Thursday, January 25, 2007

Nokia N95 First Impressions

Unboxing the N95
This was fun. It turned into a multimedia experience.

Nokia N95

I did a video with my N93 of unboxing the N95.

Nokia N95

I have a lot of unboxing the N95 photos on flickr.

Here are some first impressions of some of the N95 features:

Nokia N95

Micro SD card
When I took the Micro SD card out of the phone's memory slot to plug it into my card reader, I found that I didn't have an appropriate opening for it. I didn't even have an appropriate opening for a MINI SD casrd never mind a Micro SD card.

MUSIC
Listening to Moby, In My Heart, the Nseries theme song. I plugged in my own headphones and was presented with a choice of:

- Headphones
- TV-Out Cable
- Music stand

What's a music stand?

I dragged over a few .mp3 music files and they played with no problem.

Nokia N95

LOADING APPLICATIONS
I wanted to find out how Darla Mack did those cool little screen shots of her phone so I could do them too on my review. So I emailed her and she gave me a link to Antony Pranata's Screenshot app. Here is the link.

http://www.antonypranata.com/screenshot.

It's an application that lets you take screen shots of your cell phone. That is very cool for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the Nokia N95 is an open platform.

I loaded the snapshot application, took a snapshot, and nothing seemed to happen.. So I clciked on the snapshot application and then it started running, so I took a snapshot and now I can't find it... Must be here somewhere...

Found it!

I sent it up to VOX, the blogging service that the N95 provides a pre-loaded blogging client for.

Here's the post over at VOX


Nokia N95


RINGTONE
I don't have cell service for the phone, but I hooked up the USB cable and copied over the ringtone from the TV show 24. I can't get enough of that ringtone.

You can get the CTU 24 ringtone here for free.

I also copied over the song Let Go from Imogen Heap. Great song and it sounds really nice on the phone's stereo speakers.

GPS
I clicked on the world and zoomed into my house. The mapping function looks really sweet. Right now I'm searching for a local place to eat, let's see what it comes back with when it's done searching.

Nokia N95

WiFi
I got on the internet using the local LinkSys router that I have in the house. I've got WEP security turned on, so I entered my password and was online to Google in a flash. One cool think about the browser is that it pre-types in http:// in the URL entry line so you don't have to. I liked that.

I also just set up the connection to my LinkSys router so I don't have to type in the password every time.

PHOTOS
I took a few photos and the Carl Zeiss 5 Megapixel lens seems nice. The flash seems to do a good job in low light too. I need to do more testing and bring the camera outside to check outdoor photos. No tripod mount though.

Nokia N95

VIDEO
I had some trouble figuring out how to turn the video camera on. On the N93 you just flip open the viewfinder and depress the shutter. With the N95, you close up the slider and open the lens cover. It starts off on camera mode and you just press the selection button and you are in video mode. If you are in the music player and want to use the camera, it seems that you have to close and open the lens cover to reactivate the camera. No audio in.

I shot a video and uploaded it to VOX.

After uploading it I visited the site using the browser, but when I tried to play it I got the message, "This movie file is not accessible from mobile devices." Ironic.

Plays fine from my Firefox browser.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve,

It was great to find your blog and see your in the Worcester / Boston area. I've been watching this phone for some time and have some questions I'm dying to find out.
It looks like you turned on the GPS but you didn't tell us how good it worked in Massachusetts or at least please tell me it works in the Boston / Worcester area? I was wondering about the voice directed turns etc on the GPS do they work? What about power conversion with the adapter? Did they send you everything you needed out of the box to power the phone in the United States? Does the phone work everywhere in terms of call service / bars when your driving around. Is it truly a quad band phone that should have no trouble working in the US on both bands here? What really has me wondering though is the whole N95 not working on Cingulars HSDPA network. What gives? Do they plan on eventually selling a US model of the N95 where it will work here? Being ignorant are not all HSPDA networks the same? Do you know if it will eventually work with T-Mobile when they supposedly upgrade their service to HSPDA sometime this year? Any idea if they will be selling this thing in the US or will we need friends in Europe or Asia to buy it for us and ship it here? Can you tell me does it have maps down to the local level for us here in Boston / Worcester? Can you check for Toronto in Canada for me? I'd appreciate any and all feedback you've got on it since I want to switch from my SE K800i to this when it comes out. I'm just tired of not even having EDGE support in the US. Thank a million!

netzgedanken said...

Dear Steve,

how could you get a n95 right now? I am waiting cince Dezember here in Germany to get my hands on the phone :D

Grettings
George

Steve Garfield said...

The N95 is not out yet.

It will be available in Europe first, tehn the US.

netzgedanken said...

Hi Steve,

thanks for the answer. But where do you get the device from?

And does the n95 supports push-Service?

Greetings
George

Steve Garfield said...

George,
I got it from http://womworld.com/ for testing.

What's push service?
--Steve

netzgedanken said...

Hi Steve,

push service means getting your emails pushed on your mobile phone or pda - like the blackberry system.

Ist http://womworld.com an official site by nokia?

Grettings
George

Anonymous said...

Is it me or that LCD screen is unprotected, something like the one in 6131?

Anonymous said...

Steve,

I actually accidentally deleted the "In My Heart" song from the list, how can i get the original one back which is copy protected??

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