We loved the original N95, but its shortcomings were heartbreaking. Sure, it was a nigh-uncompromising 5-megapixel pocket camera as well as, yeah, a phone , but uploading images to Flickr took for-friggin-ever.
Did you follow the recommendation of our earlier hands-on look at the N95? Our bad; you might want to get that thing on eBay quick. Well the N95 is back, baby! This fleet little hottie is ready for varsity tryouts, too, with a fast 3G radio that actually works in the U. And just like in an '80s movie, all the popular kids will be lining up to ask her to prom—except, of course, the art nerds with their iPhones. Nokia has embraced a two-way sliding design that lets you push the screen up and let your fingers roam over a nicely textured keypad, or slide it down to reveal a fashionably touch-sensitive suite of media-player controls.
This also switches the N95's stunning 66mm 2. An almost-flush control pad beneath the screen lets you access menus and key functions while the phone is closed, and there's the obligatory secondary pinhole camera x pixels for video calls. The main camera is around the back, with an LED light and protected by an excellent manual lens cover. As the N95 is not without an element of chunkiness, there's room on the sides for stereo speakers, volume keys and two very welcome features: a standard 3.
While you do get a pair of earbuds with the N95, they're ugly, tinny and should be upgraded immediately if you value either your street cred or your future hearing. The inline remote is worth hanging on to, though, as it doubles as a wired headset. Features Nokia's GPS application -- which goes by the rather dull name of 'Maps' -- is very different from other portable navigators, or previous sat-nav phones from Mio and HP.
Instead of storing street-level maps of the whole country, the N95 downloads local mini-maps, routes and even voice commands on the fly. Each map covers about 0. Like Google Earth, Maps opens on an image of our planet from space, swooping smoothly in once the GPS aerial locks on.
It's a jaw-dropping animation the first time you see it, but easily skipped if there's no one around to impress. The map download can mean a minute or two's delay before you're up and running initially, but GPS sensitivity is generally good, with the N95 able to locate itself even through windows.
The N95 covers countries -- the idea is that you just get off the plane and download a local map of wherever you've landed. You might want to use Wi-Fi though, to avoid crippling data charges. The N95 offers virtually all the traditional sat-nav features, including route planning, search and local points of interest but not speed cameras or traffic jams. Unfortunately, the search struggled to locate postcodes, street names or points of interest in our tests, although as this is all done through an online service, we're expecting this to be fixed soon.
Once we'd set the GPS markers manually, however, route planning was more successful, with the N95 calculating a complex cross-country route in seconds, complete with turn-by-turn information. To get live voice guidance from a very well-spoken young lady, you need to pay extra. The N95 is also home to the full suite of N-series applications, so you've got an excellent Web browser with Wi-Fi support , useful email and office software, a couple of games and full PDA functionality.
At top resolution we were able to keep the delay between frames down to 20 seconds, including processing and focusing delays. On visual inspection, pictures looked very good. Much better than an average cameraphone. Shots had clean colours and good exposure in a variety of unfavourable lighting conditions. However, much of the actual detail recorded is lost by an over-generous amount of digital sharpening, which you are powerless to do anything about, and which can make images of some subjects look more like a drawing than a real photograph.
Video capture is much better, by comparison. In fact, it is probably the best footage we have ever seen from a phone. Nokia big this up by calling it DVD-quality. We'd argue with this; DVD is a recording medium not a digital recording format any poor quality video can be recorded on a DVD. And as you might guess the quality does not compete with that you would get from a DVD you'd hire from Blockbuster.
However at xpixels and a frame rate of 30fps it is remarkably good. What's more you can prove this by showing your clips through your own TV. A set of phono plugs are provided to connect up to the front AV inputs of your TV, so you can see your videos and anything else that can be shown on your phone's display for that matter on screen. Impressive stuff. As innovations go, however, it is the Sat Nav that steals the show. A GPS antenna is the latest high-end feature for a flagship phone, and by the end of , they'll be a whole flotilla of the things to choose from.
But the Nokia implementation is rather different. With satellite navigation, it is the mapping that is the main expense and the item that wins and loses customers. Normally, you have to buy these for each and every country that you want them for, and each new map download onto your memory card does not come cheap. With Nokia, the maps are free. Last year it bought a company called gate5 which supplies mapping information and navigation services of and other manufacturers' phones.
With gate5's smart2go software platform onboard, which is renamed "Maps" by Nokia, you simply fire up the application and the GPS works out where you are. It claims to have maps available for countries. What's more you can plan routes for free too. Enter your destination address or postcode, and it will calculate the best route according to the preferences you have set such as avoiding motorways or tolls.
The instructions then come up on-screen. Where they make the money is by then charging you for step-by-step navigation instructions as you drive. But even this is remarkably inexpensive. Sat Nav goes pay-as-you-go - and you still get full service when you cross the Channel or the Atlantic. But does it work? As a low-cost navigation system it is definitely superb, and perfect for those that only occasionally travel into unfamiliar territories.
The screen is small in comparison to other in-car GPS solutions but you do get standard features such as 2D or 3D map views.
0コメント