About a year ago Nokia released a tech-freak's dream of a handset offering a mouthwatering horde of features in a fairly compact size. The omnipresent N95 spawned a successor and now the question is how much better can it get. Nokia N95 8GB sure has good genes but there still seems to be enough room for improvement. At first glance, Nokia has heeded user complaints with the original and addressed them properly. However, we are yet to see if the enhancements are enough to make the N95 8GB the definitive upgrade from the previous model or is it about laurel-resting mostly.
Key features
2.8" 16M color QVGA display
5 megapixel camera with auto focus and Carl Zeiss optics
Massive storage capacity and increased RAM
Wi-Fi with UPnP technology
Built-in GPS receiver and A-GPS functionality
Nokia maps application covering over 100 countries worldwide
Dual-slide design with dedicated multimedia keys
Standard 3.5mm audio jack
3G (with HSDPA), EDGE and GPRS support
Symbian OS 9.2 Series 60 3rd edition Feature Pack 1 user interface
TV-out functionality
1200 mAh battery
Main disadvantages
No camera lens protector
No RDS system for the FM radio
Below average GPS performance, no 3rd party apps support
Extra charges for voice assisted navigation
Cannot edit office documents
No card slot
Doesn't charge when connected to USB
Only recently did we notice the N95-1 label on our original Nokia N95 box. It seems that Nokia have had plans for expanding the N95 family even in those early days. Now in order to clear up terms here, we are just making a remark that currently the 8GB version of Nokia N95 that we are reviewing here is called N95-2, while the American version supporting the US 3G bands, is known as N95-3.
Reviewing the N95-2 today makes it seem that our task has become a little bit more complicated. In addition to the usual in-depth review, we will try to highlight how Nokia N95 8GB performs in comparison to the original Nokia N95. The differences in specs seem about enough to justify the extra cost, so performance might just push the users' choice this way or the other. Plus, it is quite difficult to compare Nokia N95 8GB to any existing model on the market. After all, there is no other device to even come close to N95 8GB in terms of the features offered and the size of the package they come in. The HTC TyTN II has similar functionality, with a QWERTY keyboard on top, but it weighs the considerable 62g more. The Sony Ericsson W960 is probably the closest competitor, swapping GPS functionality for touchscreen. However, the UIQ interface of the Symbian OS is not even as nearly enjoyable as the Series 60.
So, back to comparing N95 and N95 8GB, we start with the hardware differences of these two handsets. The Nokia N95 8GB has a larger screen, and in reality the 0.2" do make a difference. The display truly looks larger than you might guess. The QVGA resolution stays the same and is adequate for providing great picture quality, especially when combined with the 16.7 million color support. Other benefits of Nokia N95 8GB over its predecessor is the doubled RAM, which makes the phone faster, even with more applications running in background. The card slot however has been ditched and this might seem perfectly coherent with the 8GB of storage space provided. On the other hand, a card slot can be very useful as a file transfer medium. Though not so frequently used, it's worth having data transfer options. Another advantage of Nokia N95 8GB is the notably better battery life. Short battery life was probably the most criticized feature of the original N95, some heavy users reporting to have been forced to recharge a few times a day. Now, with the 1200 mAh and the demand-paging feature enabled, the Nokia N95 8GB is a real step up. The fact that only the most essential parts of the programs are loaded in the RAM memory with the rest remaining on the mass or phone memory until it is needed reduces the memory-needs of the phone and therefore increase the battery life. However, it is not all milk and honey for the Nokia N95-2. The spoon of tar is the removed camera lens cover. The newly released phone relies only on a slight recess for camera lens protection from dirt and smudgy fingers.
Box of goodies
The retail package of Nokia N95 8GB is brimming with stuff, but well, one gets to expect that with a price tag like this. Starting with the wiring, there are a USB and a TV cable.. The best DC charger produced by Nokia to date - the AC-5 model is also included. The two part music headset consists of a remote adapter and a pair of reasonably attractive headphones. The adapter is far more stylish than what came with Nokia N95 and holds more dedicated music keys. Finally, there is a whole bunch of manuals in the rather large box of N95 8GB. These include a user manual, a quick start guide and a couple of leaflets highlighting some of the handset's content sharing features. Unluckily, a leather case similar to the one we found in the N95-1 was not present with the N95 8GB.
