Nokia N95

From Nick Jenkins
Revision as of 13:17, 12 January 2009 by Nickj (Talk | contribs)

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Links to N95 apps

apps to try

N95 likes

I'm coming from a very old phone before this, so I'm easily impressed:

  • It has a real browser.
  • It can run SSH.
  • It has wifi.
  • It runs fine with no SIM card inserted.
  • It has a decent camera (5 MP).
  • Inbuilt stereo speakers.

N95 dislikes

  • The battery life is very short - you have to charge it every night.
  • The phone should be able to update its firmware over the internet. It has Wifi, it has TCP/IP, it has a real browser, it can download directly from web sites, it has several gigabytes of spare space, so why do I need a Windows computer to update? Instead it should let the user check for an update, which connects to Nokia, tells the user if an update is available and asks if they want to proceed, then downloads the right installer, and updates the firmware, all without requiring a PC. Note: this seems to have been added to the N96 (the N95's successor) and is known as "Firmware Over the Air".
  • I can't use the inbuilt FM radio without a SIM card in the phone. Huh? Since when does an FM radio require a SIM card?
  • You have to pay for turn-by-turn voice navigation on the N95. You can download the maps and even the audio data for free from the inbuilt mapping application, but the voice navigation won't work unless you have a subscription. This is a bit of a bait-and-switch because GPS was one of the key features of this phone, and GPS in a phone is only really made useful with turn-by-turn voice navigation. Furthermore, generally other personal GPS devices have no ongoing usage costs (apart from for updates to later map versions) - so when you say the phone has GPS, the standard assumption is that it will also have turn-by-turn voice navigation. In my personal opinion, turn-by-turn voice navigation really should be included with the phone out-of-the-box ... but then it would have competed with the Nokia 6110 navigator, and we couldn't have that!
  • Fring is unreliable and flakey with both ICQ and Skype. Probably more a fring problem than an N95 problem.