I recently took the plunge and changed my beloved Sony Ericsson K800i phone (Goodbye Mobile, Hello Mobile) for a Nokia N95 8GB. I have previously pondered over the Nokia E61i with its full keyboard and emailing capabilities as well as the Blackberry 8820 (which is still sitting on a shelf in my house) and Sony Ericsson P1i.
I predominantly use my phone as a camera so the 5MP camera on the Nokia was very tempting and finally persuaded me to part with the K800i.
The Nokia N95 8GB is much lighter than I was expecting (128g) and is a reasonable size (it fits nicely in my hand anyway!) and the thing I really like is the responsiveness of the interface (S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 1). Several phones I have tried previously have suffered from quite a sluggish interface which severely detracts from use but the Nokia moves along quite swiftly.
The double sliding mechanism is also quite handy allowing a swift change to landscape mode with only the media buttons visible making watching videos, music visualisations and reviewing the gallery particularly friendly.
The screen is a large 2.8″ QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) TFT with 16 million colours (I haven’t counted them). I have also been pleased with the camera which takes some clear and well colour balanced shots, and the video playback (output leads to a TV are included) is also great which came in handy recently when we wanted to watch the video of our recent family expedition. Talking of the camera a cool little application allows you to read those two dimensional bar codes that are becoming quite popular (What can you make of this?).
The battery (1200mAH) is also reasonable although a day of shooting video, taking pictures, and watching playback eventually drained the battery from a full charge but so far I get around three days of average use out of the device before I need to charge it again.
J2ME support is included (Java MIDP 2.0, CLDC 1.1) which has helped in my Uni work (as I needed to develop a mobile Java push application), Flash Lite 2.0 is also supported. I haven’t used the GPS functionality yet or the FM Radio
The phone does include a wide range of connectivity options including:
- Integrated wireless LAN (802.11 b/g)
- UPnP (Universal Plug and Play)
- Bluetooth with A2DP (Bluetooth stereo audio)
- USB 2.0 (Micro USB)
The keypad has some nice rounded keys which makes dialling numbers or punching out SMS messages easier - even for someone with big fingers like mine. The automatic soft button locking mechanism when the device is closed is also useful, you have to press the left then the right soft key to make the keys usable. Accidentally dialling people because I had forgotten to lock the keypad was a regular occurrence with my old K800i.
The full specifications of the Nokia N95 8GB can be obtained from the Nokia Web site.

6 responses so far ↓
1 Getting value from technology :: Gizmos for Geeks // May 15, 2008 at 3:54 pm
[...] I have recently changed my mobile phone to a Nokia N95 8GB (from a SE K800i) and so far I am really pleased with its performance. The interface is responsive and the functionality including the wireless connectivity, 5 megapixel camera and N-gage are well worth the upgrade - you can read more about it Welcome to my Nokia N95 8GB. [...]
2 IT PRO: Blogs: Jason Slater: Are computers writing human programs? // May 22, 2008 at 10:58 am
[...] laptop and mobile phone are connected together using Bluetooth and every now and then I see a little blue flash between [...]
3 IT PRO: Blogs: Jason Slater: Was it really three years ago? // May 30, 2008 at 6:07 pm
[...] camera. Now I have a multipurpose entertainment device (a Nokia N95 8GB which I am loving so far! read about it hereĀ - with a 5 mega pixel snapper). A Sony Ericsson K800i filled the gap between these two [...]
4 Nokia N95 8GB // Jun 4, 2008 at 10:14 pm
You can find more details on the N95 8GB here http://www.n95-8gb.com/
5 David // Jun 14, 2008 at 11:55 am
This IS a fantastic phone packed with features that will blow your mind. You never have to worry about finding your way, GPS takes care of that.
The best packages i’ve found are on http://www.n958gb.org
or you can check out the nokia website http://www.nokia.com
6 famous coles // Jul 5, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Nokia N96
Description
General 2G Network GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network HSDPA 850 / 2100
Size Dimensions 103 x 55 x 18 mm, 92 cc
Weight 125 g
Display Type TFT, 16M colors
Size 240 x 320 pixels, 2.8 inches
Ringtones Type Polyphonic (64 channels), Monophonic, True Tones, MP3
Vibration Yes
Memory Phonebook Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records Detailed, max 30 days
Card slot microSD (TransFlash)
- 16 GB internal memory
- 128MB RAM, 256MB storage memory
Data GPRS Class 32, 107 / 64.2 kbps
HSCSD Yes
EDGE Class 32, 296 kbps; DTM Class 11, 177 kbps
3G HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
WLAN Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology
Bluetooth Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port Yes
USB Yes, v2.0 microUSB
Features OS Symbian OS 9.3, S60 rel. 3.2
Messaging SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS reader
Games Downloadable
Colors Black
Camera 5 MP, 2592×1944 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, video(VGA 30fps), flash; secondary VGA videocall camera
- Built-in GPS receiver
- A-GPS function
- DVB-H TV broadcast receiver
- Dual slide design
- Java MIDP 2.0
- MP3/AAC/AAC+/eAAC+/WMA player
- 3.5 mm audio output jack
- TV out
- Stereo FM Radio with RDS
- Organizer
- Office document viewer
- T9
- Push to talk
- Voice dial/memo
- Built-in handsfree
Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion 950 mAh (BL-5F)
Stand-by Up to 220 h
Talk time Up to 3 h 40 min
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