Black nugget
Nokia N95 8GB measures 99 x 53 x 21 mm, which is exactly the same as Nokia N95-1. The volume is increased from 90 to 95 cc though due to the wider front of the slider. It now covers the rear from edge to edge, in contrast to the previous model. The weight has also been increased by 8 grams to a total of 128. It's not exactly a small and neat handset, but it's still pocketable when closed. You might as well consider purchasing a carrying case anyway. The build quality seems a bit better with the N95 8GB for the short time we spent with it. By the way, we were pleased with the build quality of the original N95 too, except for the paint peeling off on some devices. Anyway, the black paint N95 8GB seems of better quality and we find it very unlikely to cause problems. The slider mechanism is smooth and easily handled, producing satisfying clicks when locking in any of the three positions. An improvement by all means. The only disadvantage we noticed is the fingerprint susceptibility of the shiny black plastic of the front panel. These are not easy to see though, visible only from a certain angle, but still aren't the most pleasant thing to look at.
The video-call camera, the light sensor and the earpiece are to be found at the top of the front. Right below them is the 2.8" display, which will be described a little later. The keys under the display are a little bit crammed up as compared to N95-1 but still feature the D-pad, two selection keys, Menu key, Multimedia key, Pencil key, Clear key and, finally, the Call and End keys. The Menu and Multimedia keys are almost halved in size compared to the original N95, but this doesn't affect their usability at all. All the keys are large enough and easily distinguishable so wrong presses are unlikely. The D-pad is very comfortable and the confirming center is easy to press.
Moving the slider down reveals the dedicated music keys. They are more comfortable to use in comparison to Nokia N95-1, providing more tactile feedback. When the phone is held horizontally the screen automatically rotates to landscape mode.
Sliding the upper part down no longer starts the multimedia menu automatically, which we find to be a good decision. The other way around was more of a nuisance, honestly.
When the phone is slid up the keypad is revealed. It hasn't undergone any changes in the 8GB version and, frankly, it doesn't need them. The keys are placed in slightly arching rows, with enough headroom making the top row no problem to access. Texters probably won't frown at the keypad but still the alphanumeric buttons could've been a little more tactile. The terraced keypad of Nokia 5700 comes to mind immediately but if you're not into writing tons of messages you probably will be perfectly happy with Nokia N95 8GB, too.
We move on to the top of the phone to find the Power key. Its metal-like framing is a nice touch in our opinion.
On the left side of Nokia N95 8GB we find one of the stereo speakers, the 3.5mm audio jack and the Infrared port. Nokia N95-1 used to have a card slot on this side too but, as we already mentioned, the feature is missing in this handset.
Jumping to the right side, we see the other stereo speaker grill, positioned right above the volume rocker. Near the bottom are the dedicated camera keys: a two-stage capture key and the Review key. The latter is used for accessing the last stored photo or video clip. This basically completes the list of controls on Nokia N95 8GB.
At the bottom of the handset we see four apertures - the charger plug and the microphone pinhole are positioned to the right. The miniUSB slot follows dead center and, finally, the neck/wrist strap eyelet.
The battery cover is easily opened to reveal the BL-6F Nokia battery. The manufacturer promises up to 280 hours of standby time and up to 6 hours of talk time. In reality, it will last for about 36 to 48 hours under heavy usage - (45 minutes of talking and about 2-3 hours of using the different phone functions a day). Heavy duty usage is what matters here, as being used for occasional calls only is simply not Nokia N95 8GB's cup of tea. If we must compare the battery performance against the original N95, we would call it a 50 to 60 % improvement, even though the nominal capacity has grown by less than a third. Under the battery is the SIM card slot, which has a nice lock mechanism.
