Brajeshwar

The Nokia N95 was released about a week late in India as against the global release, with a price package of about Rs. 36,500 (~ $900) as initial launch price. However, the price dropped almost each week and is currently being sold for about Rs. 28,000 (~ $690). I bought mine at Rs. 31,990 which was the first price cut after the initial launch (in the 2nd week of India’s release).

Currently, the Nokia N95 is defined as the ultimate geek phone which some people even considering it as the one that can compete against the iPhone. Well, I will not be doing a comparison of the two; nonetheless, I’ll buy an iPhone as soon as it is released in India.

FEATURES

The compact 99 mm (L) x 53 mm (W) x 21 mm (H) Nokia N95 sports a WCDMA2100 (HSDPA), EGSM900, GSM850/1800/1900 MHz (EGPRS). However, it does not support HSDPA networks in the US limiting your wireless data to EDGE networks. It has the usual smart-phone features like Bluetooth (stereo support), Infrared, USB Cable connect option complete with a built-in WiFi. The TFT display with a 2.6″ QVGA of 240 × 320 px is awesome with its incredible color and clarity of both images and video. The orientation changes according to the direction in which you slide the Nokia N95 slider - yes, it can slide two ways.

It has a 5MP camera, Carl Zeiss optics, MPEG-4 video capture at 30 fps, and can take good quality photos. The phone also boast of built-in photo and video editing like white balance, tones, exposure adjustment, cropping and direct web uploading through Nokia LifeBlog (currently supports just TypePad) and Flickr. However, on various occasions, I find it very slow to start the camera function and there is a major time delay while saving the photos in between shots. It has an 160MB memory and the Indian release version came loaded with an additional 1GB microSD.

With a promised Talk-time up to 240 min, standby up to 225 hours, the Nokia N95 really isn’t good with its battery life. However good for normal telephone talks but usage of its many features - GPS, WiFi scanning will take a toll on its battery life.

The Nokia N95 is powered by Symbian s60 3rd Edition which is an incredibly versatile mobile operating system. On my personal experiences, I’ve encountered many crashes while opening applications - both third party and the ones that came along with the phone.

The phone can also act like a portable music and video player. It supports MP3, AAC/AAC+/eAAC+, WMA/M4A. The Audio player also has support for FM Stereo while the Video Player supports MPEG-4, H.264/AVC, H.263/3GPP, RealVideo 8/9/10. Unfortunately, it will not allow you to play protected tracks from iTunes.

NOKIA PC SUITE

PC users have always enjoyed Nokia phones because of their easy-to-use advance Nokia PC Suite. It is a free PC Software and is a must-have for all PC + Nokia Phone users. The Suite makes life way easier - you can access mobile content as if the phone and the PC were one.

ISYNC FOR MAC

However, there is no such software for the Apple Mac users (me being one). Nonetheless, there are some utilities that can make it a bit easier to interact your Mac with your Nokia N95. You’ll definitely need the Nokia iSync utility to sync your address, calendar etc.

MEDIA TRANSFER FOR MAC

Another must-have for Nokia N95 + Mac users is the Nokia Media Transfer utility. A personal choice here is to leave it manual and not have this utility on auto-mode. It can sync your iTunes Playlist by having a special folder just for your Nokia N95. It plays well with iPhoto too in a similar fashion as with music in iTunes.

FLICKR AND PHOTOS

The Nokia N95 and the other Nokia N Series are Flickr ready. If you can’t see Flickr as an option when you try to connect to the Flickr service, your device wasn’t shipped with Flickr settings ready to go. To make it work, download a special config file for your device.

BUSINESS

On the business side of the equation, with the release of the luxury models - the Nokia N Series - the likes of Nokia N95, Nokia N76 etc, Nokia is able to bring a good profit magins in India and China. For the past three years, with the introduction of cheaper Nokia Models, they were on a non-profit margin disappointing shareholders. Analysts are saying that the popularity of these high-priced-crème handsets will help prop up Nokia’s average selling prices.

Nokia’s CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is betting on India (including China) that the market will pay off very well. The company’s gross margin, the percentage of sales left after production costs, will increase to more than 35% in the fourth quarter; mainly because of phones such as the Nokia N95 and the Nokia 6300.

REFERENCES

• Nokia N95 Users
• Blog dedicatd to Nokia N95
• Create your own Themes with OwnSkin
• N95 Best Tips and Tricks
• Unpacking of my Nokia N95

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