Here is the long awaited Nokia N95 8GB review. At first we want to thank WOM World for the chance of trialling the Nokia N95 8GB.

The Nokia N95 8GB is the successor of the really popular N95-1. The main changes are the bigger screen and the stronger battery. However, how is the built quality and multimedia abilities of the black Multimedia Computer? What are the advantages and the disadvantages? This review will find it out.

Sales package:

The N95 8GB comes in a dark, grey box which looks similar to the box of the N95 and every other Nseries box. On the front you can see the N95 8GB, the Nokia Nseries logo and the Carl Zeiss Optics logo. The back shows three images of the N95 8GB, the key features and some trademarks. After opening the box you can see the N95 8GB behind a plasticshell that you maybe know from the N95 or the N82.

The box has two floors like every other Nseries box. In the first floor you can find the N95 8GB (RM-320) itself, the battery with 1200 mAh and the stereo headset with its remote control. The second floor contains the “get started”-manual and the normal manual, a little box with an DVD in it, the charger, micro-USB cable and a TV-out-cable.

• N95 8GB Multimedia Computer (RM-320)
• Stereo headset (HS-45)
• Remote control (AD-54)
• Battery with 1200 mAh (BL-6F)
• Charger (AC-5E)
• TV-out-cable (CA-75U)
• MicroUSB cable (DKE-2)
• DVD
• Manual
• “Get started”-maual

Built quality:

After opening the box you can see the N95 8GB with its of the screen dominated front. The front is made of neat piano black lack which looks pretty cool. The back and the sites are a kind of mat black with soft-touch coating. Although the N95 8GB is made mainly out of plastic which transmit style and luxus. The gaps between each components are rather small and well built.

However the back and especially the whole front of the N95 8GB aren’t really protected against fingerprints and so you have to clean the N95 8GB at least once a day. Despite of its size it feels rather good in your hand and especially when you open the N95 8GB. The slider works good and isn’t wobbly. On the back of the device you can find the unprotected 5 megapixel camera and the LED. As you can see, the Carl Zeiss lens isn’t protected against scratches or dust which really disappoints me.

There are no more gaps, where the light of the display and the keypad shines through, between the sides of the slider like in the N95-1.

Keys:

In closed mode you can find 13 keys right under the 2.8″ display. These are arced, pretty big and have a great pressure point. These keys are:

• Left soft key
• Right soft key
• Green answer-key
• Red end-key
• Clear key
• Menu key
• Pen key
• “The Anssi Key” – Multimedia key
• Up on the d-pad
• Down on the d-pad
• Left on the d-pad
• Right on the d-pad
• OK, the middle of the d-pad

After opening the slider you can find the numeric keypad. These keys are due to its concavity good to use. More over, they are pretty soft and have a great pressure point.

However, there is remaining spare to enlarge the keys but all in all they are good to use.

On the right hand site of the device you can find the volume key, gallery key and finally the capture button. The volume key is to change the volume up and down and to zoom in and out. The gallery button, I really like, is to jump immediately to the picture/video last taken. The capture button is to get into the camera mode. More over this button is to focus and to capture a picture or video. All these chromed keys are good to use and have a good pressure point.

On the top you can find the S60 typical power button. This button has three functions.

1. Turning on the device
2. Switching off the device
3. Choosing a profile (eg. “Outdoor”)

The Nokia N95 8GB is Nokia’s second device with dualslider. This means, that you can slide the N95 8GB in two ways. Once you slide the N95 8GB down, you can see the four dedicated multimedia keys for controlling music and videos. Using the four multimedia keys you can start, pause, stop, re- and prewine the track or video. The keys are blistered and have a pretty good pressure point. More over, the display change from portrait into landscape mode when you slide it down.

If you slide it up, you access the normal keypad with the numbers 0-9, * and # to write a message, e-mail or type in somebody´s phone number.

Size:

The N95 8GB weights 128g and is so heavier than other devices like the N82 or N78. More over, its dimensions are: 99 x 53 x 21 mm . However, if you bear in mind its 2.8” display and the amount of features the N95 8GB is offering this size is acceptable. Nevertheless, you will always notice the N95 8GB in your pocket.

Multimedia:

The N95 8GB offers 8GB of storage. So you can save about 2000 songs or record hours of VGA videos. The 8GB are divided in two places – phone and mass memory. However, if 8GB are to less for you, you can’t insert a memory card, what I don’t like.

The N95 8GB displays pictures, videos and other stuff on the 2.8″ screen with 16.7 million colours on the QVGA (320×240 pixels) screen. More over, the display is pretty bright but not with so strong colours as the N81 or N82 have.