Nokia N95 8GB feels great to hold and operating it with one hand is no problem at all. The slider will cause you no trouble, it will move upon but a flip of your thumb. Overall, the handset is a solid and very user-friendly slider.
Finally, we get to the backlighting of Nokia N95 8GB. It is just as even as in N95-1 but, this time the keys are illuminated in white instead of blue, which makes the handset easier to operate in the dark. The backlighting is also strong enough to make sure all controls are easy to use.
Display to brag about
Screenwise the N95-2 is undoubtedly in its element. The display has a 2.8" diagonal and offers striking image quality and unmatched sunlight legibility. This one is definitely among the best examples in the field. Apart from the fingerprint susceptibility, there is hardly anything to criticize about this display. The picture quality seems a little better than the one of the original N95 but the difference is so small you'll need to look at quite a number of images on both displays simultaneously to notice it. The increased size however does make a difference even if 0.2" sounds like an insignificant figure.
Telephony of great quality
Nokia N95 8GB's signal reception is just what you would expect from a Nokia high-end phone - simply flawless. The loudspeakers are also good and because of their position they are almost impossible to muffle, no matter if you have the phone in your pocket or on a desk. The vibration of the phone is also strong enough to make sure you never miss an incoming call or message. The phone offers brilliant speaker quality and the sound during calls is very clear and without any interferences.
Pure Smart
Nokia N95 8GB runs on Symbian 9.2 OS with the Series60 3rd Edition user interface. The added feature pack 1 is no news for Nokia smartphones any more but still deserves mentioning. Demand paging is also included in this handset, although it is normally not to be expected in phones with OS prior to Symbian 9.3. This means that only the most essential parts of the program are loaded in the RAM memory with the rest of it remaining on the phone or mass memory. Then they are only loaded if their use is required. The 128MB of RAM is also an important factor to OS performance. In reality, 128MB is virtually impossible to deplete no matter how hard you try. Unless you do it intentionally, Memory Full warnings are not something you can expect on the Nokia N95 8GB screen.
The phone's main menu has only two different view modes. They are both well known: a 4 x 3 grid of icons and a list. In addition you can choose whether you prefer your icons animated or not. Although we have Feature pack 1 in Nokia N95 8GB, the V-shape and Horseshoe views are not available. As mentioned, navigating the menus is fast with instant response to key presses and no delays. It is important to also note that all screens of the user interface, including the stand-by screen, can be displayed in both portrait and landscape mode depending on the user preference. The screen rotation is also faster than with N95-1 or otherwise said - almost instant. Nokia hasn't included any animation for the screen rotation - as seen in Apple iPhone - the screen just fades out and pops back up in the desired mode.
The blue circle next to the icon of a running application is a well known Symbian indication reminding users to quit unwanted applications that are still running in the background. Luckily, the days when there was only a single alarm slot and the voice recorder was limited to a miserly minute are now long gone.
The active stand-by display is naturally also present with Nokia N95 8GB. This is a nice and convenient way to bring shortcuts to all your favorite applications to your home screen. You can even assign shortcuts to websites of your choice for quicker access. The two soft keys functions can also vary. As the standard keypad lock pattern is a quick successive pressing of the left and right selection keys, when the left one is pressed it will wait for about a second before acting as assigned to see if a lock command is to follow. Otherwise, key-lock is automatically on when the slider is closed and turns off when the phone is slid open in any of the directions.
The built-in memory (that's on top of the 8GB gross) is 133MB, which is a considerable figure but you probably will never use it, as accessing applications or any other files from the Mass memory doesn't seem to be any slower.
The multimedia menu is a focal item in Nokia N95 8GB. It is launched by pressing the dedicated key and provides quick access to the multimedia features of the handset. It is identical to the one found on Nokia N81, with icons sorted thematically. They appear as drop-down menus when the respective tab is selected. If you find the menu layout unsuitable, you can freely rearrange icons until you're pleased with the result.
