. also you only get a 3 day trial of nokia's voice directions, after that you have to pay a monthly service charge. I did not read that anywhere before I bought the phone.
6 Email client- is not very good compared to blackberry. You have to manually go into the mailbox and tell the phone to receive new messages. You can have the phone do it automatically as often as every 5 minutes but it does not work in my case because I have to hit the acccept button every time it searches for new mail because the phone says it does not "trust the cirtificate". Lame. so what I end up doing is checking my mailbox periodically instead of only when I have a message. Some people may not have this problem but I do with an owa (outlook) account. all in all, the email client is overly complicated. Cant they just make it as easy as beeping when you get a new email???
7 keys- Key pad is a little small for my fingers but I'm sure I will get use to it. It would be better if it was a qwerty keypad but I am sure I will get over that as well.
Over all I am very happy with my purchase. It is very expensive but if you want the best you don't really have a choice right now. The bottom line is that all the features this phone has to offer is amazing, and even though it has some quarks it is still a great piece of hardware. You may not want it to replace all of your other standalone gadgets (GPS, Ipod, FM tuner,and camera) but it certainly makes for a good substitute if you don't want to carry all of stuff around (or if you just want to make your friends jealous it works pretty well too) What is exciting about a device like this is that it gives you a glimpse at what the future of phones has to offer, and from where I'm sitting its looking pretty bright.
Name: Skinny
Location: lurking in HI
Date: 2007-12-12
Customer Rating: -
Summary: awesome phone!
Comment: this phone pretty much does it all. battery life is great. pix are awesome,of course 5 megapixel helps! even the front camera, which is normally for video calls but can also be used to snap pix, has great quality. the fm radio works great and media player is cool enough for me. built-in stereo speakers is a plus. wish it had more low-end bass, but hey, it's a phone, what do ya expect? with headphones, of course it sounds good.
a few things i don't like is that the main camera lens is always exposed. even if it is recessed. i did have to adjust how i grip the phone while texting so my fingers don't touch the camera lens or press the camera shutter. i also don't care much for the sliding feature but that wasn't a selling point for me. at least it doesn't feel too flimsy. i just don't like flip phones and would rather have a slider than a flip. candybar style would be the best for me (like the upcoming N82 - damn, wish i waited!). gps is good. a bit slow linking up and sux that you need an internet connection to use it. no prob if you have internet with your plan, but if you're somewhere without provider signal (or wifi), you're stuck. and the wifi, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i've gotten it to work in some public places (and some private with open networks) but at home, right next to my computer which is linked via secure wireless, i can't. sometimes it gets signal and when it does, it's probably the security settings in place which mess it up...i need to tinker a bit more with it.
Name: C. Lo
Location: Florida
Date: 2008-03-20
Customer Rating: -
Summary: n95 8g still awesome after the inital glow has passed
Comment: So I've been eyeing this phone for well over 4 months now. I've researched it until I was blue in the face. My first impression of the phone was "Wow...it's a little bit chunky." My second impression of the phone after it arrived on my doorstep was "Wow...it's not as chunky as I remember. It's...it's rather sexy." Alright, to be fair. I'm sure that by now you've read all the specs and have them memorized. The camera rocks. I'm still toying with the settings of the pictures themselves when I try to upload them online through iphoto. The quality of the pictures are very good. Video is great. I need to use both camera and video camera frequently so this phone worked out perfectly. As far as the other functionality. I keep finding little quirks that irk me and other quirks that make this phone endearing. At first I thought the music player buttons useless as the music interface is easier to operate through the d-pad. However, if you are not in the main music player application and your focus is on the main screen, then you can still skip songs and such through those buttons. Very handy indeed.
The applications that come with are quite handy. The fact that you can read both pdfs and word docs is uber handy when I don't want to print stuff up or haul my laptop around. Setting songs as ringtones or pictures as wallpapers is very easy and intuitive.
The calendar application works very well and I depend on it heavily. The address book and calendar sync amazingly well with my macbook. I have yet to try to sync it with my pc as my desktop's been down for a little bit but I will follow up on this review once I do. A lot of phone sync software is biased towards Windows, however, don't fret cuz Nokia's got a file transfer program that works rather well with iTunes and iPhoto. In order to sync your phone with your iCal and address book it's even easier because you just need to set up your phone and macbook to talk to each other via bluetooth and after that just run the iSync program and you're GTG (good to go).
Now for some more stuff that specs won't tell you. The black looks hot. The speakers kick some serious butt. The top is a shiny black surface but it seems that the very very top of the phone near the second camera, there's a little bit of wear from me taking it in and out of my pocket at such a high frequency...especially when I'm wearing jeans. My sim card plopped right in and worked from the get go. Despite its thickness, it fits comfortably in my pockets...even with jeans.
Your friends will mistakenly assume this phone is touch screen. Warn them before showing them. This will drive you mad because the world has been brainwashed.
Name: Owen Wall
Location: Philadelphia
Date: 2007-12-25
Customer Rating: -
Summary: great phone
Comment: Great Phone,
Feels pretty sturdy in my hand, tons of great features, stylish and fast. Camera is a little fuzzy in low light, video is great! Speakers on the side put out great tunes, headphone jack is a huge plus for me. I sold my Ipod. GPS is alright, I opted for for voice navigation and it gives terrible directions, but I used it for a quick reference in unfamiliar territory and found it to be helpful. I typically get 2 days out of the battery and the phone seconds as my MP3 player frequently.
Downside is the screen scratches incredibly easy. First week I had it I had a pen in my pocket and boom. Scratch. Im very careful to keep this phone in its own pocket which kind of sucks. Im really not a phone holster kind of guy. Also remember your limited to EDGE network use.
Name: Jon C. Bartine
Location:
Date: 2008-03-01
Customer Rating: -
Summary: Nokia N95 8 GB Smartphone (Unlocked) Euro 3G version
Comment: I have had absolutely no problems with this unit. Me, I am a slow learner on electronics, but once I have it figured out, this on is great
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