The Nokia N95

How does it look?

The most important thing to note when looking at the N95, is its two way slide function. Being a GPS, a PDA, a media player and a camera, Nokia would has been hard pressed to fit all those buttons in without overcrowding the handset a little. The keypad slides out from underneath the screen, which is not a big deal, but dedicated media keys for the media capabilities (as well as all that other stuff Nokia has managed to cram into the handset) slide out from the top. This makes the handset look a lot simpler than it is.

The N95 does so much that it has the potential to be quite daunting to whomever looks at it, but the simple façade makes sure you’re not going to take one look at it and run screaming.

It comes in classic silver, which we can’t fault Nokia for. Any other colour (such as the increasingly popular blues greens and pinks) would make it look like less than it is.

At 120g it’s a little bit heavier than the Sony Ericsson but for a phone that does so much we’re not going to complain.

With regard to size it’s not chunky by any stretch of the imagination, But, because phones these days are so thin the chunkier models is becoming less fashionable- almost on the point of completely disappearing. You really do have to think about how much it does before you make your judgements.

What does it do?

Basically you’re looking at an all over media phone. It’s got a 5 megapixel camera, which is damn impressive for a phone, but when you consider the price you find yourself thinking “it would really wanna be 5 megapixels”. It’s got all kinds of media capabilities and a 3.5mm headphone jack to ice the cake. You’ve also got easy to use Wi-Fi accessibility and bluetooth and the phone comes with Symbian OS 9.2 and integrated GPS.

It’s got a nice big screen (Large 2.6" QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) TFT display with ambient light detector and up to 16 million colours, which comes in handy for looking at maps and watching videos or taking pictures.

The battery life isn’t great for what it is. Like the Ericsson, you’ve got the problem of having a handset that does everything, bar shine your shoes. Anyone using the N95 is going to notice that using it as a media player or a GPS or whatever else, is going to seriously deplete your battery. This is all well and good for a phone like the K810i but for something as expensive as the N95, it’s hard to see past something as basic as battery life.

Who’s it for?

While the N95 is very much a free-for-all smartphone, we found that the boys seemed ten times more interested in it than the girls. If you’re thinking of buying this for anyone this Christmas, it probably shouldn’t be for the missus. Let’s be frank, she won’t appreciate everything it can do and you’ll end up using it more than she would. On the other hand, if you’re looking to buy one and need an excuse...

If you’re buying for the boy (or girl) that has everything, this is definitely the phone that has it all. Between the GPS, a more than decent camera and a whacking good mediaplayer, there’s no stone left unturned with the N95.