As with any Symbian phone, there is a built-in voice recognition system. It is doing a great job, being fully speaker-independent and recognizing a remarkably high percentage of the given commands.
Nseries Themes
There are only four preinstalled themes on Nokia N95 8GB, all of which are named Nseries. The rest is left to the imagination of the user, as you can download as many other themes as you wish. If you find it necessary to do so that is, as we personally find the preloaded themes quite nice.
Phonebook Premium
You know our opinion of Smartphones phonebooks - they are simply great. The one on Nokia N95 8GB makes no exception. It will store a virtually unlimited number of contacts and fields, all the available memory potentially usable for contacts. Good luck trying to use it up. Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name and can naturally be searched by gradual typing of any of their names.
Editing a contact offers an enormous variety of preset fields and you can replicate each of them as many times as you like. You can also create new fields if you happen to be able to think of one. We personally find it difficult to think of something Nokia has missed here. Personal ringtones and video are also available for assigning. If you prefer you may group your contacts and give a specific ringtone to each group.
The Call log application, although not exactly a part of the phonebook, is also one of Nokia N95 8GB's strengths. It can hold up to 20 call records in each of the tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls. These are all accessed with the Call key from the stand-by menu. If you enter the Log application from the main menu, you'll see a detailed list of all your network communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data transfers. The period can be shortened in order to save some space but you are quite unlikely to do that, as even with a huge number of calls the log only takes a few miserly kilobytes of memory space.
Messaging Unlimited
If you are the texting kind, Nokia N95 8GB will give you no reason to grudge. With the comfortable keypad, typing comes nice and easy and, not before long, you'll be going at full speed with your messages. Besides, in terms of software the phone is performing even better.
There are four different message editors - one for each type of available message: SMS, MMS, audio message and e-mail. The SMS editor is the well know intuitive application for all Symbian S60 smartphones. It has a counter of the characters left to the limit of 160. There is also an indicator in brackets showing the number of separate parts the message will be divided into for sending. It goes without saying that a delivery report can be activated. The reports pop up on the standby screen when the keypad is unlocked, and are subsequently saved in a separate folder in the messaging sub-menu. When you are exiting the message editor without having sent the message, the editor prompts saving it to the Drafts folder or deleting it.
The MMS editor is virtually the same as the one we just described, with the added subject line being the only difference.
Now, the audio message is technically also an MMS but obviously it is more important for people at Nokia and they have created a separate editor for it. The editor can either record the message right away or use a previously recorded sound clip.
The email client won't surprise anyone who has ever used a Symbian powered phone. It can download headers only, as well as the whole messages. There is also support for attachments, so Nokia N95 8GB can meet almost any requirement regarding the user emailing needs.
Music player: No innovations
The music player is one of the few departments where Nokia N95 8GB could've been better. Well, the dedicated music keys make a point, but they aren't really that vital. Controlling it with the D-pad is just as easy and doesn't even need sliding the phone open. Don't get us wrong, it's a really nice and easy to use application but nothing unseen in tons of other phones. Typical Nokia, a huge number of audio formats including MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA, are supported. The M3U playlists are also managed flawlessly and files are added to the music library by simply choosing the refresh option. Sorting your songs by artist, album, genre and composer is automatic and searching tracks by gradual typing is also available. Transferring tracks to Nokia N95 8GB can be achieved via Bluetooth, USB or by simply downloading them from the internet. Upon completing a USB transfer, the phone automatically prompts scanning for new music tracks and, if allowed to do so, adds the new ones to the music library.
The player comes with five equalizer presets, which is a good count by any means. If it still seems insufficient, you can edit them or create new ones in a matter of seconds. In contrast to Nokia N81, the music player of Nokia N95 8GB can be switched off when it is not needed.
At the movies
Nokia N95 8GB features Real player for playing your video clips. The video player can be displayed in both portrait and landscape mode and can be switched to fullscreen. As you might have guessed, watching a video clip on a screen this large is a really enjoyable experience. When in full screen, the softkey functions are hidden so that they don't spoil the viewing experience and only pop up when a key is pressed. Topped with the great display quality and the generous storage this adds up to superb performance by Nokia N95 8GB in the video player department.
