Nokia N95 Review

Phone rating:

In a nutshell: The most technically advanced smartphone ever! Complete with GPS satellite navigation, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, 3G video calling, and every other gadget you can think of! On the downside it's large, and like most smartphones does not have 100% robust firmware. If you've used another Nseries phone or Symbian phone before, then you'll love it! Available in 4GB and 8GB versions; in silver, black or red.
Best buy: *Free* from the Carphone Warehouse (8GB Comes With Music) or direct from Three (8GB).

Review: April 2007. Updated October 2008.

Another Nokia Nseries smartphone! And this one is the most technically advanced ever! Can it really live up to the hype, or will it prove to be as unreliable and bug-ridden as some of Nokia's other Nseries phones?

The headline features of the eagerly-awaited Nokia N95 are mouth-wateringly amazing:

• Built-in GPS navigation
• 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss & Tessar optics
• Wi-Fi wireless internet connection
• 2.6 inch display with 16 million colours
• Ultra-fast HSDPA data transfer

Let's start with the basics. The Nokia N95 is a 3G smartphone built on the Series 60 Symbian interface (version 3.1). Let's be clear from the start that these types of phone are slow, have a tendency to freeze or shut down, and have unstable firmware. They are also large and heavy. At 120g the N95 is of average weight for a smartphone, but is pretty bulky, despite its slide design. At least you won't forget which pocket it's in! When closed, you can access menu functions using the 5-way navigation key and the associated control keys. The N95 also has several other dedicated media keys that can be used as shortcuts to media functions. This is a good feature if you like to have lots of buttons to push, but sometimes they just end up getting in the way. When you slide the phone open you have access to a full keypad, but like the Nokia N73, the buttons are too small to be really comfortable. The user interface will be familiar to anyone who has used a Series 60 phone before: it's not as simple to use as the Nokias of olden days, but you wouldn't expect such a high powered device to be, would you? So, without getting into the functionality of the phone yet, we'd give it 2 stars for usability