Digital Trends

Nokia N95 April 7th, 2008 | by Mike Kobrin

Interface

The main screen has network, service, and battery indicators plus time and date info along the top. Below that is a shortcut bar for quick access to contacts, messaging, date/time, Web, multimedia gallery, and Nokia Maps (a GPS navigator). The rest of the screen is for reminders for calendar entries and email, as well as WLAN status. One thing we like is that the screen re-orients itself to landscape mode when you slide open the multimedia controls.

The multimedia and main menu buttons are labeled with incomprehensible symbols, but the menus themselves are clear and easy to navigate. The alphanumeric keypad feels excellent under our thumb, but the buttons on the front have a bit too much play, and we occasionally pushed the multimedia or main menu buttons while operating the directional pad. One thing to be aware of when typing in text on the keypad: "0" is the space bar, not "#" as it is on many other models.

The overall speed of the interface is satisfyingly quick, though we did experience lags while the screen reoriented itself after sliding it.

Phone Functions

We tested the N95 with a SIM card from AT&T in New York, Las Vegas, and New Orleans. On our end, call quality was very good, despite occasional gaps in AT&T's coverage. The people we talked to reported excellent clarity even when we were walking the noisy streets of Manhattan in windy weather. The speakerphone worked exceptionally well, thanks to the phone's powerful and clear built-in speakers and sensitive microphone. When we used the wired remote as a mic, our friends reported good if slightly distant-sounding audio. 

SMS messaging works very well (albeit with a conventional keypad) and is accessible via a shortcut from the main screen or the button on front with a pencil icon. We also had no trouble sending MMS video messages, though the phone's video call feature doesn't work in the U.S. The email client handles IMAP4 and POP3 mail very well, including our Yahoo Mail Plus, though it's not a "push" system like Blackberry mail, and you can't search mail.

AV Playback

The N95's music player supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, and WMA files, as well as Real's OM-DRM and Microsoft's WM DRM 10. We had no problems loading music onto the device via an 8GB microSD card, and the music player found our files quickly. The audio quality is good, though the bass output could be stronger. We're extremely happy that the phone has a standard 3.5-mm jack, and the built-in speakers are surprisingly loud and clear even at max volume. The FM tuner's sensitivity is excellent: We picked up even fringe stations like 88.3 (WBGO) in New York City -- as long as we had the headphones plugged in, since they act as the antenna. 

The video player supports MPEG-4, H.264/AVC, H.263/3GPP, RealVideo 8/9/10 formats. We loaded videos we converted using Nokia's Video Converter, including a clip from the beginning of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Everything played back smoothly, albeit visibly pixilated, but with good color and well-synced audio. TV output (via the headphone jack) is at 640 x 480, which looks fine on a CRT TV, but not so hot on an HDTV.

Image Courtesy of Nokia

Camera

The integrated Carl Zeiss lens has a fixed focal length of 5.6 mm (zoom is digital only) and takes excellent JPEGs at up to 5 megapixels (2592 x 1944 pixels), with very little noise and good sharpness. The flash is just an LED, but it has a decent usable range for indoor close-ups at around 10 feet. The autofocus is fairly quick, though the shutter click comes well before the flash goes off and the image is captured, causing us to miss many candid moments. A handful of on-board editing and slide show options, and direct links to Flickr and Vox make sharing your photos a breeze. 

The video camera captures 30 frames per second in MP4 (default) or 3GPP format (for MMS) at 640 by 480 pixels. We love the smoothness of the tracking thanks to the stabilization feature, especially compared with that of the AT&T Tilt's camcorder, and the white balance adjusted reasonably quickly for different lighting. Our test videos were surprisingly clear and free of excessive noise. Audio recording in stereo AAC format is very clear as well, and you can edit your movies right on the phone and upload them to YouTube or your Atom-compatible blog.