The handset also has a Flash player preinstalled but there is nothing much we can say about it. It does a job, no bangs and whistles.
If you get bored with the content on your Nokia N95 8GB, you can always turn the radio on for a break. The FM radio can automatically scan and save the available stations in your area. If internet connection is available the Visual radio application can download all the stations in your area and save them to the handset with their names. We would have preferred RDS support, though not having it isn't really that much of a disappointment.
Gallery in three dimensions
The gallery of Nokia N95 8GB is a great application. Not that we expected otherwise, as we're dealing with an N-series Nokia. The 3D rotating view looks really nice, but we have to admit we kind of miss the Navi wheel functionality of Nokia N81. Not for the superior functionality, it's just cool to use. Otherwise, no changes are to be seen here in terms of features - pictures can be viewed in both portrait and landscape mode and zoomed in up to 8x. Overall, picture browsing and zooming is fast but, not nearly as much as the recently reviewed Sony Ericsson W910.
The gallery also offers a nice slide show with customizable settings, including automatic browsing and playing a pre-defined track from your phone.
The gallery has a great file-management functionality, allowing selecting and sending of multiple files at a time. Basically it covers some of the functionality of the file manager, which is present too. Finally, there is an application manager to take care of the installed applications on Nokia N95 8GB. Not much to talk about here, as it is identical to the one in any other Symbian device. Its functionality boils down to providing details about installed applications, removing them and keeping a log of movements in both directions.
The useful "Search" application is also present in Nokia N95 8GB. This time it also has a reserved line in the active stand-by menu. The application itself finds almost every item in your Nokia containing a given keyword. From messages to settings, every bit of data is checked and then all results are shown.
5 megapixel wonder
There is not much to say about the camera of Nokia N95 8GB. No, nobody said common-or-garden, it's just that it's almost identical to the one in Nokia N95-1. We have talked a lot about the quality of this particular camera and if you have been keeping track, you would know that it's the best camera in a phone to date. Period. Yeah, we know that Samsung released a 10 megapixel phone in Korea a long time ago, but good luck calling your mates on it.
The most obvious and important difference between the original N95 and N95 8GB is the camera lens protector. It is removed from the 8GB model, and therefore the camera is activated by pressing and holding the shutter key. The obvious drawback of having your camera lens exposed to scratches needs no further comment. The camera set up time has improved a lot over the previous model, and now the camera can be started in a little less than three seconds. This beats the Nokia N95-1 time by about a second. With Nokia N95 8GB the shot-to-shot time can also be reduced to under three seconds, if the automatic preview is turned off. Nokia have been improving ever since the initial firmware of Nokia N95-1 was released, and now they have finally achieved a solid result. However the 5-megapixel Sony Ericsson K850 is just a tad snappier than the N95 8GB when it comes to shot-to-shot time.
The user interface is the same as in N95-1 and offers the same extensive settings - starting from manual white balance and ISO sensitivity and including exposure compensation, sharpness and contrast settings, as well as various effects, which are labeled color tones. The innovation is the addition of a gridline that can be applied to the viewfinder. They may assist you in framing you photos, adhering to the photographic rule-of-thirds. Using it to align your subjects and place points of interest on or near the lines and their intersecting points makes your photos more professional and aesthetic. The rule-of-thirds also applies to landscape shots. For example, the sky should take either one third or two thirds of the frame, instead of placing the horizon in the center. The sequence mode and self-timer are no news. The LED flash can be set in four ways: automatic, always on, red-eye reduction and always off. An interesting change in comparison to N95-1 is the displaying of tooltips in small font (for example, a Processing Image tag displays right after pressing the shutter key).
