Loading ...Nokia N95 8gb
Ξ November 17th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ |
Well, as you’ve probably noticed from previous entries, I’m the proud owner of a Nokia N95 8gb. I’ve had it for a few months now and, since yesterday’s events, figured it’s time for the review.
I’ve previously owned “dry” company communication devices – Nokia nothings and Blackberries. I’m not complaining of course – after all, the company are kindly paying for the call and data charges – but, after continually shelling out for shiny new phones for Jules and the kids, it was clearly time for techno-Daddy to enter the fray. And, if I’m going to do so, then I’m going to do so all singing, all dancing.
There were a few main points that attracted me to the N95;
- Internal GPS
- WiFi, Edge, 3.5G and every other protocol known to man
- Huge 8gb storage
- MP3 ringtones (I know, I know)
- 5 mega-pixel Carl Zeis camera
- Lovely big screen
- Compact size
- A very extendable Symbian OS
So, the phone arrived, I unpacked it, drooled a little and charged it up.
There is no arguing that this is a serious sexy phone. The call quality is very clear, it has all of the above and I was able to install some very useful applications. On a day-to-day basis, I really don’t think that I could have made a better pick. The one thing that surprised me too was that, for a device with so much going on, the battery life is superb.
I did, however, have a couple of gripes which – until yesterday – I had kind of accepted as being inevitable;
- GPS. Bloody hell, it took ages to get a lock. The device boasts aGPS – which uses the cellular network to speed up the acquisition process – but it could still take up to five minutes to get a lock. I figured that this was down to the fact that the internal antenna was so small that it struggled to get that initial data.
- Camera. When shooting video, the camera would stutter quite alot – resulting in very choppy film. There was also a very noticeable delay in “processing” stills before being able to take the next picture.
Neither of these were show-stoppers, but they conspired to annoy me just enough to keep my trying to find workarounds.
I fixed the camera issue by copying the contents of the 8gig mass-memory to my laptop, formatting the mass storage and moving everything back. Bingo! No more stuttering and no more lag in processing stills.
The GPS issue – together with a bit more – was solved yesterday when I appplied the v20.0.016 firmware to the device and, stone me, what a difference it has made!
The average GPS lock time is now about ten seconds! Even in a moving car – and that’s impressive. It’s holding the lock indoors and the response is terrific. Furthermore, the whole phone is spinning along alot quicker than it was before too.
In all honesty, I think that Nokia must have been bordering on criminally negligent with the last firmware version – as I really can’t understand just how such an enormous improvement in GPS performance can come about unless they’d really arsed up the previous version.
That said, however, I don’t really give a toss now. As it stands, I honestly can’t fault the device in any way whatsoever. The MP3 and video playback is excellent, the web-browser superb, the communication protocols all lightning quick, the storage huge and my MP3 ringtones wonderful!
Pros:
Pretty much everything. This is one serious piece of kit
Cons:
With the firmware updated nothing really. I guess, being picky, that the lack of a linux version of the integration software sucks, but at least I can run the Windows version in a VM
Overall:
10/10 (This is the uber-phone)
