Nokia N95 one year on - An assessment (Part 1)

Whilst rifling through my things yesterday, trying desperately to find some misplaced tickets, I stumbled upon my N95 documentation. Much to my surprise I discovered that today, "3rd April", is a year to the day since I first purchased the N95. I remember reading a preview of it in the Gadget Porn magazine Stuff, (it could have been T3), at the tail end of the previous year. Immediately I lusted after it as a replacement for my Sony K750i.

Without signing up to some ridiculous contract, I knew that I wanted one as soon as possible after it came out. I didn't expect it to take quite as long for it to emerge. I knew it would be a special phone, but I didn't quite realise it would change the way I use technology, and how much. The marketing term "Its what computers have become" was more than just marketing.

So looking at its features and how I've used them

Phoning

The obvious one, but it wasn't actually explained how to make a phone call until Page 93 of the manual (something at the time I described in a forum as the N95s hidden feature). I honestly probably make phone calls the least. I don't use VoIP (but don't have many foreign contacts or anything that might make me want to do this). I've never used Video calls and I'm not sure that I can try Push to Talk, nor have I ever heard of anyone doing so. I've made my own ring tones, assigned personal ring tones and played with the 3D settings etc.


Features 10/10 (not sure what else I would want)
Usage 4/10 (Indispensable but not used as much as other things)

Texting

Used a lot. Pretty good but no smileys (surprisingly). Easy to send texts to groups of people as well. A download from Nokia (Conversation) allows texts to be followed as conversations (a bit like a threaded forum). Multimedia Texts are easy as well and photos will be re-sized as needed. I also tried out an animated message application called Yoyap. Fun but most of my mates phones come from another era.

Features 8/10 (wot no smileys)
Usage 6/10 (could do more with Multimedia but I'm too lazy)

Email

Initially I set up my email accounts on the Phone and set it to auto poll. It was kind of great getting alerts to messages every 15 to 30 minutes when friends and colleagues only managed to log on once a day (got lots of free Cinema tickets this way). Two things though that annoy, battery life and not getting all of the email only the headings.

I also tried push email (I used emoze but there are others). Brilliant, but battery again is the problem.

I've settled on using more web based email services now, and the Gmail app is excellent, Yahoo Go is OK, and I also tried a Windows Live app. I tend to avoid windows. (so the Windows Live app may be good but only lasted a week).

Funnily enough you can also "just" log on to your web based email sites using the browser, but hey that would be too simple wouldn't it?

Features 7/10 (Headers/Battery)
usage 7/10 (Would beat blackberry to a pulp if the battery lasted)

Part 2 etc coming soon Happy Birthday My Little N95