The picture quality is great. It's the best you can find on the market, which is kind of surprising. After all Nokia N95 and Nokia N95 8GB are supposed to be all-in-one devices and it's strange that they outperform even dedicated cameraphones. The only thing to blame N95 about is the inadequate LED flash. It is only usable at a very short distance and pictures produced with it are surely no compliment to N95 8GB. However we will be looking forward to reviewing the Nokia N82 which takes care of that flaw, too. Here are some sample pictures made with the camera of our Nokia N95 8GB.
You can also have a look at the camera review of the original N95 and the shootout with the Sony Ericsson ultimate cameraphone K850. It seems that since there was no high pressure from the competitors Nokia did nothing to change the camera of N95 and used the same model in its successor. We are yet to see if the recently announced Nokia N82 will bring any improvements in this aspect. Also, be on the lookout for another shootout with some more exciting recently released 5 megapixel cameraphones.
The secondary camera can also be used for taking pictures. It is quickly accessed through the camera interface and can be used as a quick and convenient way to make self-portraits or contact images. It is also capable of recording video but it is hard to imagine that the clips it will produce will be usable in any way.
Recording DVD
The video recording of Nokia N95 8GB is widely advertised by the Finland-based manufacturer as having DVD-like quality. What they mean by DVD quality is immensely subjective but the videos recorded with this handset surely turn out great. The phone captures video at VGA resolution at 30 frames per second, which is way beyond the skills of the competitors except for the 5-megapixel LG KU990 Viewty. Videos are captured in MPEG-4 format and have automatic or manual white balance, according to the user's preferences. The other available features are night mode and color effects. The only thing you have to be careful about is not to run out of memory because videos of this quality fill up your free space much faster than you might guess - a minute of video capture takes about 20MB of memory. Still more than 6 hours of video can be recorded, provided that the mass memory of you Nokia N95 8GB is completely empty, which is quite a remarkable achievement if you ask us.
Connecting people
Transferring data is what Nokia N95 8GB really loves to do. Just name the data transfer medium and you can be certain that this handset supports it. USB v2.0 and Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP profile support just start the count. All kinds of network connectivity are also supported - from HSCSD, through GPRS and EDGE to 3G with HSDPA support - Nokia N95 8GB has it all. To complete the wireless communication tally, Wi-Fi with UPnP support and an Infrared port are also on board. The only missing interface is the card slot, as we did mention. Anyway, we highly doubt it there will be a situation when you won't be able to transfer the needed data from or to your N95 8GB. Another side of the question is the speed at which data transfers occur. You will need a few hours if you want to fill up the entire storage at once.
Ultimate browsing experience
Browsing the internet with Nokia N95 8GB is a pleasure. No matter how elaborate the web page, it fits perfectly on the screen and looks almost exactly like on a PC. The virtual mouse cursor takes browsing another level up. It is easy to control and generally works great. A mini-map can be activated to help navigating your way around large sites where lots of scrolling is required. The zoom level is also adjustable at the expense of only a few key presses.
The doubled amount of RAM is surely one of the best things that could happen to the browser, as it is one of the most RAM-demanding applications indeed. Now, even if you load very heavy web pages and have a few applications running in the background, you are extremely unlikely to run out of RAM. Naturally, java objects are also handled with ease. The 2.8" display is also a very important feature when talking about web browsing as it makes even the smallest font readable. The web browsing experience is second only to the one of the Apple iPhone.
Organizer Extreme
The time-management skills of Nokia N95 8GB are really top-notch. Just name the application and you can count on it that the handset has it. We start the exploration of the large application package with the calendar. It has three different types of view - monthly, weekly and daily, and four types of events available for setting up - Meeting, Memo, Anniversary and To-do. Every event has its own unique fields, some of which allow an alarm to be activated at a preset time to act as a reminder.
The Lifeblog application automatically collects your images, videos, texts and multimedia messages, sounds and blog posts in diary-like style. It then allows easy browsing, sharing, storing and searching of theses items.
The mobile office is also very well presented, with preinstalled applications able to open Word and Excel files seamlessly. Unluckily editing documents is not supported by the included version of the Quickoffice. If you would like to be able to edit these files you will have to purchase the complete application from the Nokia Download center. PDF reader is also included and a ZIP manager allows extracting archived files straight from your phone.