Camera:

One of N95 8GB’s highlights is the 5 megapixel camera (2592 x 1944 pixels) with a Carl Zeiss lens and autofocus. It offers a LED which lights up the pictures in a certain distance of 2 meters. Here you can find some sample pictures I took with the N95 8GB.

The N95 8GB is almost a real camera and so you have a bunch of preferences. To open the camera-mode, just press the capture button for three seconds. Once you´ve pressed the button for three seconds, the camera-mode opens, and you can see the motive you want to capture and a toolbar. In this toolbar you can find 12 icons – switching from camera to video mode and back, scene modes, flash mode, self timer, sequence mode, colour tone, viewfinder grid, white balance,exposure compensation, sharpness, contrast, light sensivitiy (ISO).

The icon “scene mode” offers you seven pre-defined modes – auto, close-up, portrait, landscape, sports, night, night portrait. Furthermore, you can create your own mode and adjust and keep your favourite settings. So you always have the right mode for a certain moment. The close-up mode for example is the best mode to capture intricate detail of small objects.

Of course you can zoom to enlarge the motive, but you have to bear in mind that the digital zoom affects the picture quality. After you chose the right mode, just press the capture button and within 7 seconds the picture is saved. Now you can upload the picture immediately to flickr, VOX or send it via Bluetooth, E-mail or MMS.

The N95 8GB can record videos as well. With almost full DVD quality, 640×480 and 30 frames per seconds, the taken video is pretty good. To record a video just switch into camera-mode and choose video mode. To improve the video-quality, you can choose between various modes. For example colour tones like sepia or negative, white balance like sunny or cloudy and finally scene modes like auto or night.

One minute of taken video needs about 20MB of memory. However, the video quality is pretty good – sharp and with good sound. Using the TV-Out cable you can watch the recorded videos on a huge TV. You can resize the video quality if you want to send the video immediately from the device via Email or MMS. Jump over to see some videos taken with 640×480 pixels.

Music:

Nseries, and especially the N95 8GB with its dedicated multimidea keys, means multimedia and what is a multimedia device without a good music player? Nothing! Therefore the N95 8GB has the new version of the music player preinstalled.

It’s divided into Music and Podcast. In the folder “Music” you can find 6 other folders like All songs or Albums.

The N95 8GB has a 3.5mm jack, thus you can use also your favorite headphones. The music quality with the provided headset is good but if you use other headsets e.g. an Apple headset, the music quality is much better. Just like on your Computer you can create easily own playlists of all your favorite music on your N95 8GB.

To improve the music quality, you have an equaliser with 6 modes – Default, Bass booster, Classical, Jazz, Pop and Rock.

Furthermore you can change the look of the current song. You can choose between four visualizations – album art, circles, oscilloscope and spectrum. Album art just shows the album cover, provided that you have it on your device, the other three showing cool animations.

The music player supports following audiofiles: AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, MP3, MP4, M4A, WMA, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, Mobile XMF, SP-MIDI, MIDI Tones (poly 64), RealAudio 7,8,10, True tones and WAV.

Connectivity:

The multimedia computer offers many ways to go online and search the web to you. Execpt Wi-Fi (802.11b/g, 54 MBit/s), it’s also offering HSDPA, 3G, GPRS and EDGE. Other connectivity ways are GPS, IRDA, Bluetooth and micro-USB. In the test the connection with the Computer and the PC Suite worked well via Bluetooth or the USB-Cable. Connections to an external bluetooth keyboard like the SU-8W or an other mobile phone like the N82 or the N95 are no problem. The bluetooth is fast and there are no connections-abruptions. With the built-in W-Lan you can go online everywhere, where you can find a W-Lan router.
Of course you can receive your e-mails with this phone, over w-lan or your provider. Setting it up for your e-mail account is done very easily with the preinstalled setting wizard.

The webbrowser is very fast and well arranged. You can download applications for your N95 8GB directly over the webbrowser and install them.

The GPS tells you your position and so you can find your way without an external GPS in your car or something. The sat-fix is very fast and to create a new route is no problem. You can also let the N95 8GB show your actual position as coordinates with “GPS Data”. The accuracy of the GPS is ok, but not perfect.

As you can see the N95 8GB offers you every way of connecting to the world around you.

Verdict:

The Nokia N95 8GB definitely deserves the name “Multimedia Computer”, it is a great phone with everything you need: A phone, a digital camera, a music player, wireless lan and of course the office abilities.

It is one of the phones with the most features on the market. No other phone has such a good transition between multimedia and business. Well, indeed it is bigger than other phones but all in all it is a great device which offers you everything you need.

This review is by Norman John and Christian Titze. Due to we both had the opportunity to play around with the N95 8GB we both put together this review. Thanks to the whole WOM World team!

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