The other included organizing and time-management applications are: a state-of-the-art unit converter, calculator and voice recorder, as well as a Notes application. We are not going to get into detail with them, as their functionality and performance are familiar enough.
N-gage reloaded
Nokia N95 8GB comes with two preinstalled games. Both of them are based on the new N-gage platform and even though they are demo versions, playing them is a nice experience. In all fairness, we faced some difficulties with the controls of FIFA 2007, which didn't seem properly chosen. We do miss the two dedicated gaming keys of Nokia N81 but anyway, let's wait for the official launch of the N-gage gaming site. There surely will be a larger number of games to choose from in place of the FIFA 2007 and Asphalt 3 Street rules. If you miss the games played on the old N95 you can always go to Nokia download center and get them for free. Neither the Snake, nor the System Rush game differ from the versions we saw in N95-1.
Finding your way around
Nokia N95 8GB, like the original N95, has a built-in GPS receiver. There is no official info regarding the chipset used, but rumor has it it's a SiRF Star II. Pity kind of, as the more capable SiRF Star III would have suited Nokia's top performer better. The SiRF Star II chipset is still able to cater to the usual user needs, providing information so precise that you won't notice the difference on most occasions. Unluckily, the problem with the slow initial satellite lock is still pending. The phone needs quite some time to find you initial position, especially if you start it when you are in a moving vehicle.
The built-in GPS receiver works with the Nokia Maps application, which is one of the software applications to offer the most detailed maps. Furthermore, it is free and relatively easy to use. Well, at least the basic information is free, because charges apply to the voice guidance and turn-by-turn navigation. You only get a three-day trial that goes with the new version of the Nokia Maps application, so you can see if the voice navigation is worth the extra dime. Regardless of whether you do or don't have voice navigation, Nokia Maps has support for Assisted GPS, which facilitates and speeds up the initial satellite lock.
The main downside of the GPS receiver however has nothing to do with its sensitivity. It lays in its incompatibility with 3rd party applications. In other words: if you want to make use of the built-in receiver you have to rely on Nokia maps. In case you want to go for another software solution you will have to purchase an external Bluetooth GPS receiver. This is not a very customer-friendly solution by Nokia at all. After all, the owners of Nokia N95 8GB paid good money for their phones and it would be nice if they can make full use of their capabilities instead of being limited to Nokia-developed software only.
So, leaving our frustration aside, we have to admit that the application itself is not that bad and has very decent looks. Furthermore, its route planning algorithm can be easily customized according to the user's preferences. Toll roads and motorways can be avoided and so can be tunnels and ferries. The route selection can be set to either fastest or shortest. The program can also be used for pedestrian navigation or you can switch the GPS receiver off to use as a substitute for your paper map.
The overall impression of using the Nokia N95 8GB as a GPS navigation system is positive but we would once again point out that putting in a better GPS chipset and making it available for 3rd party applications would have made it perfect. Still, if you don't have your expectations too high you might find Nokia N95 8GB's GPS just right for your needs.
Final words
Sounds like it's the time for the scale-like motion with a N95 handset in each hand? After digging deep in that comparison, it now seems that an upgrade from N95 to N95 8GB is a really viable option. The 8GB is by all means no revolution, it's not like the original N95 owners will wake up to a brave new world. However, some of the most common (and probably most annoying) issues of Nokia N95-1 have been addressed and it's a real step forward for Nokia. So, if you have an original N95 and some of its flaws are really getting on you, look no further - N95 8GB is the cure. As for the other mobile phone owners, we would say that buying a Nokia N95 8GB is a decision you are very unlikely to regret. After all, there is hardly any feature that this handset doesn't have. If you think you can live without a camera lens cover and want to own a real all-in-one device - Nokia N95 8GB is your obvious choice. The N95 is also the cameraphone lovers stuff for matching superb photo/video quality with heaps of storage space.
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